Peckris

It's certainly in top grade - book price is about £25 but you could probably pick them up for less. Not a rare coin, but collectable - anyone who can't afford any other Geo V crown will target those. And the reverse design, though much mocked in its day ("the rocking horse crown") has come to acquire a certain Art Deco charm.

I have an absolutely identical 1937 3d, and I have always assumed it was chromed. I've never been that excited about it - I got it at an auction where other dealers were peering close at everything.

Nice coin you have there Gary. Interesting that with both our coins the reverse is a lot weaker than the observe. Thanks.... Yes, even after the modification, the reverse was still left 'high and dry' and it took the 1927 reverse modification, and then the smaller head, to finally make the reverses as strong as the obverses.

I had the last coin I received from eBay (Recorded Del) pushed through the letter box, no attempt to ask for a signature. The PO must be changing their rules "unofficially".

I changed to Norwich Union to get the cheapest "valuables cover" I could, and the single item limit is £1500, and none of my individual coins is worth that, so I'm ok with it.

I think that's the point Gary is making. Not all pictures give you the option - when you right click there are only about two options available, neither of them Save As. I know something is wrong when I can't click and drag the picture onto my desktop, which in Safari I can do with any normal pictures. Interesting - you're judging on the colour? In other respects it looks pretty good to me.

Some lovely MEs there, I'm quite jealous. My only consolation is how inexpensive mine was.

Hi thanks for the heads up Dave. It's good to know that it is so comprehensive. I will have to think about whether to add it to my shopping list, after I've bought Red's Grading Guide. I was being slightly satirical about the ship halfpennies - the pointlessness of that particular exercise is that each 'variety' is a single year variety - as soon as the date changes, the ship changes slightly, so I'm less than excited about them. The exception of course is those oh-so-rare 1956 varieties, and I have to confess that I've never even seen one of the rare variants of those. I don't count the varieties of the 1957 calm sea as significant, where the only difference is a minute positioning of the downstroke of the 7. The 1956 variants 'feel' radically different : teeth, rim, pointings, etc.

And here's mine, given to me in change on the Downend to Bristol bus in 1968 - oh happy day, and it cost me less than 1/2p (only it was the best part of a year before I realised it was the modified effigy, having no other 1926 to compare it to!). I bought a better one off Cookie some years back, but I won't part with this one. There's actually more hair detail than this 'orrible scanner has picked up.

I do hope that your book includes the 1946 die flaw O N E ' penny? I managed to get Spink to include it in the Standard Catalogue, but I'm still working on the less-convinced Chris Perkins to get it put in CCGB ! I also bought a 1966 penny a few years back that has an 'extra wave' crashing against the lighthouse, while at the same time I managed to get a 1915 'recessed ear' penny in high grade. I'm told there are two 1937 reverses, but as they both look exactly the same at first glance, and are both very common, I find them totally unsexy As are all the minuscule variations on Elizabeth II ship halfpenny reverses. ("Oooh there's a tiny difference in the size of the ship, but you should be able to spot the difference - one has 1958 on the reverse, the other has 1959" )

Welcome david! I was the same with banks and my 5/- ... My only bits of luck were getting a 1926ME penny in change as my first ever 1926, and then when i decided to have a go at 3d bits after months of checking bronze, finding a 1949 in the first bag I looked through. Never found a 1950 or 1951 penny, but let's be honest, they never quite escaped their hype, did they? Good luck with your present collecting.

Not more than book price really - sequential notes are nice to have, but only worth a (small) premium if the series prefix in question is a collectable one, and there's nothing special about those ones sadly. But they look collectable condition all the same.

Pfft, the seller is not much of a detective. It couldn't be "1926,7,8 or 9" now could it? If it's the small mod effigy then it must be 1928 or 9, if it's the large mod effigy then it is most likely 1927 unless you're an optimist, and if it's the unmod effigy - break out the champagne !

Oh yes. I saw a nice GVF at an auction some years ago - possibly nearer EF but it was a weak strike. I decided it was worth going to £100 for, but it went for over £350 in the end!

Anyone who doesn't agree that the British NHS - for all its shortcomings - is an absolutely fantastic component of our society needs their head examining (on the NHS of course!) We can so easily take it for granted - after all, it's been there longer than most of us - but we forget just what an awful situation there was before it came into being. The poor didn't get anything but rock bottom treatment, and generally avoided going to the doctor as they couldn't afford it. The NHS has not only brought "free" medicine to everyone, they have sponsored research into all kinds of revolutionary new treatments and operations for all kinds of illnesses. Yes, can pay to go "private", but for all your BUPA subscriptions, you will be treated for serious operations by NHS consultants, using NHS equipment, as the private operatorS simply couldn't afford to set up on their own. Just don't get me started on dentists, postcode lotteries, or N.I.C.E. however...

No doubt in my mind that it would fetch in excess of any catalogued amount. 5,000 quid or more, perhaps? Quite possibly would, actually. At any rate, at least £3k. I'm not even sure one exists at that standard ? The Coin Year Book has it at significantly lower in value than a 1919KN in the top 2 grades. I feel that is nonsense - I've never even seen one and I believe Colin Cooke once said (about 10 years ago) that if someone found a roll of 100 BU 1926ME pennies, he would still pay £2000 a piece for all 100.

Yes - I've contacted them too, pointing out the difference in values (Spink 2009) between each type - £800 vs £30 - and adding "I shudder to think what might happen to your good name and reputation in the law courts if you sold the penny as currently described". Hopefully that might make them revisit it.

So true

Well thank you for the kind comments and the chemistry lessons! I do admit, it's a handsome piece. It was actually a greenish colour (not verdigris) when I first got it, and I can't remember what I did to remove the green, but that's the way it looks now. "Coppered proof" anyone? Yours for £400...

I don't need to make detailed checks. I can spot a Modified Effigy straight away, and that is SO not one. How the hell can they get away with such blatant misrepresentation?

Yeah well, I bid, but failed The winning bid was £40.00. Nice capture for the winner. Oh that's a shame - it was something of a bargain at that price, pity you weren't able to go higher

As promised ... If it was a nice chocolate brown I'd be thinking, "wow, a bronzed proof!", but this is just peculiar.

I generally love good toning, better than an untoned coin. Especially older silver, but bronze can tone nicely too. I'm not yet converted to streaky lustre though, and as for fingerprints ... While on this subject I will have to scan my 1855 penny for you - it's EF, but is a uniform dull dark grey colour all over, rather like tarnished pewter. It's distinctly odd looking, but not unattractive.

You are quite right, so it looks like a deliberately false image. I can't quite see why anybody would bother though. I mean, at best its a £5.99 sale, not a million!! I think the 'undated 20p' madness has infected the whole of eBay.

So... a 1935 penny with ghosting. Well I never! How much is that worth?