Peckris

The 1945 halfcrown is UNC (no visible wear) but possibly not the strongest strike I've seen. It's also a bit 'spotty'. Bear in mind that these are quite common in BU condition, and not expensive as such, so well worth looking for. The 1925 florin is About Fair, and although a scarce date, is worth only scrap silver in that grade. My thoughts FWIW.

Obverse looks cleaned, but also looks to have the remnants of another numeral under the second one in the date (1 over 8 ?). Now that I know it's a 6d, I would suggest it's better than EF - in fact, there is barely any sign of wear. The lack of detail is simply caused by trying to get too much design onto a small die, and is a common feature of the sixpence. I at first thought the 'overdate' was just a toning spot, so I zoomed the screen and there definitely seems to be something there. It does look like a 9, though that's open to debate. Have you also noticed the right hand side of the second 8? It looks rather different from the left hand side.

Farthings have a big fan club here, sixpences (for no good reason I can see) don't. But both series offer amazing value for money, providing you have either good eyesight or a good magnifier. Next up, you have the similarly sized halfpennies and shillings. The former are less popular than the latter, though I'm talking post-1860 - earlier, they are both equally collectable. The largest denominations - crowns, halfcrowns and pennies, have always been very popular and certainly won't come cheap. Or, as someone else said, you could try a single monarch. Elizabeth II and George VI are both easy series, particularly if you start as a type collector not a date run obsessive George V is also a good starting point (a fascinating reign) but prices for the higher grades are getting eye watering. However, 1936 for the final series, or 1915/1916/1918 for the earlier, you can still get bargains. The most difficult period is the 'middle' one, 1920-1926, in all denominations. Edward VII is hard in high grade though 1902 is affordable. Earlier, Victorian Jubilee Head is very easy especially 1887, and Old Head is fairly easy especially 1901. But to echo what's been said - always get the best quality you can afford. Better, in my opinion, to buy one coin in EF than 20 in Fine for the same money.

Totally agree! It's impossible to not just read VF, the psychology of it is just too much...especially so if you've sent the raw coin off! It would make good business sense for CGS to make this change (maybe one for you to feed back, Bill?)! My point being, would Paulus use CGS again? Would I? CGS won't have compromised their tough standards in adopting the above suggestion! I don't know why they bother with the grade prefixes at all. Why not just stick with the percentages as a measure. Then those who think that a 70 is an EF and those who think it is an AU can both be happy. That's another excellent idea. Isn't that what the Sheldon scale does?

It's very difficult to judge these coins independently as the pictures are all different size and quality, and we don't know the denomination in all cases (i.e. what would be marked down as wear on a shilling, would not be on a sixpence, as you wouldn't expect as much detail on a sixpence). A few coins also look 'buffed' in that they display fine hairline marks that are a clear sign of cleaning attempts. However, given all that, and grading purely for wear, nothing else, these are what I came up with: 1 AVF/VF 2 GF/AVF 3 EF 4 GVF 5 weak EF (EF from the ribs on the laurel leaves on the obverse, but probably a weak strike) 6 NEF/GVF 7 EF+ 8 FAIR+ I hope that helps.

I am all for them being conservative on the higher grades but I just have a sneaking feeling (and my experience is more London Coins than CGS in fairness) that they leave the lower grades, particularly fine, with too much ground to cover. There was one rare and expensive coin I recall that they slabbed as 'fine' which I thought was nearer to 'fair'. On the other hand there have been occasions when I thought they might have been one-third of a grade low which at least is erring on the right side. These are just observations on my part and really shouldn't be given too much weight. Ah, the burden of being the author of a highly considered hobbyist book! Your observations are very fair though. I'd only add that a coin that is "all but EF" and would be classed as EF by many dealers, should not be given a VF grade. Considering how much lower the values are for VF compared to EF, and how many collectors would simply see the "VF" and then ignore the number, it is not a good system. This would be much better: have a range of numbers from - e.g. - 60 to 70 that is the EF grade, and assign the two or three numbers before it to AEF, i.e. 58 - 59. So VF would run from 50 - 57, AEF would be 58 and 59, "just EF but no more" would be 60, and so on. There is absolutely NO good reason why CGS shouldn't adopt something like this as they've now incorporated AUNC into their system.

I think their strictness could well have the reverse effect than that intended : as a result of how they graded your coins there is absolutely no way I would ever risk sending any of my best coins to them, to be marked down in the same way. So if I was ever likely to reverse my attitude to slabbing, there is now no way I would do so. I believe I can grade quite well, and I find I am very often in agreement with Derek (who wrote the book).

The "Celtic" Half must be the half we can't see

An 1894 penny. Quite nice - except for the fingerpriints. They gave it an AU78. Can I ask which TPG it was? Transferred Print Grubbiness?

My biggest fear when receiving back slabbed coins is fluff. You send off a 100% lint free specimen only for it to come back to you with a piece of what can only be described as belly button fluff stuck to the coin. Almost invariably this problem occurs with a prized coin which the grading company have duly recognised as such by giving it a high grade and valuation. There lies the dilemma... do I de-slab it and lose the grading, do I send it back and risk coming across as an OCD complainer, or do I just learn to live with it? OCD complainer every time, if I saw something wrong with a coin I had submitted, I would expect it to be slabbed correctly and therefore would complain and return it Agreed. It's not OCD to expect the high standard you're paying for.

That was just about how it was!

ESC is stronger on early milled when it comes to varieties. It was based on earlier catalogues from Spink, which catalogued collections in the early 20th Century when people collected early milled but not really modern. Davies is much better for modern stuff. Also bear in mind that ESC is long out of date.

Welcome to the forums Nek eBay is ok to start with perhaps, but remember they are a business. We would be glad to help you out if you see something online and have your doubts. We can't give cast-iron guarantees from just a picture, but we can certainly advise if something looks wrong, or if - as in the case of Edward VII 1905 halfcrowns for example - we see that tell-tale R in the legend. Anyway, good luck with getting started and you will find us a friendly bunch (unless we are all chasing the same auction on eBay )

Interesting Peck. So was VF correspondingly higher too, or was there a bigger gap between VF and EF than there is now? I do think VF was a bit higher, yes, and the greatest gap was between F and VF. The implication there is that VF and above may have been the 'collector's grades', with F being acceptable for rarities, newcomers, temporary stopgaps. What seems to have happened is that the gap between grades has evened out somewhat, with an often correspondingly eye-watering jump in values between each grade. I think Spinks would deny all this, but they - like CGS - grade quite strictly I think, which is why their values sometimes look on the high side.

I believe that for G4 HCs, all of the veins in the laurel leaves need to be pretty much intact for EF (or better) to be considered. This is where I think CGS are too strict. You see, back in the day (40 years or more) EF was considered to be virtually UNC with light rubbing or marking only just visible to the naked eye. At that time, the differential between EF and UNC was not vast, being perhaps somewhere between 1.5 to 2 times the EF value. But now, standards have slipped. EF is allowed to accommodate some wear, though admittedly only very light; however, certainly visible to the naked eye. This is reflected in the often vast differential in value between EF and UNC. So while I applaud CGS trying to keep up standards, their strictness at the EF end is not reflective of modern-day real-world values.

I just copied out the address at the top of the DNS error page. Yes, well you want to be looking at the address that caused the DNS error, not the webpage where you ended up. I assumed that was the same thing. I.e. that the link you clicked on was still the one showing, but as the browser couldn't find it, it returned a DNS error.

It certainly doesn't, it makes the coin AUNC/EF...but each to their own! Please help me out here. When I started collecting the concept was the 'coin'. Now I may be old(er) but to me it is still the coin. It has only been in recent years (the last two) that I have begun to see descriptions as in AUNC/EF. I did suggest elsewhere that perhaps we should also grade the edge as in AUNC/EF/EF but that was very much tongue in cheek. I suppose there are collectors out there who may only have an interest in obverses or reverses and as such may not care what the 'other side' looks like. That is great and if collectors want AUNC/EF as a description that is also great. I actually wonder how many collectors out there are interested in the 'coin' as a whole (because that is what it is) or the AUNC/EF designation. As you say, each to their own. I don't know when exactly you began Bill, but I can assure you that by the late 60s, 'complex grades' already existed. And it is important - yes, it's the "coin", but if you knew that the 1917 halfcrown you saw advertised as AEF was actually VF/EF that might have a bearing on whether you bought it. After all, series 1 G5 halfcrowns are very common with obverses of VF but get progressively harder to find.

I just copied out the address at the top of the DNS error page.

That's a very good point, and calls to mind a similar operation that arose in the late 60s and early 70s (also originating in America?) : though much cruder, as there was no grading service and certification involved, it involved having your best coins sealed into perspex tombs to protect them but allow viewing. That was a fad for a few years but it eventually died the death. TPG's run a better system it's true, but there's no guarantee they too won't go the way of perspex slabs.

There already is. It still doesn't work. There are two lots of http: in the original link. This link has just one and the colon and does work. Your link - with only one http: in it - does work. The original - also with only one http: in - doesn't. The original looks like this : http://results.ispconnect.co.uk/main?InterceptSource=0&ClientLocation=uk&ParticipantID=iu4dlszggyivxb0k1g8afi94imr4lkbt&FailureMode=1&SearchQuery=&FailedURI=http%3A%2F%2Fhttp%2F%2Fwww.paulfrasercollectibles.com%2FNews%2FMexican-8-reales-coin-shines-with-15pc-increase-on-estimate%2F13349.page%3Fcatid%3D26&AddInType=4&Version=2.1.8-1.90base&Referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.predecimal.com%2Fforum%2Findex.php%3Fshowtopic%3D7803%26st%3D0%26gopid%3D82717%26&Implementation=0

There already is. It still doesn't work.

Back in the days when "spending a penny" meant something different, you wouldn't want that to be the only one in your pockets

The above link gives a DNS error.

Thanks Peckris.Any idea of the value of something like this? None at all I'm afraid. Maybe someone else here knows something about them?

Your "no H" is either a clogged die or an earlier casualty of a very worn coin. However, you're quite right about the height of numerals on close-spaced dates. The 1879 is equally high as the 1876. Ok, here's a theory :- the close-spaced dates were designed with a possibility that any of them might need to be minted by Heatons at short notice, so the die contained room for the H. Interestingly the farthings have the same high-floatin' numerals. After the early 80s, the numerals on pennies were larger and lower.