DaveG38

A right motley looking lot!

All from this forum I guess.

Fabulous song. One of their best.

Not a bad replica compared to many I've seen.

Holed and in that grade and asking £349.99. What planet do some of these idiots live on? Surely, even the biggest coin collecting mug on earth would think twice about that?

I thought that Prince Philip still had a large collection - am I wrong?

Nice one. I hadn't noticed that comment.

But this date clearly didn't enter circulation. Perhaps the term business strike is a better one. In other words coins struck in quantity for circuation, not struck for testing or trial purposes that never got to mass production. For the same reason, I don't regard the 1945 silver threepence to be something I would collect, nor the Edward VIII coins of 1936. As much as anything my lack of interest stems from the lack of material, plus the lack of funds on the scale needed to buy them. For me all these kinds of coins are interesting curiosities that help define the history of numismatics and the nation, but nothing more.

This rarity problem is the reason why I only really collect currency pieces. That way, I can happily ignore these exotic coins, nice though they are, and at the same time, I'll never have an unfillable (is that a word?) gap. I can't think of anything more frustrating than being a dedicated penny collector, and by definition completist, and knowing that there are gaps I can never fill. Unless the unlikely combination of lottery win and the sale of these pieces come up around the same time - some hope!

Hideous design in my view.

From the surfaces shown in the website photograph, I'd say this coin is as bent as a nine-bob note. Don't touch it. Here's the website http://www.frasersauctionroom.co.uk/current_sale Any different opinions - its lot 130. Unless of course, its water damage, in which case still don't touch it.

Difficult to tell from the small photo, but it looks a bit too good, a bit too bright. Having said this, a nice grade example dipped would produce the same effect.

So, to raise the obvious quetion. Who IS buying at auction at inflated prices? The individual coins keep being sold as do the bulk lots. Is this new dealers investing in their stock? For myself, not a dealer as such, I can only say that I buy individual coins I want at auction, or I buy a bulk lot of high grade where I can upgrade my own coins and then sell all the spares on, usually on ebay. This generally allows me to upgrade at virtually no cost, since the receipts from the spares more or less cover the cost of the lots. Its not an exact science but broadly works.

Ah, I see. It wasn't what I expected when I clicked the link.

I'm still checking my examples and trying to sort them sensibly, so give me a short while and I'll PM you with the details.

Curious link when you click on www.argentumandcoins.co.uk

I agree that both the quantities struck and the problems of QC at the mint probably do mean that there will be many varieties of these coins. I've examined some 24 of these coins for 2016 so far and it is striking that there are variations in 23 of them. If I were to take say the 1967 penny, and examine just 24 of those from various sources, I doubt I would find any varieties let alone 23. Having said that, the variations I'm finding are not miniscule, at least not when set against some of the accepted predecimal varieties. For instance, the differentiators for some predecimal types often include the pointings of letters to beads or to spaces, and also the spacing of letters and colons etc. plus, sometimes, the number of border beads or the thickness of the rim. All of the distinguishing features found so far for the 2016 £1 coins are of the same general scale. On the obverse of the new coins, the truncation can intrude into the outer ring, it can touch the ring, it can have a small gap to the ring and it can have a large gap to the ring. Ditto, the diadem can intrude into the ring, touch the ring or leave a gap to the ring. Also, the spacing of the obverse lettering from the ring varies. What is curious though is that there seem to be 10 variations, so far, of combinations of these features. Usually, with varieties you find a set of factors which combine to produce 2 or maybe 3 variants, but here there are a much larger number in a very small sample. I don't think it makes any difference to the financial value of such coins. For the most part, they are worth £1 and that's all, but from a collecting point of view, it does mean there is quite a lot to look out for if you are a variety collector like myself.

So far I have found 6 edge types identified as follows: Edge 1 Milling to right and starts halfway right of centre of the shield Edge 2 Milling to right and starts slightly right of centre of the shield Edge 3 Milling to right and starts at centre of the shield Edge 4 Milling to right and starts halfway left of centre of the shield Edge 5 Milling to right and starts slightly left of centre of the shield Edge 6 Milling to left and starts slightly left of centre of the shield Apart from the fact that I have only found 1 coin out of 23 with the milling to the left of centre, thus making it rarer than the others, I have no feel for the relative scarcity of the different types.

Interestingly, I've studied each and every pound coin received so far. That's a total of 23 coins and the number of types found has been 23! In other words, every coin has been slightly different. This also doesn't include those types reported by other people. For example those where the main date of the coin is 2016 and the reverse dates around the rim are 2017.

Thanks for this. As you say, a useful book. I just wondered if I had somehow missed something regarding Charles II halfpennies, athough I guess if Peck didn't find anything then I'm not likely to have done.

Just looked up a 1683 fourpence in Cope and Raynor First Edition 1975, and glanced at the opposing page (p13) which is concerned with Charles II halfpennies. I notice that there is mention of a 1679 copper halfpenny, plus 1684 and 1685 tin halfpennies as well. I'm guessing this is a mistake especially as the 1684 is shown as 1654. What I find curious is that the page is titled 'HALFPENNIES (copper and tin)' which kind of suggested that there should be some tin halfpennies of Charles II. The second thing is that it may simply be that the halfpenny page is a copy of the farthing page and nobody noticed the error, but the rarities quoted for the tin farthings are not the same as those quoted for the tin halfpennies, and the date of the 1684 farthing is 1684, not 1654, suggesting that somebody did consider this when the book was written. I can't find reference to any tin halfpennies of Charles II in Peck, so does anybody know what the situation is? Was there a later edition of this book which corrected the errors, if that's what they are?

Have now spent far too much time analysing specimens of the new pound coins, and have established the following varieties: There are, so far, 10 obverses, 6 edge types and 15 reverse types. So far the combinations of these obverses, edges and reverses is as follows: Obv 1 Edge 1 Rev A Obv 2 Edge 2 Rev B Obv 3 Edge 3 Rev C Obv 4 Edge 4 Rev D Obv 5 Edge 4 Rev E Obv 6 Edge 3 Rev F Obv 6 Edge 3 Rev G Obv 6 Edge 5 Rev H Obv 5 Edge 5 Rev A Obv 6 Edge 3 Rev H Obv 7 Edge 5 Rev J Obv 8 Edge 3 Rev K Obv 9 Edge 6 Rev L Obv 9 Edge 3 Rev M Obv 9 Edge 3 Rev N Obv 8 Edge 2 Rev O Obv 9 Edge 3 Rev G Obv 10 Edge 5 Rev G Obv 9 Edge 5 Rev C Obv 4 Edge 2 Rev H Obv 8 Edge 2 Rev B Obv 4 Edge 2 Rev A Obv 7 Edge 2 Rev B The key obverse indicators are the position of the truncation, the position of the top of the diadem and the gap between the 'T' and the inner ring. For the reverse, the indicators are the right hand leaf of the thistle, the part of the rose centre which is cut by the inner ring, the position of the 'D' relative to the inner ring and the position of the small DP, again in relation to the inner ring. As far as the edges go, the type is indicated by whether the milling below the shield is to the left or right and where it actually starts from. I also have one specimen where the JC on the obverse is 'squashed' into the truncation, instead of being separated from it. Not sure how that happened. In addition, two specimens have a missing lower leg of the 'P' in 'DP'. All this from a relatively small sample of 2016 coins, which tends to suggest that the Mint's standards have slipped. It may well be that each of the types I have analysed has other indicators that further differentiate them. To be honest my brain hurts (and my eyes) with all this checking and cross checking. If anyone is interetsed, or is doing any research themselves, I'm happy to provide details of the indicators for each type I have found.

The smaller coin (penny I guess) has WRL clearly on show, so nobody should be fooled. The larger coin is overlapped by the smaller making me suspicious about what is underneath the overlap. My money would be another WRL.

No, those lines across the obverse are not typical of mint wiping, but suggest some kind of cleaning post mint.

Apologies if I have raised this question before - the old grey cells ain't waht they used to be. Does anybody know how to artificially tone dipped silver, so that it quickly tones back down to a dull grey? And for the avoidance of doubt, I'm not talking about rainbow toning using an oven. I'm asking because I'm reconstituting a maundy set and the 4d is blast white, whilst the rest are nicely and evenly toned. Yes, I know, why not just buy another better toned 4d and sell the dipped one. I might, but in the meantime does anyone have any recommendations?