Peckris

Not only that, but you can't get jellied eels anywhere - mystery to me how you've survived this long. A nice ham and pease pudding stottie, you Southeners divvnt knar wat ye missin! ignorant gadgies, the lot of 'em!

Ah, now feeling a degree of embarrassment for that truly horrendous typo

One slight flaw in this - why would they need to experiment with £sd pennies as they were about to go out of fashion quicker than McFly songs? Looking at the off-centre nature of it, it looks like a penny struck on maybe a halfcrown blank. Carelessness rather than experiment. That sounds exactly right, given the evidence, Watson Wow, there are other clacking 1967 pennies?? Good news! Perhaps it can be recognised as a variety. [rubs hands together]. Retirement here I come! Oh wait...

LMAO. I was very sad to learn (especially having watched the old Captain as a kid) that "Master Bates" and "Seaman Staines" were just urban legends and never actually existed in any language edition of Pugwash.

What kind of help? I'm happy to help where I can. (Mutters under breath "bagsy pennies or halfcrowns")

I did do a bit of research on this, the concensus I got being that most people considered the garter to be part of the design rather than the legend. Since this bit wears so readily, if it was treated as part of the legend, there would be no coins (or at least the reverse of them) in Fine or Fair at all, the grading effectively dropping from VF straight through to Poor. I'm old school when it comes to grading Derek. It costs me money but I never get complaints or coins sent back due to overgrading. Even my grading seems very lax when you look at some of the graders from the old days at Spinks and their likes though! I can safely say that if Jim Brown at DNW saw this 1908 HC he would not give it more than Fine, if indeed it made it that high. I remember a Coin Monthly piece of advice (late 60s) given out to this very question of garter reverse halfcrowns. The questioner wanted to know if he could grade such items as 'Fine' if some garter letters were worn away. The answer given was that lower standards applied than to the main legend, but if more than a few letters were 'faint' it might be hard to award 'Fine'. How times have changed. Derek's book certainly shows the way, though we might all argue the 'fine points' to some extent. But judging by those pictures, I'd find it hard to justify not giving it an average 'VF' (though a long way from EF!). There's too much hair detail present - always an early casualty on Edw VII, and the reverse is pretty good apart from the high spots. I think grading standards have come down rather, but in one case I'm all in favour. 'Old school' EF said "wear so faint it is not detectable to the naked eye". Well, that argues that if it can not be seen without the aid of a strong glass, there shouldn't be a massive discrepancy between the prices for EF and UNC. But as we know, that differential can be MASSIVE - and it's no coincidence that it's opened up at the same time as EF has become much more 'noticeable' than strictly UNC. Who'd pay a massive difference in price for a virtually invisible difference in condition? I know I wouldn't, for one.

Is it a circulated coin? Those edge legends are the first to wear. But if it's clearly an error, you could put it on eBay as such and see if you get any bites?

That would never fit in my bath I thought you Northern boys had a tin tub in front of the fire. You're kidding! That's where the whippets get a wash. We just stand out in t'rain wi'a block o'Lifebuoy.

The Midland is not a million miles from where I live, and I know they do the major fairs, quarterly. So I might well go to the next big one in March. "Closed shop" ? ~ hopefully, it will be worth attending. in the days when I still dealt, that was a major buying stop. But back in those days Stephen Lockett, Dan Daley, Dave Craddock, Wayne Nicholls, Dorset Coins, Windsor Coins, et al were all there. Don't know how many of those still do it. Probably Wayne and Dave still show up?

1967 seems the likeliest date for penny curios - probably because 1) they turned out so many 2) quality control may have slackened off a little with the main business relocating to Wales. Hence my 'clacks doesn't ring' example.

... but they're working on it!

I'd rate it an average of VF (obverse not quite there, reverse a bit better)

No way! Didn't you consult your copy of Pleck?

I'll certainly take the 1956 varieties off your hands 1956 varieties?? Freeman doesn't mention any of them! Ah, just checked Mr Gouby's website. Christ, I'm going to have to get another book... So if we're all getting blown out of the water day in day out, who are these people paying so far over the odds? Do they know something we don't, or are we in the know and they're mugs? Freeman is where I learned of them!!

If the date is on the reverse, then no. Put your £2 down to experience. Only completely undated 20p's are worth anything.

My first attempt involved fixing the tripod with the camera pointing downwards in Macro mode, as near to the coin as possible before it cast a shadow. The coin was resting on a table top on a brown cloth with sun shining in through the window and onto the coin. The coin nowhere near filled the screen (getting any closer would have cast a shadow) so I hoiked it into an image editor, selected the coin with oval marquee, inversed selection and deleted all but the coin. Due to shooting at 5MP setting the image was still plenty large enough. But probably those halfpennies were the result of much more experience and expertise

I agree, Peck. The actual price of copper might have a knock on effect with the bulk sale of low grade coins en masse, from any era. It would not explain the current craze for buns. However, apart from the very rare examples, like the 1869, 1875H, and to a lesser extent 1864 crosslet 4 and 1871, collectors are pushing strongly for the very high grades, which have a premium on them orders of magnitude greater than their pro rata value to lower grade examples would indicate. Maybe that's due to their increasing scarcity as more and more find their way into private collections and therefore permanently or semi permanently withdrawn from trade. You could argue that has always been the case, so maybe there is some other factor at work which we can only speculate on ~ or a combination of 2 factors only one of which we can readily indentify. That's a good point. I wonder if the same fever has extended to the commoner dates in high grade, i.e. 1887 - 1893 - anyone noticed?

Freeman only mentions a Kings Norton contract to supply blanks with the RM - he said nothing about The Birmingham Mint (Heatons).

In???

I'll certainly take the 1956 varieties off your hands

That was some car! Didn't it have a Wankel engine in it?

Wow, would you sell some stuff for me on the bay then??

Thanks Accumulator ~ that is something I will really look forward to listening to Although I wonder if they meant the half crown, as the Crown was not a circulating coin in February 1971. Technically we didn't say goodbye to any of those 3 as florins and shillings remained legal tender, and commemorative Crown-size coins continued to get issued. Nor did we wave 'bye bye' to any coins on 15 February 1971 as that was D-Day 1 and the overlap period lasted until D-Day 2 (August 31?). And even then, the only things we couldn't spend any more were the penny and brass 3d.

It had crossed my mind that Kings Norton may have been producing for other countries at that time on smaller blanks. I suppose that Michael is right and the RM would have to be the first port of call. Don't bother going to the RM unless they are expert on the Kings Norton output. Kings Norton produced their own blanks - not only that but, according to Freeman, they supplied blanks to the RM from 1912 - 1919, which I guess is why you sometimes see 'red pennies' that aren't 1918/19KN. The question is, who else did they do business for, and could a blank from another of their contract jobs have got mixed up with the RM sub-contract? Or, maybe it was just a duff item that slipped through their inspectors (or maybe they had RM inspectors on site who dozed off late Friday afternoon). Either way, I agree with those who say 'take it back' for a refund (unless of course, he sends it uninsured and "you don't receive it" .. now there's a thought!)

What will you do when your library closes? I will weep! But, having said that, I don't believe any city centre main libraries are under threat?