1887jubilee

In the last few weeks London Coins offered a Roman Proof 4/- but the best looking one I have seen recently at Heritage went to an Australian bidder. see http://coins.ha.com/itm/great-britain/world-coins/great-britain-victoria-proof-double-florin-1887-pr66-cameo-pcgs-/a/3044-29768.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515 a very fine example

Well Hello , Yes I am still alive after a year or so out. You will all have noticed the photos posted by shagreen above show a reverse die with a Roman I but how many noticed the obverse is the die type 2 BSC. normally associated with the Arabic reverse B. I regret it is much more complicated than that as there is also a 1/A proof so in fact there are coins 1/A, 1/B 2/A and 2/B all not publishe yet so I reserve rights. Andrew

I think I go with Withers. The Galata guide is very helpful particularly giving good pictures. The EDI series is never ending you can hardly buy two coins the same when you get close in.

My 1888 four pence is a bit of a novelty as it is dated 1887. We know that no 4d pieces were issued for 1887 so I have to assume this enameled one must be an 1888 that has been altered for some reason. Unless anyone knows of 1887 with the same reverse.

Sorry I sold my spare copy 20 years ago for £60

Sorry I can only do coin monthly back to 1971 Before that it was Coin and Medal Digest

I agree and even with Spink, North and Gallata it is hard to be precise when the legend is so worn.

So many different 1887 Florins we must see a picture particularly of the obverse.

I can only add that I have an 1887 Sovereign with about 30 deg. rotation. I would say rotations are pretty rare as I have noly ever seen two in my field both on the 1887 Sov. Probably a short run of faulty coins before it was spotted and corrected.

I have a nice mahogany coin box with four trays 135 x 195 various sizes. open to offers.

What is it on? Or is the idea we express an opinion then you tell us? Could be 9/8 or 8 with a bit of blocked die or even 8 punch with a bit broken off, or 9 with a bit filled in. So there we have a few options. From what I can see it looks most like 9 with a bit filled in, ..........................................or 9 /0.

Wilson & Rasmussen is fantastic for gold proofs and patterns but expensive. The auction houses sometimes give away complimentary copies if you are at a major sale in London

Crikey, that's good info, 1887! Is that from your own surveys, multiplied up, a la VR Court? No need to multiply up only interpolate. I do my own research and in this case it is based on a sample of 507 shillings in my collection, on ebay, or for sale with other dealers. The margin of error decreases inversely with the size of the sample. Interestingly the YH is twice as numerous as the rev. A. I guess there could be an error of .2% without offending the mathematicians. In cases of doubt, for example where I do not have the coin in hand I ignore the data. Could you give me ref. for the VR Court data please? Royal Mint figures are quoted and misquoted variously.

As usual I seem to get in on the thread after everyone else has had their say and most helpful they are particularly the pictures but. can anyone confirm my figures for the relative mintages of each reverse. A 1.2% approximate mintage 48,410 B 11.5% 463,925 C 87.3% 3,521,798 Plus of course the proofs 1,084 which are thought to all be rev. C thought, I do have a currency "proof" rev. B

The Imitation sovereign is one of 9 different sovereigns of 1887 by Lauer. The best reference to check which one you have is the book TOY COINS by David J de Sola Rogers( ref 507a-f,508,509). Hard to come by a copy and expensive at £85 but for £1.50 your library will get you a copy, probably the same one I borrowed. If you contact me I will see if I can email the appropriate page.

No prizes for guessing my interest in this topic. Yes the coins were serious money, yes they were exceptional quality but adding the whole set together (I was informed by Goldbergs they were all from the same vendor), the cost of the set was $80,000 (£51,682). That did not stop me bidding on the two coins that were particularly rare. The sixpence is probably less than 20 mintage as is the double florin proof 1+A. (Only one or two seen in the last ten years) I hope to be in print on this soon. The other coins sold purely on quality and I agree the whole US market begins to look like a bubble. If that is the case it could be time for us all to sell.

That is the one! Thanks pies I Think we can all enjoy this site. I have already gone through my old penny collection and found a couple of rare ones. Well done whoever you are. Can you express an opinion on this 1860 penny. Obverse is obv. 3 but reverse is, though similar, not D. The area by the ship has been re-tooled and the rim splits in two. The Reverse D has several wak areas and I was wondering if this might be an attempt to sharpen the rim.

thats kinda what i was thinking when i opened the thread. ive just looked at the london coins auction archive and the roman1 proof they sold last year looks like dies 2a. thanks for all the replies. ski Dear me boys you do get yourselves into a twist, I am sure you only post these 1887 problems just to get all my hard won research out of me. At my current survey 33.85% are 1/A ( using Davies) 61.54% are 2/B 4.62% are 1/B There are proof "Roman" 2/A found in the silver only proof sets There are also "Roman" proofs 1/A not sure whether these were also in the silver proof sets or were in the later production of the 797 main sets There are also a lot of proof like coins and specimen coins. Regretably there are also several other distinctive die varieties but more of that if I ever get to print.

Seriously the best place I have ever seen for bulk hammered was in the bazzar in Istambul. Dealers there have piles of the things and can even sell by weight. Crusader, Stirlings, Groats, German States, French, Italian, Spanish, British you name it. You would have your work cut out getting the country right let alone the clasification. But nothing is cheap in the bazars any more; I bought my first breach loading 1871 Snider up the Kyber pass for £7.50 but that was 40 years ago.

Sorry to be so long replying. I just collect 1887 at the moment as there are about 300! If there is anything I can help with please call. Can you confirm your measurements range from 33.59-34.65. Have you found the ones with the broken serifs yet? Have you included the Spink & Son patterns? Give me a ring.

Thank you for that vote of confidence. There was a thread about the 1887 Crowns that had quite a lot on die varieties and I put the link below for your help. http://www.predecimal.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6425&view=getnewpost This is not published as far as I know because I have only done the research in the last couple of years. There are other problems apart from the obvious one that the obverse size varies a lot with the use of the pantograph. It depends what depth you want to go into. There are certainly 4 reverses for 1887 alone and at least 20 obverses. As to die pairings. I regret that only the most common reverse is paired with all the obverses. As yet I have insuficient data to say for sure if the other reverses are paired with all twenty+ obverses. Feel free to give me a ring on 07967505509 to discus. What varieties do you think exist?

I reckon you will find it difficult to get a meaningful answer to that one. We are all a bit cagey about what we spend on our hobby and even more circumspect about how much we earn. If it helps my usual spend is about £50-100. Though I did once spend a year's salary on a coin but which year? I was on £4 a week when I started work. That would be in about 1573 and I was paid in groats.

I'm not sure that I agree with it being an R/I with a slanted I. The serifs aren't very long and the angle of the I is so slight as to be almost negligible. The following picture is from the same coin and shows the R/I also used in GRATIA. Presumably the alterations to the Rs would have been made at the same time with the same punch, which shows that you would need either a much larger slant on the I or a substantial die break to connect the serif to the leg of the R. Ok there is your particular coin which shows the serif well over to the right but my research shows that all four Rs on the obverse are overstruck and that this has been done individualy on each one. Worse still the "I" used is, in many cases, not of the same font size as the R. So in some instances it would appear above the foot, below the top, to the left, to the right, twisted, below the foot, or placed so as to look exactly like a perfect R. As you can see from the R of GRATIA it is to the left of the R and the serif is smaller than the left serif of the R whereas the overstrike in VICTORIA is not the same at all. Look now at the Rs of BRITT and REGINA, these will also be overstruck but the chances are they will not look like the first two. My guess is they will look twisted out slightly clockwise with a faint line in the upright. This is most common on the 3rd. and 4th. R. I show a picture of a particular R/I in BRITT. give me a ring 07967505509

The magnification I have available is not quite as good as the camera and nor is my eyesight for that matter, but I'm pretty sure that the foot of the upright and the leg of the R are connected. I think that there is also a slight curve upwards where the foot meets the leg, which is what made me think it may be R/B. I will try and get some more photos from slightly different angles to see if I can get it any clearer. I think this photo shows it better. A good case for R/B could be made there. However, don't also discount the possibility that parts of a letter can join up - look at the 'leakage' on the right of the base of the T; the same thing might have happened with the R. Well you can't get any better than that. This photo convinces me the so called R/B is just an R/I. The particular effect is created by striking the I slightly twisted. You can see how it is low at the top of the R and particularly low on the left hand side this pushes the right hand serif further out to the right. It is still just possible there is a B in there somewhere just as there is a V in the R/V but the main point in both cases is the low and clearly visible top of the I . My vote is R/I previously known as R/B. Anyone else agree? Come on where are you Rob, let's here what you would be happy to go to print on. Well at least not this with its obvious spelling mistake. Sorry .......for "here" read "hear"