Peckris

Don't tell the Irish, but actually the British had quite an involvement until ... well, the present day!! And anyway, that interesting piece looks like a product of Boulton's - produced on commission perhaps. To differentiate from currency, they have used the name IRELAND instead of the usual HIBERNIA, but it is strongly reminiscent otherwise of a George III Irish halfpenny. But I don't know anything more about this specific piece.

Agreed. My own philosophy (which I admit may not be mainstream) is to 'type collect' which means settling for a commoner coin in BU, then buying rarities or varieties that interest me, in as high a grade as seems reasonable on my budget. Some years ago that meant (e.g.) an 1871 penny in CD, but nowadays in VF. At the end of the day, it is only the "prestige feeling" of owning something that no-one else has, and for me, that's barely worth three figures, let alone four or five.

Spot price for silver today is about £200 for £5.25 face. As high as that? Well, someone still paid £120 over the odds! Crazy.

£320 for THIS lot??? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/5-guineas-pre-1920-s...#ht_1095wt_1007 Someone must have a lot more money than sense. £5.25 face value of pre-1920 silver would fetch ... what ... £100, £110, tops? As coins, rather than silver, they are just poor (well, VG+ which amounts to much the same thing for what are likely to be pretty common dates).

That's how I started out, collecting from change, 40 years ago. I would love to have been around in those days of circulating lsd. Not that you had that long. It would have been good to have been 12 about 1950, with about 20 good years of collecting from change, possible I may be wrong, Gary, but I would bet that only the older bronze remained in active circulation, and that you hardly ever got older (say pre 1920) silver in your change. Not sure why I say that ~ just a strange hunch. Did you ever get a pre 1860 young head penny from your change ? You're pretty much right - in the late 60s you would still find a few old bronzes, but many more if you got 5/- bags from banks and looked through them. Pre-1920 silver was virtually impossible to find in change, but pre-47 came along fairly often, though never in grades you'd get excited about. My haul (from memory) was a 1926ME penny, two 1936 EF, a handful of 1946 mint dots, a 1953, a few nice halfpennies : 1909 GVF, a 1935 EF lustre, a 1938 Unc lustre, 1952 GEF lus, 1953 GEF lus, and a 1949 3d bit. Not too much to boast from wasted lunchtimes spent pestering the banks. One thing wrong with your 1950 12-yr-old theory : back then, a kid wouldn't have had enough pocket money (if any) to keep any decent silver coins that came his way! I grew up in Liverpool too! Well, nearby : Crosby, which makes me a woollyback I suppose. But I didn't get any interest in coins until we moved away. I do remember I went back in the 70s and discovered The Liverpool Coin and Medal Company (I think that was its name?) in the city centre. They sold me a near VF 1904 halfcrown for £12, which still has pride of place in my collection.

Nice! I think ur right chris - it doesn't look like a HT. The other sign to look for is how close the shield is to the border teeth, bottom left. if there is any kind of a gap, it's the normal variety. But despite the green patination yours is still in quite a nice preserved state.

It's actually more interesting than even he realises. Not only is it 1952, but it is combined with the later obverse used from 1954. You can see an unbarred H of Elizabeth at about the same level as the chin and the II below it. The earlier obverse has both H and II at about chin level to allow space for the BRITT OMN. Somebody put him out of his misery.....please. Ah, but what we fools fail to realise is that 1952 is only 4 years after aliens landed at Roswell - clearly they had a tachyon inverter beam used as a phase inverter, stray particles from which were reflected from a strange weather formation over Tower Hill, giving one of the Mint employees a weird timeslip vision of the future, two years' hence. This employee, working on proto-brass 3d patterns, subconsciously realised that BRITT OMN was to be soon removed from the legend, and omitted it from the pattern, this being an FDC example of the final result.

I THINK I can see it. It's very faint but I think it's there. Let's face it, the date is high in the exergue, at just the right height it should be if there was an H there.

The dead giveaway is the word O N E - on the normal one, the N is closer to the E than the O, and at a slightly strange angle. On the high tide it's more in alignment. Anyway, I'm hoping chris puts up his pictures of his penny before too long, then I can decide whether to make him an offer.

I haven't managed to find one. I phoned Spink earlier today, they don't have the book in stock, but I did manage to find an old thread on here which gives JJerrams address as: PO Box 63, Stockport, Cheshire, SK4 5BU That's as far as I have got..... You could try that address - I wrote to him once to get the booklet, and we had a laugh about his postcode. By the way, my edition is 1999, but in it he talks about the 'previous issue', so there must be a very rare first strike somewhere !!

I think it is possibly just a damaged numeral, or a damaged die (it doesn't have the characteristics of an overstrike). But it's a good price, even for an 1853.

You multi-posted chris (tsk tsk) - please see my reply in the other thread, thanks.

I definitely have an interest, I've been looking for one for quite a while. But before going further, could you upload a scan of both sides of it (or a photo)? Many thanks!

I definitely wouldn't bin it. The 'worn die' theory is sound enough, but that looks like a 7 that never had any trace of a serif - you'd think there would be some faint trace or portion, but there isn't.

It could be : either a brass gaming token - these were common in the 18th and 19th Centuries, usually featuring imitation gold coins of George III or Victoria, either with a false (i.e. impossible) date, or a spurious legend. Not sure I ever remember seeing a William III example though. or it is a brass coin weight. The legend "1/2 GVINEA W" would make that a strong candidate.

Hi paul - Welcome to the forums. The overall 1868 mintage figure is 1,457,280 but there's no guarantee they were all actually dated 1868. And no separate figure for the error (there never is). CCGB 2007 gives £40 in Fine and £100 in VF. Yours needs a gentle wash in warm soapy water using a non-abrasive cloth, but it certainly gives the impression of being a VF (but dirty!) coin.

My 'Satin' is a yellow bound pamphlet, typed & duplicated rather than printed, and with hand-drawn illustrations - it definitely predates 2001. I wonder if it is a first strike or even a proof? Must be worth a bob or two!

And definitely not for Maundy sets either! (Though I've never understood the "your 1850s silver 3d is low value if it's Maundy, but name your price if it's not" - the Maundy 3d must be as rare if not rarer than the currency issues).

Spooky! He looks SO different facing the other way...

The easiest way is to put a standard headphone jack into your headphone socket on the computer, and the other end into the telly, (phono plugs?).

Very true! Though certain pennies like high grade 1861 1862 1863 , plus 1883 - 1893, come up often enough to make 'em strategic if you wanted to.

The fact is, Americans are much more interested in these sorts of things than the British. If you were to put it on eBay, make sure the sale is open to our transatlantic cousins too. It's obviously rare (unique, in fact), but as it's an accident, we in the UK don't get too excited for some reason. (I have a 1964 sixpence where the I in GRATIA is completely missing, but I'm told it's no more than curiosity value).

It's SUCH a tricky subject, this. To a date series collector of pennies, then the 1951 penny is rare, or any year when a million or less were minted. To a bun varieties collector, anything where there are over 1,000 around isn't rare - they're a small and very dedicated bunch of people who probably wouldn't get out of bed for a penny where there are more than 100 - 200 knocking around! It's all relative. But believe me, in the context of bun pennies (where any decent example of any date is scarce), then Freeman R9 isn't considered rare.

'Tis mainly for this reason that I have stayed out of them so far. The time is fast approaching though when I must get out my Freeman/Gouby etc, sit down and work out exactly what it is I am going to try to achieve with the series. I guess the ultimate goal, some way down the line is to 'do a Crocker' and auction them off. Maybe plod along for 20 years accumulating the best example of each year that I can find and then add a few 'funky' pieces towards the end to add spice/interest. Or maybe I'll get one of my kids interested, who knows. Lets see. 1860-1894 = 35 pieces. Average of £180 in UNC with lustre ? Maybe £200 = £7,000, that's not as bad as I thought. Mr Crocker did well accumulating all that lot in just 5 years didn't he, must have been at it nearly full time. Anyone have any alternative bun head collecting themes ? This would be my strategy : In AUnc or better : 1860 beaded border 1861 4+D 1862 or 1863 1874 (older portrait) 1876H any date between 1884 and 1893 in strict BU In genuine Fine to VF (depending on rarity) : 1864 (VF) 1865/3 (F-VF) 1869 (F) 1871 (VF) 1875H (F-VF) Having got those, you have the major types, plus the major rarities. Then you can concentrate on looking around for other dates in high grade, or other rare varieties in a condition you can afford, building up a nice collection as you go. That's how I'd do it, anyway. (Personally I'd avoid busting the bank for rarities in high grade, but I know there are plenty of collectors who'd "go for it".)

Take Freeman with a pinch of salt. Most collectors wouldn't rate his R9 or less as genuinely rare. He lists the 1926ME as R6 while Gouby rates it as S4 only. You have to look at rarity in context. Proof sets have a mintage of less than 100,000 often, but no-one would pretend that they are rare or ever will be. But if you had a currency coin with a mintage of less than 100,000, people would be selling specimens for "silly money" on eBay. The Britannia is not a currency coin.