Peckris

Horrid! Been artificially lustred at some point to 'enhance' its grade.

I never had that experience with Colin. What I will say is that if I had ANY problem with any of his coins, he'd refund me, no questions asked. As you say - sadly missed.

Doubt it - most of the time *I* can't read the damn things either! Oops, perhaps I'm a bot ...

Ah you young 'uns! Nothing to beat finding your first 26ME in your change especially if you have the damn thing a whole year before you realise it's the ME not the common one.

Wow, your local butcher's sells wine by the glass???

Nope - about 10 rogue posts in British Coin Discussions still. Unless "I want two men" is an obscure discussion about double-headed coins?

This is an urban legend. There's been 4 portraits of the Queen used since 1953 - on the third, from 1985 to 1997, the Queen is showing wearing a necklace on the billions of coins in circulation. This myth arose due to a delay in producing the first currency £2 coin in 1997. Due to technical problems they had to recall them and thus the whole issue was delayed. Everyone *thought* this would make the 1997 £2 coin rare when it finally appeared, especially as the new protrait had begun to appear for 1998 coins. Unfortunately, it didn't. The entire 1997 £2 coin issue finally appeared, but though this was the only issue with 'the necklace', there are millions of them. Not rare at all.

The first one was (if I remember right) in about 1997 was a great thick softback. It reappeared annually as a hardback for a few years but stopped suddenly and mysteriously. The prices were a bit odd - notably higher than Seaby but when Spink took that over and the prices started to shoot up, Coincraft mysteriously stopped theirs. But it was the first proper catalogue since Seaby/Spink, in that every type had its own reference number. And it had some good notes before every denomination, and in the introduction. It also had great buying advice for each type - things like "very common in Fine to VF, but genuinely scarce in EF or better", that kind of thing. Richard Löbel was the editor and probably the main man behind Coincraft shop too. I used to enjoy reading The Phoenix years ago - the blurb was entertaining - but never ever contemplated buying anything from it!

Paul was still active 10 years ago or so, and I did some business with him. Last time I met him was at Warwick - he'd just bought 3 BU 1921 shillings (the rare pre-1920 obverse) for £60 apiece. I wish I'd offered to buy one! but I seem to remember he'd got buyers for all three. Don't know where he is now. Wow I remember her adverts from late 60s Coin Monthly. As a schoolkid I seem to remember she looked 'hot', but then anything in a dress looks 'hot' when you're 17

Well do it up man, now that you know!

Welcome back John. Thanks for the confirmation. I was using Spink 2011 and ESC but it was still difficult to determine which head type, now i'm only quoting the Spink 2011 here which states its 3906A it also says "uncertain to exist as normal coin or proof?" So now it exists apparently although no price is quoted for this type. So should this now go into unconfirmed varities lol I think you can forget what Spunk says about this coin Dave. You have to remember that they are not experts in the field of varieties and they are not producing a reference book, merely a price guide. It isn't too long since that they totally arsed up pictures for the 1897 high tide penny and I had quite a few punters that year telling me they had one because it was the same as the picture in Spunk. In their defence it is a massive undertaking to compile the yearly price guide, trying to keep on top of market trends and new discoveries. Peter Davies and before him Seaby/Rayner have identified this type and I think I would trust their tomes a good deal more! I can confirm this - I got the 'high relief portrait / recut portrait' George V varieties put into the Spink book, and sent them scans of both types of 1921 shilling obverse (nose to S or VS) and they've got the two types the wrong bl**dy way round Then maybe Peckris, they also have those numbers wrong, as the 3906A is definately the coin we're talking about in this thread, unless they've adjusted numbers somewhere, but 3906A is the A6 type of extreme rarity, which incidently i bought My advice would be - DON'T JUST BUY ON WHAT'S IN SPINK! Check other sources first.

That Pathé News scriptwriter should be hung for bad puns : the reference to lambs and "mint sauce / Mint saw us" plus "outside broker / broke outsider" were totally groanworthy Interesting little film though. Looks as if lustre was imparted before striking not during it.

Welcome back John. Thanks for the confirmation. I was using Spink 2011 and ESC but it was still difficult to determine which head type, now i'm only quoting the Spink 2011 here which states its 3906A it also says "uncertain to exist as normal coin or proof?" So now it exists apparently although no price is quoted for this type. So should this now go into unconfirmed varities lol I think you can forget what Spunk says about this coin Dave. You have to remember that they are not experts in the field of varieties and they are not producing a reference book, merely a price guide. It isn't too long since that they totally arsed up pictures for the 1897 high tide penny and I had quite a few punters that year telling me they had one because it was the same as the picture in Spunk. In their defence it is a massive undertaking to compile the yearly price guide, trying to keep on top of market trends and new discoveries. Peter Davies and before him Seaby/Rayner have identified this type and I think I would trust their tomes a good deal more! I can confirm this - I got the 'high relief portrait / recut portrait' George V varieties put into the Spink book, and sent them scans of both types of 1921 shilling obverse (nose to S or VS) and they've got the two types the wrong bl**dy way round

Interesting. My first thought - before reading these replies - was "that's been re-tooled". But when you look at the state of the portrait and reverse, you'd have to ask, "why bother?" I don't have enough chemistry to argue with Rob's' thesis which sounds highly reasonable. I do have one observation though - if you look at the diagonal of the N in OMN: it appears to have been 'worked' (tiny chisel marks). Could natural erosion / corrosion cause that?

It depends on your OS. Windows XP is 32-bit, Vista offers 32-bit and 64-bit, and Win7 is 64-bit (but may run 32-bit also?) Have a look at your computer's System Profile (or whatever they call it on Windoze) which will tell you which species you are running. And if it's a free program, you can always download both and find out once you've had a peer under the bonnet. (Clever utility software sites can tell which version you're running and direct you to the relevant program anyway). You won't harm your data. You won't be able to run a 64-bit program in a 32-bit OS anyway, it will just give you an error message.

Another new one to find, wait a minute mine's like that a well, now to find a normal one. Wait all of mine are the H errors arrrrr is going to take forever to get them all in the normal H. ah, good! I've just gone through exactly the same thought process... Sorry i should have added the smiley!!! That's not a smiley, that's a winkie. Oops. I'd better rephrase that...

Oh you saw that Ripoff Britain TV programme too?

There's an Extremely rare 1879 A7 according to Spink (3907A) - but you're right, the differences are very subtle, and beyond me I'm afraid. My type collecting doesn't extend thus far. The Extremely rare type is the 3906A (type A6) the 3907A is also 1879 but normal type, BUT..... ESC states that the A7 was older 4th head, still no nearer lol Not according to my Spink - 3906A is merely scarce (double 'normal' prices), 3907A is as I said.

There's an Extremely rare 1879 A7 according to Spink (3907A) - but you're right, the differences are very subtle, and beyond me I'm afraid. My type collecting doesn't extend thus far.

As three 'general' rather than 'specialist area' books, those three would be an excellent start (and if you have no interest - yet - in coins before 1797, you could even dispense with Spink)

I think I can faintly see some light at the end of the tunnel, and some words are starting to appear... ...Loraine117 banned...

Built into Mac OS X .. but you probably don't want to hear that

Condition is everything. The range of values for e.g. the 1889 2/6 go from around £8 in Fine to £100+ in mint. Pictures are essential, but they can be split over several posts, or else a scan of all together but saved at lowish compression, might do it.

As a collector I agree with you 100%. I always kept the odd lower grade penny, common dates in my frontline collection and I never did own a lustrous 1899, 1905, 1911 or 1922 penny simply because I liked the strike/toning of the coins I already held or because the process by which I acquired them was memorable in some way. As a dealer it's different and I wouldn't have bought the lower grade coins in a hundred years as they would be very difficult to dispose of. I hope this comes out OK but I love virtually everything about this coin, which to my mind has masses more character than a purely lustrous specimen; It's a lovely strike - particularly strong rim especially on the reverse. I almost did a double take, it looked like the reverse of the 1895 2mm at first... (which also has a very strong rim usually)

"die in advance" Wow, how does that happen?