1949threepence

Welcome Rob. We're fairly informal here, so look forward to you settling in and posting in the various threads

I'm not sure as I've never actually seen one, nor can I find a pic. Yours looks like an "R" somehow gone wrong. Maybe that's what they look like, but I'd always imagined it to be a perfect "B" inserted into the die as a direct result of a spelling error. Inconclusive from me. Hopefully someone else will have actually seen one.

I think that any plan to sell this effort has more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese

Best storage for these is white paper envelopes What, you mean ordinary bog standard postage type envelopes, David ?

Word up (if you're ok with this?) : 1. Regard Spinks as merely a guide. They overestimate the values of modern coins quite severely, and underestimate others. Treat it as a 'rough and ready' guide and if youre about to take the plunge, do some more research into what your target coins are selling for. 2. A few high grade 'type' coins of Victoria beats low-grade date runs hands down, and will prove a good investment in the long run. It's always good advice to buy the highest grade you can afford, and one EF item will always trounce 5 or 6 F items, unless you're talking major rarities. Good luck collecting! The very cheap coin yearbook seems consistent and reliable as far as prices are concerned. In fact there might ber a slight under estimation. CCGB? Yes, I agree. And it can be purchased easily through this very site, and no, we're not on commission! Yes. I'd also agree about buying the highest grade possible, unless an extreme rarity. If you don't, and you are serious about collecting, you will invariably go on to upgrade when you see a nicer coin of the same ilk. Hence the reason why many collectors have boxfuls of redundant fillers and VF/NEF/dirty examples they no longer need.

Word up (if you're ok with this?) : 1. Regard Spinks as merely a guide. They overestimate the values of modern coins quite severely, and underestimate others. Treat it as a 'rough and ready' guide and if youre about to take the plunge, do some more research into what your target coins are selling for. 2. A few high grade 'type' coins of Victoria beats low-grade date runs hands down, and will prove a good investment in the long run. It's always good advice to buy the highest grade you can afford, and one EF item will always trounce 5 or 6 F items, unless you're talking major rarities. Good luck collecting! The very cheap coin yearbook seems consistent and reliable as far as prices are concerned. In fact there might ber a slight under estimation.

Good luck Boomstick! It never stops you know, once you get the bug That's very true. Once it's taken hold, you're hooked for life ~ even if it appears to go away for a few years whilst busy with other things. The coins you have already collected will be there waiting for you, just as you left them, when your interest is re-awakened.

ah yes, Richparfishing, used to be called. He bought it for £50 odd not long ago... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rt=nc&nma=true&item=200534014259 either he can't take photos for toffee or he's done something to it. Be interesting to see what it goes for. Watch list! I'd say the latter, more probably than not.

I found the only things that made scrotes bend at the knees were; A) A kick in bollocks A punch to the solar plexus C) Compression of the trachea D) A red dot on the chest coupled with the word "tazer" Tony Martin had the right idea as far as thieving toerags are concerned. The thought that something I have worked, saved and scraped for over many years, could be taken by low life criminal chavs, really makes my blood boil.

Nice capture, Scott. Those 1897 HT's are hard to come by in any condition.

Do bear in mind that even mahogany CAN cause what is called "cabinet toning". I have two Peter Nichols cabinets, and the smaller one (with punched coin recesses) causes no toning. The larger one with flat felt-lined trays (no recesses) causes some toning on silver. Which ones are they from the range he provides, Peck ?

Peter Nichols mahogany coin cabinets are the best IMO. Very expensive to be sure, but probably the best medium of storage in order to avoid damage to your collection. Peter Nichols website

There are at least two I would really like to get my hands on. Absolutely. There's suddenly a lot of good stock available, and it's difficult to know how many to go for, whilst still keeping within budget.

I've bought from him in the past, he often has good bronze for sale. Meanwhile this 1875 non-H narrow date (F80) penny has appeared on eBay, very nice coin yes, but a starting price of £380??? Link Fantastic coin, but as you say Beebman, the starting bid is perhaps too highly pitched. He's probably hoping to pique someone's interest sufficient to make the only bid at that level. Mind, you don't often see pennies before about 1880 in that good a state. Pretty much full lustre. Very desirable specimen.

A lot of excellent buns being auctioned by the seller "alfnail" at the moment. Don't know if anybody else has noticed these.

Burn marks would be virtually impossible to remove without severely damaging the coin still further. What a pity you didn't discover them before you burnt the sofa ~ you might have made a few quid

There was some wear to the convex shield, which brought the reverse at least, down to EF. Still a very nice coin, nonetheless, with considerable lustre. I'm not surprised it fetched £2560k. Take a look at this one for sale at the online coin website for £3950. Still some slight wear on the shield, much more expensive, and in my view, not as nice as the e bay offering. Here's the image for ease of reference ~ hopefully not too small It brought roughly £1000 more than it was worth because of dishonest selling. The coin was EF or nearly so and called A UNC by the seller. The last high grade example I sold was also bought from London Coins. It was graded by them as A UNC and downgraded by me to GEF with all of the flaws mentioned (so I lost money rather than making a £1000 profit by lying). I'm not surprised it brought £2560 either, I'm f***ing gobsmacked!!!! Lol, remember your reply John when the 1869 sold at over 2k, notice your remark, "dishonest selling"and then the other remark "I'm f***ing gobsmacked!!!! " Now if it wasn't dishonest selling, i wouldn't have been trying to make my point in my 15 posts or so last night Anyway, am done now, until another comes along I did make a point in my post about the example being sold in on line coins for £3950. Doesn't look markedly better than the one on e bay. Slightly more detail, yes. But no lustre. More dishonest selling given that it's on offer for 154% more than the e bay one realised ? I'd say not. I'd also say that 1869 pennies have amazing cache in the already highly prized & charismatic bun penny series, and any halfway decent example is going to fetch a lot of money.

Akmost certainly dipped, the tell tale signs are there. But a fair price for what is in IMO a GVF rather than EF coin. If you chose to re-sell, I don't think you'd lose out in the current market. Incidentally, some of what I take to be Martin's personal collection are shown on Tony Clayton's website. None of them look dipped or in any other way tampered with ~ and he has some really good stuff.

I reckon its a case that the coin design would be backwards on the die, the 6 was due to be repaired, so logically the workers mind may think recut the third digit, when it is actually the second because of the design being reversed....does that make sense Sort of, Colin.....but it's too late at night, and I'm too mentally tired to really think it out properly. I'll take another peek in the morning. Thanks anyway.

I never knew that to be the case, there are certainly some examples where no attempt has been made to fill the previous digit, but others where there does appear to be some effeort at hiding the repair. I always assumed (rightly or wrongly) that the impression of the new digit lead to metal movement that would weaken the image of the underlying digit. This would also explain why a lot of the underlying digits always appear thinner than they would have originally. I also have coins that seem to show that the underlying digit disappears with time, exactly why this occurs I do not understand yet, and still need to really put soem effort into studying it. Glad this question was asked, we may be able to try and put some logic to it Oh and why we are on the subject would anyone like to put any logic to delayed overdates. Why 1865/2 farthings, why no 1863/2 or 1864/2, was it just that they had enough dies for 1863 and 1864 but went a bit short in 1865, or did they find them in the back of a cupboard in 1865 and think, we can utilise those I've often wondered that as well ~ as for the 1862 8 over 6 penny, what's that all about ?

Wasn't there a really good thread about coin photography, somewhere else on the forum ?

Some overstrikes are clear, but that one isn't. You need, and quite reasonably requested, a close up pic of the date, and it seems a bit unintelligent of Cookes to simply send you the existing pic.

Indeed, the 1967 article is an excellent one, and casts more light on the 1882 riddle. Thanks to Bernie for that. I'm leaning more and more towards some sort of trial run at the London Mint made ~ as the article suggests ~ towards the very end of 1882, in anticipation of re-opening.

....and the link to Part 2 is here

If you could do a screenshot of the article and upload it to an image hosting site like Imageshack, it would make a very interesting and historically significant piece to link to, and view in its entirety.