1949threepence

Yes, indeed. What is obvious is that the younger members are very enthusiastic, but also very naive. With the amount of unofficial trade that takes place on these sites (most of it tat to be honest) some could be ripped off by paying unrealistic prices for junk and/or overgraded items. This is where the older more experienced members, myself included, come in, with useful advice. Martin Platt is a member of one of the groups, and gave some very sound advice to other members - as might be expected from someone with his breadth of knowledge. Although I haven't seen much of him recently.

You can post as a guest here, but you have to have some vestige of interest to even look for the forum. My point with facebook is that it reaches out to a very wide audience - billions globally - and there are many coin groups on it. Not just in the UK but around the world. None of them are difficult to join. With many, the applicant is added immediately via robotics. You personally may not want to accept a FB invitation, but respectfully, you are of a different generation to the one I'm referring to. Many of them will join a given group, take a quick look at the contributions, and either stay, or leave the group immediately because it's of no interest to them. I do think FB provides an ideal platform, and by logical extension, ease of access to any interest, coins included, to the young people Terry initially referred to.

I'm not sure what was 'diversionary' about it. I was simply expanding on the very valid point made by Terry about young people finding their way into the hobby. People are either invited onto facebook groups by existing friends, or they are presented from time to time, with various options to join groups presented to them by facebook itself, and ask to join of their own volition. The point was about young people joining the hobby. Facebook helps to facilitate this and stimulate interest. As do other internet groups. There always have been and always will be, reclusive individuals. Actually the internet is great for such types as they can join in, but also stay anonymous. Or even just 'lurk' on a hobby site like this, and not participate as such, but merely observe and learn.

The really outstanding thing about coin collecting is that the rules never change. What you picked up as knowledge aged 8, will still be the same when you're 80. The coin you saved aged 8, will still look the same when you're 80. It's solid, real and long lasting. Unlike internet games which are transient and ever changing. Most will be forgotten in a few years. Judging by the coin groups on facebook, there are quite a few young people under 25 getting into the hobby, as well as some more experienced collectors. A blend of youth and experience, to use a footballing analogy - and guess what, pennies are popular !

Great point, Terry. Although more have turned up in recent years, inevitably the supply will soon rapidly dwindle, as the vast majority of existing 1908's will have been examined. Also, all the current specimens will have been bought by collectors and most of them won't re-appear for sale, for some considerable time. The comparative rarity can almost be assessed by the scarcity in high grade. Obviously there were many collectors pre melt, and stretching right back down the decades. Many of them will have collected high grade and UNC 1908's, of which a lot are still around and turn up fairly regularly. The fact that none of them are 164A's points to their rarity, as surely the odd one or two would have been randomly collected in UNC. Obviously, the vast majority will be 166's - even the 164's and 165's not being anywhere near as common as the 166.

Ah, I see there is something in the small print about the letter. Missed that earlier. Yes, would be very interesting to see it, Pete.

As far as the high grade examples are concerned, I meant their rarity as a percentage of the total No of 164A's. We know Terry's got one in about EF. But that's the highest grade I know of for a 164A. There's a few at about fine to good fine, but all the rest of the known one's (or the known one's we know about, if you see what I mean) are sub fine. Mostly just VG. So based on that, I'd say that the percentage of high grade 164A's in the extant population of 164A's as a whole, is probably <1% of the total. There probably are a few more high grade ones out there, but if there are, they don't seem to be visible. Given the passage of time, you'd have thought they might have shown up by now, given that virtually all high grade 1908's will have been earmarked and examined by now. Although admittedly Terry's was a recent discovery.

I don't think there's as many as that. I'd say it was about R14 (251 to 500 extant, overall), although it's vanishingly rare in high grade. Yep, the DNW one isn't too bad a specimen at all, although how they can possibly know it's the discovery piece, I've no idea. No provenance is mentioned.

Cracked dies (along with die clashes) are very common in pennies from the 1860's and 70's. It's not uncommon to see the same die crack in one penny from a given year, show even more prominently and lengthier, in another from the same year, as the crack deteriorates further. The mints had a lot of problems with cracked and broken dies in the early days of bronze coinage.

Thanks Jon, not e bay, no...............oh well, as you've asked, I might as well tell the back story on this one, which is a bit circuitous. You might remember that during December 2018, a forum member posted his collection of 20th century coins. The thread is here. As suggested by Gary, the collection was indeed, at some subsequent point, left with Colin Cooke to dispose of - a fact confirmed to me by another forum member a few months back - and for a long time just seemed to be sitting there. There were several pennies I was directly interested in, including the aforesaid 164A, so I contacted Lee Brownson and asked if there was likely to be an auction of them anytime soon. Lee replied to say that there was not enough value in the collection for an auction, but if I let him know which coins I was interested in, together with a suggested price, he'd see what he could do. So I e mailed details of the four specimens I was interested in, and Lee replied to say that it might be a couple of weeks or so before things were sorted, but he'd taken a note, and would get back to me. Towards the end of July, I received an e mail from Lee to say that Gary's entire collection had been sold to a single buyer, but Lee had held back the 164A for me. Buyer wanted the others I'd requested. That's how I got it. I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here, but I can't imagine it's a state secret. I've certainly not been asked not to say how I came by the coin.

The maker is "Smiths". No idea what the model is, but it says "Smiths 30 hours" very faintly on the clock face. I actually bought it from a jumble sale many years ago. It came with a receipt, which unfortunately I've long since lost. But I do remember some of the details on it. Dated 10.5.35 and I think the name of the shop was Frank Mason, certainly something Mason: address was definitely Carrington Street, Nottingham. I wish I still had it to hand, as it might well have had the name of the model on it. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

A photograph of my Nicholls Mascle (bought 2010 direct from Peter Nicholls). Mahogany. The wood is slightly darker than yours, but the cabinet looks otherwise identical.

I see what you did there. Neat

He'd probably argue that's what he meant, if confronted, Bob. If it was just that coin, I'm sure we'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

They mostly seem to be one full grade above what they should be.

Well he is technically correct. It is R8. But it's nowhere near aEF. No more than fine in my book. He's also neglected to mention that it's a F22 (4 + D) Started off at 99p - if he'd got the grade right that would be fair enough.

Or if the "make offer" facility was available.

Very interesting. Thanks.

Nobody ever did answer this question. Does anybody happen to know? Thanks in advance.

Thing is, if I saw some dream item, I'd pay the extra. But if it was something that I would quite like, but not that bothered about, the 29% overall addition would probably put me off.

LCA do make technical errors. If you look at their 1908 pennies, there are no less than three 166's misattributed as 165's, and a 165, wrongly ID'd as a 164.

To be honest, we won't need any more new 1 or 2p's for quite a few years to come. I also think the decline in the use of cash, will plateau out quite soon. Can't ever see it being completely abandoned. After all how else could we get cut price jobs for 'cash'? I really don't like the thought of cash disappearing. I don't think people appreciate the impact it will have on our freedoms.

The sort of e bay finds you dream about Terry, and which only turn up very, very occasionally.

Thanks Richard. To be honest, I've never really bothered with cropping, so consequently never mastered the art. I'll have to look into it, see how it works.

I've managed to get a 164A - nice specimen. Although the 164A's are showing up in increasing numbers now, it's quite noticeable that they are nearly all sub fine. This one is about GF/NVF and issue free. Similar grade to Jon's earlier this year, but obviously not a patch on the one Terry posted about the end of 2017. That was superb.