Peckris

Possibly it was something either rude, satirical or even vaguely insurgent? In which case, the soldier may have had second thoughts and removed the offending bits. But that's just one theory - the grieving relative is another just as good.

To be fair, I've attributed ghosting to the depth of the obverse profile all the way through the articles. WW1 had nothing to do with that particular problem, but with die overuse and wear leading to poor definition on both faces.

Hi Prepare for disappointment, Richard. I do owe you for use of your pictures of the 1926 ME penny with 1927 - many thanks. However, I didn't feel sufficiently convinced by the "3rd rogue penny" to include it, not at this stage anyway. Possibly it might merit an article of its own sometime? The part you may be interested in, is the theory behind those two pennies, but even more, the radical speculation behind the ENTIRE 1926 issue, all 4 million of them. Hopefully Coin News is out now, or very soon?

I haven't been / am not around much these days, but if you want my opinion : it looks good - I think the appearance is better I'm seriously bothered by what people say about not being taken to the latest unread POST within a topic. Is there an equivalent of the former 'View New Content', which unlike 'Unread Content', was to do with unread POSTS not merely unread TOPICS? What happened to the old link that took us to the main predecimal site?? Once in the Forums, there's no way out! 'Home' only keeps you in the Forums. I haven't tried uploading any pictures within a topic - are thumbnails now a useful size instead of the tiny little useless things they were before? That's it for now, If I see anything else I'll let you know!

Thanks to Michael Roo for drawing my attention to this topic, one of the most interesting in relation to 20th Century coins. I have a slight disagreement with Michael Freeman about the date of the '1922 Modified Effigy' penny, but I'm partway through a series of articles that are on Mark's (Sound) website, also to be published by Coin News, so I'm afarid you will have to wait to read my own theory on it. However, it's a fascinating subject and I've enjoyed reading all your comments about it.

I didn't read it like that at all. To me, it seemed that at that point he was just giving an overview, and rather than precisely grade a particular example used to illustrate, he was just saying that that coin was a typical average specimen of that grade spectrum. This is reinforced after 20 minutes, when he then goes on to illustrate every MS coin from 60 to 68, and then every shade of circulated grade. I thought it was quite enlightening.

Mostly due to poor design, I'd say - the halfcrowns especially have a very shallow design that started to wear the minute they were issued; the florins are a bit more of a mystery, being even harder to find (certain dates) yet not quite such a shallow design. Mind you, the florins did stay in circulation for 20 years longer than the halfcrowns. It's also true that the 'new' Cupro-nickel coins were less popular anyway, so there may be something in them not being put by.

Welcome Kev - you certainly made the right choice of forum! If someone here can't answer a question or "knows a man who can.." then no-one can! On your reading list: Spink - a general catalogue and price guide brought out annually. You can find every coin and MAJOR varieties in there, but not a lot of further information. Rayner - long out of print but still an invaluable reference for early milled (i.e. pre-1816) Davies - covers most varieties and micro-varieties from 1816, invaluable if that's your "bag" Groom - does for 20th Century silver what Davies does for 1816 onwards, but unearths more micro-varieties than Davies Coincraft - again, out of date, but its strength is the introduction to each type which contains a lot of useful extra information including minimum grades to collect CCGB - a price guide like Spink, published annually, but much better value for money, and covers a lot of varieties too

That's nice! Very nice. Beautiful design.

In all probability, I'd grade that as some as struck modern tat. And in 99% of cases, of course, it is! Glad I don't collect post 1946 That opens a veritable can of worms! Anyone with a Liz II 50s halfcrown or florin that's given the CGS highest grade really has got something saleable - most of them are at best AUNC, and EF examples look as though they've just been to an all-night party, hit the ale hard, crawled into bed at 5AM and react very grumpily to having the curtains pulled back before midday. In fact, I would go so far as to say that finding absolutely 'as struck BU' examples are almost as difficult as finding UNC Edward VII silver.

There's a giant flaw I've just noticed in the CGS scale. From VG to VF the score doubles for each grade - 10, 20, 40. The problem then is, it is only another 20 from VF to EF and again from EF to 'Choice UNC'. If they'd started at 5 for VG they could have avoided that. I.e., VG5 F10 VF20 EF40 UNC80.

I think die wear SHOULD be reflected in the grade, but not as much as circulation wear. To give one example, my 1919H penny is EF in all but hair detail, which is F at best, due to the dies being used beyond their sell-by date, and hair detail being the first to suffer. Yet I would expect it to be graded NEF as it's just one feature that has suffered. Perhaps that's where a numerical system wins out - but you'd still need the description to state clearly what the situation is (e.g. 'die wear', 'strike', etc).

Ho, ho!!!

This topic explains how (though be aware that the allowance per post has been raised from 150k to 500k) http://www.predecimal.com/forum/topic/7880-posting-pics/

That's almost word for word what I said to Dave - your CCGB price is for mere UNC, while Spink have always made a point of saying their copper values are for full BU specimens. Perhaps £250 UNC and £400-450 BU?

That would explain it Dave - Spink prices are for BU specimens. I'd estimate CCGB would probably give BU as around £400?

Dont forget that CCGB gives prices for both UNC and BU separated by a /

In those extra images it definitely looks cleaned

Bought it Fantastic. You buy something, and Amazon says "Thanks XXXX!" And there's a button saying "View summary of order". So, having just bought the book, you click the View Summary button ... and ... you have to sign in!! Pardon me? How did I just buy the book (which you thanked me by name for) if I wasn't already signed in???????????

Yeah, I asked them the same question. Apparently you just go to the main book section of the website and many of them are reduced. Doesn't tell you which though, you kind of have to infer it from the price. Spink? Poor website? Surely not...

Are we talking an 1874H penny, or an 1874 H'penny? Your title is misleading!

Belated happy birthday to both of you!! :)

You could do a lot worse than pick up that same copy of Sear from the sale (just make sure you order the red-sleeved 4th edition of his one-volume overview of the Roman series - I did, but they still managed to send me Vol 5 of his multi-volume set, which confusingly has the same title... £50-worth... I insisted they send me the correct volume and postage paid packing to return the wrong book. Amazingly, they did).

Ooosh. That's a difficult one. I would personally say that they're not much different really, but Roman fakes are less likely to occur due to the lower catalogue value? As always though, if you can find a good dealer that will go a long way towards putting your mind at rest. Cheers, Peck! I guess you know where I'm coming from however when we see major auctions AND TPGC's all offering fake coins!If it is a simple matter of ruling out the obvious inconsistencies of being hammered, plus appropriate devices/punches then maybe I'm in? I noticed Rob recently bought a nice bit of Roman, so I guess there's enough info on here to muddle 'safely' through it? (Screwed up face) Golly gosh, I'm not an expert on Roman fakes at all. I can only say 'use your own experience and judgement', but certainly posting here would be a start.

Or surgical spirit will do it too.