Peckris

Yes - the milled coin with a proper edge (and an inscription on higher denominations) was introduced specifically to solve the problem of clipping, which hammered coins (which yours is) were prone to. Milled coins were more expensive and more time-consuming to produce and the Mint employees - worried for their jobs - were bitterly against them for at least 100 years, though the authorities were generally in favour. The irony of the poor clipping coins, on pain of death, is increased when you realise that certain monarchs debased the quality of silver in order to save money.

Cheers Scott & Rob, Thats cleared that coin up for me Thanks for your help I'd say the obverse is About Fine, the reverse is barely Fair - some of the legend is worn away. You could pick up a better one on eBay for less than £10, I'm sure.

I would say it is possibly a farthing, Britainniars helmet doesen't protrude the legend on Rev as it would with a Penny, and the Obv looks similar to the penny Obv. Check the diameter, Coppers are the following sizes - 34mm Penny, 28mm Halfpenny and 22mm Farthing.John Thanks Chingford & Rob, I think this was my mistake. I was in the middle of sorting out quite a few pennies and had pennies on the brain when i posted, but again you have cleared things up for me. As you've both mentioned it is a farthing, but im still unclear about the date though? cheers It's most likely to be 1838 though the middle of the 3 looks a little strange - can you get it bigger and sharper?

Oh dear, I don't want to be prosecuted for libel, nor get Chris into trouble. All I will do is to relay my own experience. I bought three coins from that said dealer on separate occasions in the 1990s. One was a 1797 twopence described as GVF, another an 1854 penny AUnc, and a 1932 halfcrown, supposedly BU. In my opinion (note that please if you're reading this Mr Welsh) each coin was over-described by at least one grade. The prices for each coin were what drew me to make a purchase. To be perfectly fair : the prices were not really too high for the coins in question - I had responded to what looked like genuine bargains. And to be equally fair, my money was refunded in full without question when I sent the coins back. However, it did appear that over-grading was a 'hook' to lure potential buyers. And that's all I'm going to say.

Oh I'm a record collector too! Though an accidental one, after discovering that my 60s and 70s vinyl was suddenly worth a bob or two. And just this morning I was musing on the similarities between coin and record collecting : in both areas, the balance of "worth" is between condition, rarity and demand/popularity. In coins, we place a premium on "first strikes", but these are much less recognisable than first pressings, where there is usually a matrix number or sleeve / label difference to make ID much easier. I suppose my Deviants album, "Disposable", on the Stable label is my rarest (worth between £75 and £90?), while The Who "My Generation" on Brunswick (which as I'm sure you know, was a chart album), fetches between £150 and £200! Coin values are subject to the same logic ... be prepared for the sobering news that the bulk of your coins MIGHT be the equivalent of a scratched 7" copy of The Real Thing's "You To Me Are Everything"

Yes, just the point I was making above. I.e., the sheer coincidence of ALL colons being worn, seems ... unlikely.

If you went to a coin fair, surely most of the dealers were selling at or below catalogue? The other thing to bear in mind is, catalogues are not bibles! Any coin is worth precisely what someone is prepared to pay for it, whatever the book says. Some coins dealers couldn't shift at book in a thousand years, others will be snapped up as soon as they appear, often at over book. It's only a rough rule of thumb. And one that, even so, very quickly goes out of date.

LOL - but ... £2.29?? It wasn't so long ago that you could pick up an 1869 CD for that!

Sorry Scott, I should have said, of the list of coins I gave above those are all dates when those coins were NOT released into circulation, they ONLY exist in the mint sets (you may find an escapee in circulation if you're lucky). My point was, if you want rarer modern issues (ignoring commemoratives like fivers etc.) then years where that denomination was only released in a mint set is a good place to start. e.g 1992 20p (either variety) total in mint sets + total in proof sets + total in circulation = total mintage however; 1993 5p total in mint sets + total in proof sets = total mintage better still; 1974 5p total in proof sets = total mintage (because there were no mint sets and none released for circulation, so the mintage is very much smaller, comparatively speaking). Or best of all : 1972, where ONLY coins with that date can be found from the proof sets (excluding the Silver Wedding "25p" bauble which never circulated).

It does seem rather strange that ALL colons should be equally invisible through die wear? This ought to mean that there are pennies in an almost infinite range of "colons present" through to "no colons present" via "one or two colons showing some to quite a lot of wear" & "a few colons completely missing and the rest worn" ... shouldn't there?

Don't rule out forgeries. If your Coin Monthlies extend back to the late 60s, you will see reference to a smattering of Victorian halfcrowns dated between 1851 and 1873. These were published as Readers' Rarities along with Royal Mint letters giving their "opinion that these are genuine strikes". All were in Poor to Fair condition, and at the time were thought to be rare proofs. It later transpired that they all had the obverse from post-1974 halfcrowns, i.e. they were most likely contemporary forgeries produced after 1874, with fictional dates to perhaps attempt to give an unlikely legal defence in the event of being caught (in the same way as modern £1 forgeries have impossible obverse/reverse combinations). The 1847 sixpence could be a forgery, though it's less likely that a 1903/2 penny would be (who would bother?). Without us being able to see the pictures - do you have a scan of the magazine article? - it's impossible to give an opinion on it.

I have a 1985 set - I suppose the 50p is identical, yes?

Make that 8/1/2010 - you Americans and your illogical dates

The reason I hate eBay is the sheer waste of time dredging through the dross to find decent coins. It doesn't help to sort by "opening bid", as quite a lot of the better items will start bidding at 99p, so knocking that strategy on the head. If someone would come up with a surefire way of filtering out the crap, I'd have much more time for eBay, but when the crap is between 95-98%, well .... life's too short.

I have a feeling that collecting from change mushroomed in the 1960s, and that was the point at which most of the KN pennies were withdrawn from circulation. By this time the coins were over 40 years old and had generally descended to fine and worse. Coins withdrawn in the twenties and thirties would have been in better condition but there were less removed at that time. I think also, the awareness of the multiple origins of the 1918 and 1919 mintages did not really get spread among the populace in general until quite late on. Overall this resulted in a glut of low grade coins and a dearth of coins in higher grades especially EF and above. The 1926ME was always a much scarcer coin anyway, and considerably more difficult for the layman to spot but nonetheless, the same principle applies with most withdrawals occuring in the 1960s. The reason I heard for the mint darkening pennies in 1944-6 was pretty much as Scott states it, but thinking a bit further along those lines, this may have been aimed at the large number of American servicemen in this country at that time who might otherwise have been tempted to take bright new pennies home as keepsakes. Still can't really get my head round it though as i) all seems a bit half-arsed. Why pennies and nothing else? and ii) I can't believe that with the numbers involved it would have made much difference. Perhaps it was all the idea of some low grade clerk in the Ministry of Wotnot that just got out of control. Who knows. The darkening of the 1944-46 pennies was purely due to a new alloy that had to be used when the price and shortage of tin made that necessary. The new alloy looked horrible, so the darkening improved matters. (As far as I know, it had nothing to do with hoarding). However, it doesn't explain why that darkening didn't extend to new alloy halfpennies of the same years (starting 1942?) which as most collectors will know, look pink and ugly when they've lost lustre. The H and KN pennies shoot up in VF and above partly due to the poor quality of the strike - the extra mints used the dies long after their finer detail, e.g. hair, was lost. The same may apply to 1926MEs, which being shallower portraits, probably wore quicker than previous.

Thank you, yes one of the pennies has got a touch of "the green" on it. When you say about the Elizebeth II 1961-63 penny do you mean..1961 /2/3 or just 61 & 63? You see, im still learning the terminology and basics and finding it very hard to say the least. cheers everyone for your advise input and time I meant 61/2/3. By 1965/6 many people were beginning to collect modern issues, and there were still plenty of BU 1964s around to cull from "circulation". The basics you will pick up in time - we all had to start somewhere.

This is a very common phenomenon. Many coins of Edward VII and George V seem to leave the monarch with his 'nose in the air' - it just means a slight misalignment of the dies. What would be more notable would be if one face was out by 180 degrees, that's usually regarded as deliberate and results in a higher value.

Funnily enough I just re-read that Freeman book - I found him very sniffy and much too exacting about the conditions required for investing in coins, while the later book - ??"Investing in Coins" by J Pearson Andrew from 1986, which is also dated, but is a better book about investments generally and coins in particular.

Red makes some excellent points. What's needed is a modern comprehensive survey of dealers and collectors, to get some idea of the remaining proportions of high grade coins. Mintage figures are more or less meaningless now - as already mentioned, 1950 and 1951 pennies were hyped as great rarities in the 60s, great for investment - they proved to be neither, and probably only the tiniest proportion of them got melted down. I'd just like to add one more point - there is a distorting factor in the coin market, seen in all price guides, which is best illustrated by the 1893 and 1894 halfcrowns. CCGB 09 lists them as follows : 1893 £90 UNC £120 BU (mintage 1,792,000) 1894 £120 UNC - - - BU (mintage 1,524,000) Note the very similar mintage figures. Yet despite this, most dealers will tell you how common the 1893 is in high grade (it's the first year of a new issue or reign - very often put aside, and therefore common), and how scarce and 'difficult' the 1894 is. From this, you would imagine that the 1894 should be worth at least twice as much, but it's not, nothing like. Enter the distorting factor : people who collect by 'type' - and that's probably the majority of serious collectors - will want the best example they can get of a series, not the rarest. Therefore they will flock to the 1893 halfcrown as they can more easily pick up one of that 'type'. This then pushes the price of the 1893 up, due to demand, and closes the gap somewhat with the 1894. That's just one example out of many I could have chosen. So even price guides don't tell the whole story about rarity, only about market forces driven by supply and demand.

The only surviving specialist coin magazine is "Coin News" (monthly - full title "Coin & Banknote News"). If you buy the latest issue of that, you will find dealer adverts and small ads and classifieds, plus there should also be a full event calendar showing all the major fairs. The magazine is usually available in WH Smith.

Online translators are quite often absolute rubbish, and they are totally unable to deal with abbreviations. My GCE French says : "History of the Revolution; and of the restoration of the Empire and the Monarchy, from 1830" "Produced (published) by the Purrat Brothers at Paris" (they must have missed the accent from à ) I know nothing about the piece, other than to say it is a handsome looking medallion and worth keeping hold of.

It's worth keeping your eyes open - there are a few bronze coins from the "artificial darkennig" years that have escaped with full lustre. Without being worth a huge fortune, they certainly fetch more than the normal variety.

Those 1964 halfpennies certainly look BU (i.e. with full mint lustre) from the photo - not so sure about the pennies, one has green marks on the reverse. Elizabeth II BU pennies 1961 - 63 are slightly less easy to find these days.

If you're a new collector, forget about tracking down bargains (unless you happen to find them in the course of your searches, but remember that what may seem like a bargain to a newbie may in fact be a dodgy item). The best places to buy to begin with are : • established dealers, especially ones who are members of a professional trade organisation; befriend one and buy from them and you will learn a lot about coins in return - you sound like you've made a beginning with one already • from coin fairs - but again, seek out the established dealers, though they will have less time to offer you (but prices are often lower at fairs) • attend an auction or two, without buying anything until you are a lot more knowledgeable - using your reference books and actually handling coins and talking to dealers are the best ways to get experience • avoid eBay for now unless you are very sure of yourself or you have very good advice, for two very good reasons : (1) there is so much very very ordinary material (aka rubbish) there, most of which should be left well alone, and (2) the better item often goes for way over book price (as you've noticed) being bought by collectors with more enthusiasm than commonsense; dealers avoid eBay like the plague Biggest tip? Become good at grading coins. That Rotographic guide will help immensely. Good luck, and remember you can get a lot of help and advice here. We will even advise on eBay lots, as long as you post the url to them in these forums.

Thanks for that josie - some very interesting films there