Peckris

Never had a 1989 £2 in my change. Not once in 20 years. I never had a non-bimetallic £2 in my change, EVER.

"Decent" is an inexact term! (very much in the eye of the beholder). If you would post a scan of both sides we could look and assess your coins. The little silver 3d, due to its size, is not a spectacular performer, but the George V coins would vary from less than £1 (if VF) to £10 or more if strictly mint condition. The Victorians would be more, but not hugely. No major rarities there. The CCGB book - click picture above - is good for valuing coins.

Don't get too excited about the RM response - their standard reply is to ask to see the coin and put it through whatever analysis they see fit. It really doesn't mean anything at all until you get their reply / results.

And on that topic, does anyone know a good way to eliminate the effects of polishing on a coin? Not the ones that come with tiny hairline scratches (there aren't any on the coins I'm asking about), but the "bright" appearance? I only ask because I have two early Victorian silver coins in my own collection that are near enough uncirculated with bags of mirroring lustre, but where the busts look too shiny as if polished.

I think I've finally worked out why error coins are not really a big collector "thing", especially in Britain. You see, with stamps, at least one whole sheet will be affected, which means a few dozen stamps at least, giving collectors a fighting chance of owning one. But with an error coin, it will be both unique and accidental, which taken together adds up to low interest (unlike 1954 pennies - unique date and a deliberate strking, or 1860 mule bronzes, which may well be an accidental pairing but there are enough around to make examples come along now and again).

Apparently only 7 certified. No, make that 8, there's the winning bidder to add to the total...

Your bank note should attract some interest from the right collector. If your 20p is completely undated both sides (the 2008 error) they are selling on eBay currently for around £60, or £9,999,999 to the gullible. The other currency coins aren't really worth anything, maybe 2 to 4 times face value for the 50p's if they are mint condition. The £2 coins were limited issues, and worth a few pounds if uncirculated but there are a lot of them about. The 1986 £2 has the merit of being the first commemorative, issued for the Commonwealth Games. There are proofs and special silver issues of both coins, which would be worth more.

No idea at all. They were just curios to me. And only occurred on base metal coins, never mint ones. I used to think they were just machine tooled by people testing their machines. But I've no real idea.

I have a copper 1816 shilling with no silvering left on it at all. Maybe someone made a practice of rounding up forgeries and recovering the silver by chemical means. As to the 1804, one other tantalising possibility is that it was a silver-washed SPANISH forgery that slipped through and got overstamped as a dollar before losing its silver. Which would make it a genuine Boulton strike on top of a forgery ...

You'd be amazed how many similar stampings turned up on bronze coins, when I was looking through bank bags way back when ...

Goulby or Gouby? I only know Gouby. My mistake, yes it should by Gouby. Anyway to put you all out of you misery, if you look at the helmet where it meets the plume it looks like the damaged die metioned by Freeman and I think there was an artical about its dicovery in the papers many years ago. Of course it could just be the light. Oh yes! The 'helmet die flaw' stalk. I wonder how that relates in scarcity to the 1966 'extra wave' flaw?

It's impossible to answer this without knowing the precise denomination, condition, and dates of all your coins. As a rough guide, any silver coin dated before 1947 is 50% real silver, and if dated before 1920 is almost entirely silver. There are rare dates, too many to list here, but the condition of coins is at least as important. If yours is a large accumulation (or even collection?), then you could do worse than arm yourself with Collectors Coins GB which you can buy from Amazon if you click the link above.

I'd agree this is not far off EF strictly for wear but would downgrade it 1) for the knocks and 2) for the overall appearance and weak rim in places. Not a bad coin though.

We've been here before, and not so long ago. Remember when the Coincraft Catalogue came out in the 90s with prices well in excess of the stagnating Seaby Standard Catalogue? (Not to mention their own trade paper.) Then Spink took over the Standard Catalogue and suddenly they were competing with Coincraft who could push prices up higher. But things seem to have returned to more normal in the last few years, at least until slabbing came along ... Hopefully true collectors will dictate the market and drive out those who invest first last and don't love coins.

Goulby or Gouby? I only know Gouby.

Hopefully yes. I'll leave it a bit longer before I explain to see if anyone else picks it up or if it me just going mad. Hm, I'm missing it too.

Oh dear, I don't own one. Oh well, back to the scanner.

Scot The 2 pronged 1840 is a clear variety.....notice the ghosting on the reverse.....very rare and seldom offered even by Cooke It took me 20 years of searching. http://www.omnicoin.com/coin_view_enlarge.aspx?id=947669 When is a variety not a variety? I personally believe that the 1888 and 1889 double florin 'inverted 1' types should be downgraded as they are just a worn die, not an error or clear variety (there are intermediate stages where the effect is less pronounced). The same could apply to the 'two prong farthing' I suppose.

Aww, shame. The biggest over-hyped non-rarities in the history of British numismatics

They seem true to their blurb. They buy a £50 coin, slab it and call it a £100 coin. (see other thread where you can buy a 1967 2/6d for £25 or whatever). The investment in my opinion is theirs. They buy coins at regular prices and then double them because they have put a number on the individual coin. Nice money if you can get it, but a bit disingenuous for the inexperienced punter who is the person most likely to be drawn into this on investment grounds. His investment will only double if the market as a whole rises in line because collectors in general will not pay a vast premium for something they are able to grade for themselves and so price accordingly. They are trying to drive the market higher by claiming an elite product. As has been said many times before, do your homework and the third party's homework becomes irrelevant. I agree. If it was other than London Coins, or it was an independent source, I would say "fine", but buying coins - however good quality - from people who make such a huge mark-up is hardly investment potential. I am currently reading through some late 60s issues of Coin Monthly - they make depressing reading. Every other advert is headlined INVESTMENT. "Invest in the scarce 1956 farthing, great potential. We can offer the following BU gems : 1 for £2, 10 for £19, 50 for £96". I kid you not .... Investments in anything are always risky, they can go up or down. The only true advice in my experience is, "buy what you love and what interests you, and buy the highest quality you can afford".

OMG, really? Now that's what I call obsessive. It does beg the question though, where there are two common dies that are exactly the same, how does he know the difference between them? (That surely is the train-spotting aspect of our hobby...)

Thanks for the enlightenment. But the rarity of the narrow 3 penny cannot be less rare than the 1882. Satin only knew of one, and this is presumably the second known specimen. Which makes it rarer than the 1933! (Though I do know that bun varieties never come near to matching 1933s I'm price, however rare...)

How are you getting such a good picture? I'm afraid my scanner will not do that kind of justice to a coin's tone, so I'd be interested to know how you did it?

Does it mean "BU"? "Red" seems an odd way to define a BU coin which, as you point out, is usually yellow or orange or coppery gold, but rarely red. I've never heard that term before and I've been collecting for 40 years.