Peckris

Yeah, looks good now! I'd say the verdigris hasn't taken a big hold yet (though there are a couple of places in the rear legend that need looking at) so the sooner you start, the better. I'd say a few months in olive oil, turning regularly and changing the oil now and then, might do the trick. Or you could try one of the proprietary remedies suggested above, though I haven't used any of them myself.

Possibly a damaged blank, or deliberate marking on it? From the condition of the penny and the overlying numerals, it does appear to be a minting phenomenon rather than afterwards.

I won't point out the spelling mistake in that gent's name - you might say "How the devil do you know?"

Mine was free but I'm NOT going into that story.

I'd speculate they might have used a halfpenny letter punch, but there's no O in HALFPENNY.

Size : excellent! Focus : getting there...

aka "British".

There is no way to remove the gold gilding. By gilding the coin surface is irreversibly modified. The only readily available substance that can dissolve gold through a practicable process is Aqua Regia, which is a 3:1 mixture of concentrated hydrochloric and nitric acids. Problem is the nitric acid will rapidly dissolve away the copper as well, so not a practicable solution at all. Not only that you will also risk being poisoned by the Dinitrogen Tetroxide given off as a heavy brown gas in the process. Learn to love your gilding is the best advice there is. The ideal solution would be to get gilded coppers 'bronzed', but I don't know a) if it's possible or c) if it would look either good or natural. One more extra coating wouldn't do the finer detail any favours that's for sure.

Brilliant. So eBay are positioning themselves even more as the "home for dross", as anything of quality will be too expensive to sell after fees.

Getting there ... slowly! You've used only 45k out of your total 500k limit, and you've included a lot of background around the coin. Here's the kind of thing that can be done (and this was an image from the days when we only had 150k to work with) :

Actually, VF is too optimistic, mainly because both obverse and reverse designs wear extremely well and hold a lot of detail. Years ago it would only have rated a tad above F but nowadays probably GF, or perhaps some might even say NVF. Points to look at : Obverse - hair above ear worn flat, lacy folds of veil indistinct, crosses on crown well worn. Reverse - sword beginning to merge with horse's flank, St George's arm & breastplate well worn, brow and face wearing away. It's certainly in a collectable condition, but these are readily available in high grade.

[rant] Unfortunately, you've posted the picture in photobucket, where the picture is the same size as the thumbnail here, and zooming in just doesn't work. Far better if you post the picture here (easy now we have a 500k limit) or else use one of photobucket's direct html links so the picture appears here without us having to actually go to that awful site. [/rant] Anyway, you've got two main options, one slow, one quick. The slow is to immerse the coin in olive oil for months, changing the oil now and then; that might or might not help. The quick is to immerse the coin in good quality vinegar - e.g. balsamic - overnight then rinse thoroughly. The verdigris will change to an inert dark patch, but the rest of the coin will lighten quite a bit. You pays yer money...

I'd go along with the CCGB book too - it goes back to 1797 for copper and 1816 for silver. You can always buy other books if your interest begins to reach back to early milled or earlier.

What he actually says is : "Only one specimen found, well circulated, and with the area of the mintmark obscured. It is therefore not known if this reverse occurs with 'H' below the date, when accompanied by Obverse 9" so he did find one but it was too worn? is that what he means by obscured? He means you can't see if it's an H penny or not

The edge dinks don't help, but I can't see a UK dealer selling it much less than £100.

I'll have to have a look at my 1870, my interest is piqued by there being rare examples! I wouldn't agree it is common - I think no bun date after 1863 and before 1874 is an easy date, especially in higher grades. It's commoner than 1868 certainly, but scarcer than 1872, 1873, 1866 I would say. Probably on a par with 1865, perhaps scarcer?

No predecimal UK bronze has circulated since 1971 (halfpennies since 1969, farthings since 1960).

What he actually says is : "Only one specimen found, well circulated, and with the area of the mintmark obscured. It is therefore not known if this reverse occurs with 'H' below the date, when accompanied by Obverse 9"

Is this the old dear who had all that nice Gold Declan? Did she ever sell it? No - it's a different old dear! I've known her for years but she only told me the other day who her Dad was. No idea, of course, how important his collection was. For most of his life, his family didn't even know he collected coins. And no, she's still got the gold - she got quite interested in it after all that. She may even end up buying some more....! She only needs to sell the single most valuable coin and she could afford lots more!

Freeman doesn't list the variety, only the rarity for the 1870 as a whole: R6 which = 30,000 - 50,000 (i.e. not that rare). You'd have to consult Gouby for the rarity of the variety.

Hi Cathrine, I think Dave meant "what was it graded as by the seller"?

Freeman doesn't list a variety, just 6+G. For wear I'd grade it just about EF but there are one or two strange deformities.

That IS satire! The first comment says it all...

They're still worth having - I've tentatively valued mine (conservatively?) at around a quarter of book price.

Yes, I have two George IV first issue farthings, both in high grade, but both artificially gilded. One is a flat yellow colour, the other is rather attractively 'lustred' with the 'lustre' wearing away. Either they are contemporary which means an attempt to pass them off as half sovs, or else they are more modern in an effort to convince collectors they are rare gilded proofs. Waste of a good coin, is my opinion.