Accumulator

Well, the detail is crisp enough for a proof, but the rim is often the clincher, and it's hard to tell with yours. I have an 1862 that is similar - great detail, and the reverse is prooflike in certain lights, slight mirroring. The overall colour is dark, like yours. For me, the jury's out, but the likeliest verdict is that either they are early strikes, or struck from proof dies which often got used up for currency strikes. The dark colour? That's the weird part - without the great detail, you'd say that is what often happens to bronze over time. With the crispness... I really don't know. What I do know is, proofs are very rare, so the odds are against it. If I have neck-ache tomorrow, I'll know who to blame Pies! Doesn't your imaging software have a 'rotate' function? Certainly looks like an early strike from the level of detail and crispness of the reverse. It's harder to judge the obverse as the leaves aren't too clear in the photograph. As Peck says, proofs are rare and, in this condition, it would be hard to find anyone who would support a 'proof' verdict. For comparison I have taken close-ups of my two coins. Although the coin on the right is UNC with full lustre, it lacks the smoothness and true consistent depth of detail that the proof (on the left) displays. The overall effect is almost 'plastic' in its smoothness, compared to the rougher and slightly broken surface of the currency strike. Hope this helps.

Mmm worth £1600 so I'll sell it for a grand. Bargain. 99p would be closer to the mark for a 6 + G in this condition.

I'd love to know which 3 experts he consulted over this coin.

Obverses:

To give you an idea, here's my 1863 alongside an 1868 proof (I don't have an 1863). I know the 1868 must be a proof because it's in copper. The proof strike is (to quote the Christmas carol), deep and crisp and even.

Hard to tell anything without a photo. If you can post in as high a resolution as possible then we will try to advise though it's notoriously difficult to tell proofs, specimens and early strikes apart.

I take an average of 4: CCGB 2011 (about right) Coin Yearbook 2012 (too low) British Coins Market Values 2012 (way too low) Spink 2012 (way too high) I then use a sliding scale based on grade to determine what I'd pay: F 20% of book average VF 42% of book average EF 67% of book average UNC 92% of book average ...and every intermediate grade in between, of course. This biases my successful bidding towards the top grades, which has to be a good thing. Lower grades I only tend to win if they are dirt cheap, which again, is what you'd want to happen! sorry, but you did ask! Apart from the assessment of the Coin Yearbook (which is a mixed bag, I find - some prices too high, some about right, some too low), I'd agree with Declan's assessment. I'm not sure I'd go so low as 20% of a Fine coin if I really wanted it though! Or 42% of a desired VF. There are coins that are rare but usually found in low grade, and rarely or never featured in guides - 1911 'Gouby X' penny, 1903 'Open 3', 1915 'BRITT' farthing, etc - what do you pay for them? What you can afford, if you really want it. And that's the key, I think : we are generally willing to pay a higher price for items we really want, and that's not a bad guiding principle. Rob's advice is very sound. One of the best ways to do research is to attend your nearest auction - they are attended by a mix of dealers and collectors, and with one or two exceptions (where a couple of collectors fight over a particular item) give a realistic idea of what to expect to pay. Bottom line? If you use Spink as your reference, you WILL pay too much. (Been there, done that, got the T shirt..) Not necessarily. Modern things definitely, but once you go back to Victoria or earlier, then the results are more mixed. Godless florin £450 in UNC - overpriced, 1848 pattern £1600 FDC - if only. The last one I bought (3 years ago) cost me £2500. The FDC price then was £1100. I know that all the guides are, to some extent, based on prices asked/achieved but I personally find resources such as London Coins 'prices realised' and mcsearch.info give a much more direct handle on current market values. This is especially true where varieties or rarer coins are concerned. I have all of the above guides for either 2011 or 2012 but only really ever use Spink.

That's not even as good as the one I upgraded from Dave! There again, he describes it as 'Top Grade', which I suppose could equate to EF. I wouldn't really argue with a description that vague.

Its maybe a sign of the times that good coins are harder to come by.........I'm not a huge fan of CC as i bought about 4 and sent 1 back from the 4........They were obviously at one time a bigger dealer than they are now. Poor grading will always come back to haunt anyone, good grading will only enhance a reputation and repeat business Couldn't agree more Dave, my favourite dealers for accurate grading are our very own Rob and Michael Gouby, I have had issues with many well known others! Problem being Paul, that good coins will cost top end and perhaps where copper123 is not prepared to go, you have to decide eventually. Mr Gouby has an 1875H penny which i have an issue with his grading on, I had a much better one but he's grading his as EF, in my mind it's no chance in hell as being EF. His price 750 quid, i sold mine to a forum member for 400 Just looked at Michael's 1875H. It's about the same as mine which I wouldn't rate better than VF. I'm looking for an upgrade if I can find one. For comparison, here's mine: Interesting. That is what Michael illustrates as VF in the original edition of his "Bronze Penny" book. Yes, much the same as his latest edition. It might just make VF+ though, as the wear is marginally less, but there's not much in it. There's to much wear to Britannias hand, legs, breast palte and helmet for me..........Obv, face and hair detail is to worn for an EF coin I completely agree. Hence my VF grade.

Actually I may be wrong, Dave, but I think I looked at yours and didn't think the difference was worth the upgrade? Not knocking yours, but I probably decided to hold out for a really good example.

Its maybe a sign of the times that good coins are harder to come by.........I'm not a huge fan of CC as i bought about 4 and sent 1 back from the 4........They were obviously at one time a bigger dealer than they are now. Poor grading will always come back to haunt anyone, good grading will only enhance a reputation and repeat business Couldn't agree more Dave, my favourite dealers for accurate grading are our very own Rob and Michael Gouby, I have had issues with many well known others! Problem being Paul, that good coins will cost top end and perhaps where copper123 is not prepared to go, you have to decide eventually. Mr Gouby has an 1875H penny which i have an issue with his grading on, I had a much better one but he's grading his as EF, in my mind it's no chance in hell as being EF. His price 750 quid, i sold mine to a forum member for 400 Just looked at Michael's 1875H. It's about the same as mine which I wouldn't rate better than VF. I'm looking for an upgrade if I can find one. For comparison, here's mine: Interesting. That is what Michael illustrates as VF in the original edition of his "Bronze Penny" book. Yes, much the same as his latest edition. It might just make VF+ though, as the wear is marginally less, but there's not much in it.

Its maybe a sign of the times that good coins are harder to come by.........I'm not a huge fan of CC as i bought about 4 and sent 1 back from the 4........They were obviously at one time a bigger dealer than they are now. Poor grading will always come back to haunt anyone, good grading will only enhance a reputation and repeat business Couldn't agree more Dave, my favourite dealers for accurate grading are our very own Rob and Michael Gouby, I have had issues with many well known others! Problem being Paul, that good coins will cost top end and perhaps where copper123 is not prepared to go, you have to decide eventually. Mr Gouby has an 1875H penny which i have an issue with his grading on, I had a much better one but he's grading his as EF, in my mind it's no chance in hell as being EF. His price 750 quid, i sold mine to a forum member for 400 Just looked at Michael's 1875H. It's only slightly better than mine which I wouldn't rate better than VF. I'm looking for an upgrade if I can find one. For comparison, here's mine:

No comparison there Peter.... I have to agree that their coin is horrible. I've bought a couple of coins through CC recently and been very happy with them so I guess it proves you should never dismiss eBay and you should always shop around. Regarding toning versus lustre. The very best bronze coins will have lustre and, other than in exceptional cases, the more lustre the better (to me) and more valuable the coin to the market (generally). The exceptions are dirty or streaky lustred examples. With copper coins I think lustre is less important though certainly desirable. A beautifully toned copper coin may well supplant a poor, streaky lustred coin. Overall though, my objective to find a full lustre example of every coin in the series (impossible, of course).

I did wonder whether to attend on the Saturday. I really don't see the point of paying £50 for Friday entry (and losing a day's work). It's fairly unlikely that I will find any coins I really want for the collection, though I suppose that's possible. For me it would be more about looking at products associated with collecting and chatting to one or two dealers.

As he chose to ignore my first message I sent a second suggesting that he may wish to check copyright (along with his eyesight!)

I had a woman on the phone a few weeks ago getting all excited about an 1877 penny, which had Britannia on the front(sic) and it was a rare type cos she's got a thin neck and would I come and value it for her because she has seen they sell for £3500. After a few minutes explaining that the type was determined by whether the date was either wide or narrow but I would happily give her a valuation at my normal rates, I asked which it was and the phone went dead. Wasn't the first, won't be the last. It is just a case of the ebay mentality where every other coin is the rarest type. I wrote to him and he's chosen to ignore my message. Instead he's actually changed his main photo to show a copy of a page from Michael Gouby's site. I have no idea why, because this clearly demonstrates that his coin is not the narrow date variety though he continues to claim the opposite!

I sincerely hope no one is stupid enough to go for this. Narrow date, 'English Coins' sale, indeed. London Coins sold a real one of course!

It's fine this morning but I almost gave up yesterday as it was so slow. Other sites were fine as you say, Peck.

You'd have to have a major expansion of bandwidth on your website if they did! I did hear the mint did something similar for copper! If i remember rightly, didn't they reduce the curvature of a single denticle by a degree for each die? Now, now!

Investments? ....wash your mouth out with soap. Surely you mean 'caretaking history for the benefit of future generations'?

I know what you mean but am still not sure it will show anything other than the existence of the said coin. My rare (I've never come across another) 1935 proof penny is slabbed by NGC. What would this tell someone searching slabbed 1935 coins, beyond the fact that they do exist? It certainly wouldn't indicate rarity. I'm not trying to be awkward, just pointing out the hurdles to interpreting these figures in any meaningful way. Slabbed statistics are worse than useless. Different grades for the same coin counts as two coins if resubmitted; some slabbed coins don't exist because the variety is wrong (though there might actually be a genuine example in a different slab; many coins are removed from slabs and so may be double counted if slabbed and unslabbed populations are combined; NGC used to have several designations for the same generic piece (1797 pennies spring to mind) based on whether someone remembered to put a space in the label detail; slabs get crossed over from one TPG to another because their registry sets are only allowed to be in the host's slabs, so get double counted. All in all the statistics are highly unreliable and best ignored. All it says is that there is likely (but not guaranteed) to be a certain number of an item around. Something we already knew because the reference books included the item in the first place. Surely post decimalisation for UK coins mintage figures are no longer valid. What we should be consentrating on is survival figures, which will skew heavily in favour of rarer coins. That's what I meant when I spoke about a survey - nothing to do with slabbing. What we can safely assume is that vast quantities of low grade, common coins got melted down; and as you say, the rarer items got pulled out of circulation, especially in lower grades, and will survive in higher quantities in proportion to the commoner items, than before decimalisation. And we can also assume that people who kept some predecimal coins for sentimental reasons, will have mostly low grade common items (especially judging by the kind of lots that find their way to provincial auction houses). Finally, we can assume that most low grade coins with silver in, have been withdrawn and melted down for bullion value. The distorting factor is high grade items (AUNC+ from 1937, or EF+ before than). With the exception of mid-60s stuff onwards, plus a few anomalous dates like 1959 sixpences, 1957E and 1959E shillings, 1953 stuff, perhaps also 1936 and 1937, the rest of it is subject to the following factors : 1) they didn't turn up during late 60s collecting fever (in change) unless you were very lucky 2) they will always be more in demand which will push prices up even if they are proportionately less rare than they once were What we really need to know, in my opinion, is the true scarcity of high grade, non-rare dates. Some have survived in large quantities due to bullion reasons - silver from 1914-1919, and silver from 1942-1946, but what is the true comparative scarcity of everything else, especially in relation to known scarcities and rarities? This would indeed be very interesting. To get a full picture, though, would require not just 'relative scarcity', but scarcity relative to the number of collectors. If there are 1,000 active penny collectors, whether there are 50,000 or 500,000 1967 surviving top grade pennies you won't be able to give them away. If there were 60,000 collectors, then the effect of that difference would be enormous. Perhaps it is this scarcity, relative to a reducing number of collectors, that has caused some of the 20th century 'rarities' you mention to actually seem quite abundent.

And this has been dipped to long 120985595521 someone insert url please Here: http://www.ebay.co.u...5521%26_rdc%3D1 Horrid. Hard to see that toning back, ever. Which basically comes back to ski' question and whether/or rather he had/has a suspision that 1 or 2 of his coins had been dipped. You now have 2 references Ski. PS.........The coin in question from the url is from a Mr Platt, notorious for overgrading and dipping, that's his wifes ebay name Awful coin. I have a halfcrown like that, which was so over-dipped (at least I presume that's what the problem is) that the surface has become almost porous/chalky. I don't believe it will ever tone back.

Fortunately copper an bronze coins have no nicks! Phew...

It's my first experience of HA, but I certainly agree about the quality of the photographs, particularly as most are taken through plastic slabs. I took a look at your possible 1858/3 purchase and it certainly has potential. It will be interesting to hear your conclusions once you have examined the coin in hand. Welcome to the forum!

I know what you mean but am still not sure it will show anything other than the existence of the said coin. My rare (I've never come across another) 1935 proof penny is slabbed by NGC. What would this tell someone searching slabbed 1935 coins, beyond the fact that they do exist? It certainly wouldn't indicate rarity. I'm not trying to be awkward, just pointing out the hurdles to interpreting these figures in any meaningful way.