Peckris

Frosted on one side I can understand. But no frosting at all? That's not a cameo.

That's ludicrous. If there is no frosting, then the term "cameo" cannot apply without rendering the English language meaningless. I'm not sure what PCGS think they're up to.

No doubt Richard will get the usual bad press.

You have a 1959 half penny with silver on it and it looks copper with no hole

That's Boris Johnson for you!

Really? When did decimal end and what's taken its place?

That's far and away the most important thing. Read profusely - books, magazines, specialist tomes - and try to work out what interests you before you jump too quick. A good starting point would be Collectors Coins GB and Grading British Coins, both available via that banner ad above. If you think you want to go further back, invest in a copy of Spink's Standard Catalogue, which lists most English types from Celtic and Roman onwards, and which becomes more comprehensive the further forward in time you go.

Probably not a specimen - as this was one of the last 2 years of silver content a whole lot were put aside. I have one very like that. I remember in 1980 it listed at £2 in BU (and most of that series). Then the Bunker Hunt family tried to corner the world silver market, and these jumped to £12 in BU almost overnight. After a few months of Brits feverishly turning in their ancestral silver for its melt value, the whole enterprise failed and these were back to £2!

Ah, sorry - I didn't realise you were personally so badly affected.

PMD? - if you look very carefully there are marks on the O at the top, and there also appears to be some faint marking on the G bottom, and the scratch seems to have been deflected by the curve of the G. What's more, the scratch inside the G seems lighter than the scratch across the portrait. If the damage had been present before striking, you would expect to see consistency either side of the legend.

I was going to say, How does he know it might be 1934? Then I saw the obverse - it's 1927!!!

Hence my question about the date - 1996 was the 25th anniversary set of decimals and every coin from 50p down to penny was silver, so if it's dated 1996 it's not rare.

Not to mention removing dinks and scratches as if by 'magic'.

Hardly. Bunch of crooks bad tempered people with a severe conflict of interests.

What date was it?

Don't worry about it. 1919H in GF would be very easy to find, and cheap.

That seems a bit odd. Mind you, it all depends exactly WHY they tried the experiment. It could well have been to try and eliminate the 'ghosting' effect on the reverse, which it failed to do. What it DID do however, is to ensure that Britannia was fully struck up, avoiding the flattening to face and upper body which the non-RE obverse was causing. So you could say it was a partial success. I wouldn't have thought that a single broken tooth would have caused them to abandon the experiment, but then again, in 1916 the nation had a lot more to think and worry about than how well struck up pennies were.

2008 Rare Portcullis Reverse British One pence 1p coin Year 2008 Due to the number of coins being sold, the pictures shown are only representative and will not be the exact coin received. There's little more to say, really.

Yes it should. But quite a few Edward farthings were artificially lustred, presumably to pass as half sovs. This particular one may have been gilded specially to go into the holder, i.e. to make it look more attractive?

I don't have sufficient technical knowledge to answer this but ... would a punch with a slightly broken tooth get worse over time? I'm assuming that a punch doesn't use any more force than a strike (maybe even less?) and that it shouldn't deteriorate during the making of a few dozen dies?

That is because there are now two pictures that show the date clearly. They weren't there yesterday.

That is so true, and is the reason why I doubt the "one die" theory. One die would be used for approximately 50,000 coins, right? That means - with two penny dates involved - a single die would be a very scarce variety. Yet I remember when collecting as a schoolboy late 60s, quite a lot of recessed ears came up; I didn't think anything of them, believing them just to be an eccentric wear pattern rather than a variety, but far more than would be accountable from a single die.

IF. From the faint image I saw of the '3', it may not be an open 3, but we'll have to wait and see... or not!

Hmm, I'm not so sure about the single die theory. My 1915 has a very severely damaged tooth (see below) which is only present on the 1916s above. The real question is - since the amended obverse worked to eliminate the flattening of Britannia even on BU examples of the unamended obverse - why didn't they persist with it?