Accumulator

Nice! I believe the 1937 Ed VIII set, sold by MR, went for £1.3m so that sounds not unreasonable (for someone with the spare wedge!)

Despite everything that has been said, Martin Platt owns, or has handled and photographed, one of the best penny collections I've ever seen. So many photos on the 'Coins of the UK' website are courtesy of him. It would be interesting to know if he still has them?

My 1968 certainly has a thick rim, but looking through I'm not sure it's any thicker than some currency strikes for other 'bun' years. If only thickness was a definite marker!

I can't help you, but London Coins have one in their March auction. Photos on their website. You would of course need permission.

The thing to do is look at one in the flesh rather than an image, it is surprising how different they look, and how obvious the difference is. I know there will be those debatable early strike examples, but a true proof is unmistakeable...but I used to think exactly the same thing!! Thank you all for your kind comments. I agree, it can be difficult to tell from a photo but proofs definitely have a different look and feel in the hand The 1868 above is, at least to me, very obviously different from a currency strike. In this particular case, the clincher is the copper content as currency strikes are all bronze. In some cases, though, proofs and currency strikes look identical in photos. The coin on the left is a 1964 currency strike, while the one on the right looks and feels like a proof (it also has provenance as such), though appears no different in the photo. I understand that the known 1964 proofs are all well-handled, as is this one. I need to work at capturing the essence of the proof in a photo somehow, but it's not easy!

I had a coin rejected by CGS with miniscule/near-invisible traces of verdigris. In fact, it was so minimal, it was totally gone, following a light wipe of Acetone. Sometimes I've noticed a microscopic build up of a green-coloured grease/wax in the detail of a bronze coin. This can be removed with a toothpick but it's not verdigris as far as I can tell. Certainly it leaves no evidence of pitting on the host coin.

It's subtle - but look at the rim, perfect and even, and the teeth and linear circle, ditto. It also has that 'chocolate brown' appearance that bronzed proofs so often have (and will have been there from the start, i.e. never lustred). The detail is crisp, though some currency UNCs will also be. I agree entirely with Peck's assessment. It's very similar to my own 1868 proof, which is in copper. I'd like the bronze one too, but the asking price is a bit steep... more like the price for something slabbed at PF65! Here's mine:

You mean like the photo below. I'm honestly not sure of the reason, but it only seems to affect the proofs. The top grade currency strikes all seem to have good lustre. It could be that because many 1950 pennies circulated in the Caribbean for a while, the sea air got to them and gave them a tone quite quickly? Possibly? I've had 3 decent 1950 currency pennies through my hands now, all with that uniform tone you can see on accumulator's penny, which is never the way you see other coins of the period tone? But isn't Accumulator's picture a proof? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick again? You're right Nick. Mine is a proof, not currency. Not the best example though.

You mean like the photo below. I'm honestly not sure of the reason, but it only seems to affect the proofs. The top grade currency strikes all seem to have good lustre.

I agree with everything above. If you've not seen an artificially toned penny, here's an example with a normally lustred penny alongside. On close inspection the toning is slightly mottled:

With a DSLR camera in A mode, shutter speed will depend on how much light you have. You can also increase the ISO to get a faster shutter speed and a lens/camera that has Vibration Reduction will help as well. The photos that Heritage Auctions routinely take through slabs are some of the best I've ever seen. Cleary they take them by the thousand and have the perfect set up. Here's an example:

If the size requirements for posting pictures 'direct' to the forum wasn't so stringent, it wouldn't be necessary to use an external host. That, and the fact that the photos appear only as thumbnails which then need to be opened, rather than directly in the post. This makes reading of threads far less comfortable. Ideally, the forum software would 'grab' any images from external sources and save them locally. This would prevent them disappearing in future should they be removed, or their source site disappear.

And going to that external site was a complete waste of fecking time . Your picture was much much smaller than you would even get here if you followed the advice I gave above. What's worse, I had to use the Goback button about 12 times before I could get back to here. What you need is advice on how to post the image to Photobucket with a link so it appears HERE without our having to leave this site. That's what Dave does, maybe he will explain how to do it? That's what I do too, simply click on the 'IMG code' entry the CTRL + 'v' or right-click paste in here, eh viola! [Mr Punch voice] : "That's the way to do it!" That's exactly what I do too. Cut and past the url in seconds. It really is simple (I explained how above, somewhere).

Yes, the seller confirms that the coin sold first time around and they have not contacted me. I do trust them, as they've sold to me previously (and other forum members). eBay refuse to accept that they have a security 'leak' and keep pointing me towards their Privacy policy, which they claim never to breach. Naturally!

Stunning! Here's mine (not a great photo unfortunately):

That's a beautiful 1926ME. It appears to be slabbed? Is it graded?

I believe that the usual cause for these second-chance scams is the real seller's eBay account has become compromised (probably via spyware of some sort) and therefore the scammers have full access to the seller's details of past buyers. You could well be correct Nick. I've spent the last hour talking to eBay and in the end, all they do is insist that they have a Privacy Policy that they would never ever breach. It's like talking to a brick wall. No recognition that, say, a rogue employee could be handing names out perhaps.

I very nearly fell for this today because it all looked so official. Please don't anyone else fall for it. Basically I was the underbidder on a coin a couple of weeks ago and today I received an email, apparently from eBay, stating that the winner had defaulted and I could now buy it at my underbid price. This is eBay policy, and I've done it before on another item, so I was quite happy. It was only when I tried to actually complete the transaction that I became suspicious. The real seller had previously accepted the payment via Paypal (I'd bought another item from them) but this time wanted to complete the transaction with a bank transfer outside eBay. It was after this that I checked my eBay account and realised it wasn't an official eBay offer, and was a scam. I have since spoken with eBay who confirm this. What eBay haven't been able to tell me is how the scammer got hold of all my details, as these certainly aren't shown in the bidding summary? The scammer had my name, email and postal address, matched up to my bidding on this item! eBay are still looking into the scam for me, but I'm not hopeful. Apparently they get many reports of this each day, which makes one wonder how secure their system is? Anyway, in the meantime, if anyone gets a second chance offer be sure to check it thoroughly!

Very instructive video. Incredible that you actually see rainbow toned coins slabbed by the big TPGs (though not by CGS, to my knowledge). Avoid at all cost!

Glad you enjoy the forum. That silver Joseph Moore pattern is a real gem!

Who's WE exactly? Just curious, are you another auction house? Cathrine put it in quotes, Dave. It's a quote directly out of London Coins catalogue, so "we" is London Coins. Would you like to introduce yourself Cathrine? You seem to collect copper/bronze and obviously have a good deal of knowledge. Nice Joseph Moore in your avatar too.

You don't paste the URL (web address) directly into your post. It needs to be surrounded with HTML tags. When you're writing a post you'll see some small icons above, which produce bold, underline, italic etc. one of them shows a link (looks like a short chain). To the right of this is an icon which looks like a photo. Click on this and you can paste in the URL of your photo. You'll the see that it automatically surrounds the URL with the necessary IMG (image) tags. It's really easy!

anouther pix Just seeing things, unfortunately. There is a colon ':' after REG, the die of which has become partially blocked.

Actually, I could be wrong in as much as the set was perhaps Gilt/Copper/Bronze, though this may have varied. here's a pic of a recent eBay sale (nastily cleaned gilt example though):

Hi, I don't own one and I don't have a photo, but the 1797 proofs were produced as a set of three (gilt, silvered & bronze) in a custom-made box. It sounds like what you are describing, but with the coins having been swapped? Are you sure they are patterns, not proofs? Photos would be really useful.