Nick

Excellent picture, almost as good as the coin which is a beaut. If you were in Photoshop, it's an easy-peasy matter to also alter the colour so it looks as it does in hand. Photoshop offers at least 3 different methods to alter the colours. I concur. An excellent picture.

Not wanting to get into this again, but the act does say that the Treasury can grant licences to do so. In reality though, even without a licence, if you were caught with a crucible containing molten gold or silver - who is to say what form that metal took before melting. It's obviously not an issue though as Spink even quote BV (bullion value) prices for some lower grades of gold coins.

I do hope this isn't an empty threat.

CGS do the best job of grading British coins. If I had to choose between PCGS and NGC, it would have to be PCGS.

Where does one find a copy of these reports? The first four (1870-3) can be downloaded free from Google books as a single pdf. Others have been published by various publishers at various times. Search Amazon and you'll find a number of years grouped together into one publication. Usually around £20-£25 per group of years. They occasionally turn up on eBay too, but these are usually the much later years, which are not as interesting a read.

Sadly obscured by a coin. BTW. How can PCGS use the term "First Strike". Statistically, that's gonna be wrong most of the time. Unless it's a fake coin in a fake slab...

I find it fascinating to know where individual batches of coin were sent. Reading between the lines of the Royal Mint Annual Report for 1893 you can see that it is highly likely that most Jubilee head sixpences were sent to the colonies. It states that two shipments were needed before the new design dies were complete. These being: £29,000 of silver sent to the West African Settlements and £1,000 of silver sent to Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada). Another interesting nugget of information shows that "only trifling amounts of florins were issued in the United Kingdom from the month of May 1889 to the end of 1892". The reason being "the superabundance of coins of that denomination" still in circulation. It seems to me that there may still be a number of those rare coins knocking around the ex-colonial parts of the world.

By MP, or the previous owner? Even with the field disturbance behind Ed's head, it's still the best 1905 halfcrown that I've seen.

Wow. That's something that us lesser mortals can only dream about.

I am watching this sale carefully and there are is some very over-the-top bidding. For example, a fairly ordinary Dritanniar sixpence which is now over $500. The good news is that I already have two which are quite a lot better. I have my eyes on a couple of coins but I am not going to pay way over the odds and that is the way this sale is going. However, you can get decent buys at Heritage if you know what you are doing. The fixation on slabbing and grading by many American collectors is also an opportunity. VF35 for that DRITANNIAR is looking rather generous. It looks much nearer to Fine than that. £200 absolute max in my book and probably a bit less.

Did anybody catch the uncirculated 1905 halfcrown that was fleetingly listed on eBay by everyone's "favourite" seller? I hate to think how little he would have paid the widow of said collector for such a valuable rarety.

Monty Python 1970 Yes, cigarettes. My hovercraft is full of eels.

The beer is way too expensive...

RAR is a container format for compressed files, so it may contain files that Picasa would open, but you'd have to extract them first. Download a trial version of WinRAR (or something else suitable) to extract the files, then use Picasa to view/edit the files.

Those you mention are all image formats, so the Windows default picture viewer (or MS Paint) would cover most of those. If not, a free download such as Paint.NET will do the trick.

I'm thinking the same as you, Garrett! I'm definitely thinking cleaned, though! The tone of all his bronze coins is unnatural and too consistent, which suggests dipping. I may be wrong though. I'll bet you're not.

There's a big difference between celebrating and commemorating. Commemoration means to remember and show respect for, which seems ok to me.

He obviously thinks that "virtually" means "nowhere near".

Well that is what is I hoped someone would say, otherwise what is the point of a 1-100 scale if only the top grades can be achieved by proof coins, while proof is not a grade? Does anyone have an example of a non-proof CGS 'fdc' coin? Still feels like a bit of an oxymoron ... Edit: our posts crossed Nick, do you have a take as to how an fdc description can apply to a non-proof coin?If you look at CGS UIN 2043. It is an 1816 shilling and has been graded as a 91. However, if you're expecting to be dazzled by the quality of the photograph, you may be disappointed.CGS UIN 8978 is an interesting one. It's an 1884 shilling that is ex-Cheshire collection, previously NGS MS-64. CGS has graded it as 90. Interesting, MS64 would be an 80 on the CGS scale and then taking into account that American TPGs generally overgrade British coins i wonder how they then came up with a 91. is it because its a Cheshire coin i wonder It's a nice looking coin, especially the reverse. On this occasion, it looks as if NGC slightly undergraded.

I suspect that even if we were given a choice, we would have to keep doing so until we gave them the 'right' answer as per the Irish Treaty of Lisbon debacle.

Link

Not for me, no. Imagine the exact same situation with brand new proof dies and a polished blank. It's still going to be slightly sharper than your currency piece and should get a higher score. I agree Nick, but what if there are no proofs for that denomination/year? The way CGS say they do things (which I agree with), is relative to benchmark coins for the same year and denomination, so it should be theoretically possible to achieve any score out of 100 in any year for any coin? You couldn't have a different scale for every year. It would be chaos. I would imagine that in a year with no proofs, the maximum grade achievable would be 90-ish.

Well that is what is I hoped someone would say, otherwise what is the point of a 1-100 scale if only the top grades can be achieved by proof coins, while proof is not a grade? Does anyone have an example of a non-proof CGS 'fdc' coin? Still feels like a bit of an oxymoron ... Edit: our posts crossed Nick, do you have a take as to how an fdc description can apply to a non-proof coin? If you look at CGS UIN 2043. It is an 1816 shilling and has been graded as a 91. However, if you're expecting to be dazzled by the quality of the photograph, you may be disappointed. CGS UIN 8978 is an interesting one. It's an 1884 shilling that is ex-Cheshire collection, previously NGS MS-64. CGS has graded it as 90.

Not for me, no. Imagine the exact same situation with brand new proof dies and a polished blank. It's still going to be slightly sharper than your currency piece and should get a higher score.

Well that is what is I hoped someone would say, otherwise what is the point of a 1-100 scale if only the top grades can be achieved by proof coins, while proof is not a grade? Does anyone have an example of a non-proof CGS 'fdc' coin? Still feels like a bit of an oxymoron ... Edit: our posts crossed Nick, do you have a take as to how an fdc description can apply to a non-proof coin? If you look at CGS UIN 2043. It is an 1816 shilling and has been graded as a 91. However, if you're expecting to be dazzled by the quality of the photograph, you may be disappointed.