Mr T

Has anyone read The Diary of Leonard Wyon? It was published by Spink a few years ago: https://spinkbooks.com/products/hard-at-work-the-diary-of-leonard-wyon-1853-1867-by-attwood-p-bns-sp9 Is there anything new or interesting in there related to the coins he worked on?

https://media.baldwin.co.uk/auctions/Baldwins Auction/BA catalogues/Baldwins auction 95 - catalogue.pdf

Oh nice - they're back.

The centre one's not too bad.

Nice - though at 26 pages I'll have to put some time aside for this. Thanks for posting.

I agree - to me it's only really a proof if it's mirror finish with frosted devices, though I know in many cases that's wrong. My understanding was that a lot of 19th century proofs (and possibly early 20th century) "proofs" (i.e. without contrasted finish) were just nice early strikes anyway, but were labelled as proofs.

In the 1970s a guy named David Gee produced fake 1902S two and five pound coins (in gold) - I thought this might be an off-metal attempt.

Agreed - probably they didn't want to pay the developers of the new site to bring across the old data.

It looks like Baldwin's have a new website and have thrown out all of their previous auction catalogues as a result. Would anyone happen to have a .pdf of the catalogue for auction 95 in 2015? I'm looking for details on https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=1242&lot=2305 and https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=1242&lot=2307

Although I think he means 1881 as 1880 is P and P*.

I ended up getting a response from Iain Dracott - C1 is C# and J1 is J#, and 1880 has the following die pairings: 15+O, 15+O#, 15# +O, 15#+O#

5mm-6mm difference - I think it probably is a halfpenny planchet.

Too early for Cyprus or Straits Settlements and British Honduras is what I was thinking of when I wrote Guyana, but the British Honduras cent was copper and 29mm - I think there is probably more than 2mm missing there.

That's more likely - maybe Guyana or Cypress? I didn't hunt down a bigger picture but I can't see fishtailing on the letters which is supposed to confirm an undersize planchet I thought.

Not bad.

I'll have to dig out what I have at some point but I've never purchased anything specifically as a matte - have you ever seen an unbroken cardboard set with matte coins in it? My memory may be playing tricks on me but maybe I saw one on ebay years ago. And what does a matte actually look like? I know the uncirculated coins have a brilliant finish and proofs have cameo surfaces with frosted designs.

Yeah the more I think about it, the more I think I've seen not many matte coins for sale - there are some Cook Islands matte coins for sale on ebay now and... I'm not sure. I agree that toning can play tricks.

I can imagine - my Franklin Mint interests are only the Cook Islands and Solomon Islands, and the 1982 and 1983 Solomon Islands coins are rare. Clearly the bubble had burst by 1982 so I can only imagine how tough it must be to find anything from 1984.

This got me thinking - was it just Davies' observation of both types of threepence and sixpence or had only threepence and sixpence production started when the alloy was changed?

Not sure - of the notes I've made for myself the only thing I can make out well enough is those bottom two berries and I think on obverse 13 they should be different sizes, whereas on obverse 11/12 they are the same size.

Not sure about the mattes either - I think there was a Cook Islands matte 50c piece for sale on ebay recently and it was rather expensive.

Well done - are there 1984 proof sets?

I don't disagree, but the comparators did seem more helpful than the subjective neck thickness and nose hookedness. Does anyone have Iain Dracott's details to get some more information?

So 11* is new - probably need a photo to make sense of it but a recut tie ribbon and overlapping berries make it sound a bit easier to diagnose than Freeman obverses 11 and 12. 1877 13+N also looks new though I'm not sure what the comment is getting as the obverse and reverse are both well-known. 1880 15+O* also looks new but based on the comment about all four die pairings, 15*+P* would seem to be the die. Or maybe it's meant to be 1881 where 15+O* was reported by him in 2004. Also I assume O* is Dracott O#. Nothing new in the farthings that I can see.

Hm, I'm still not sure - the extra strand on the helmet tail seems to be present on Holland D* reverse pennies but maybe not on the others. More digging required but it seems like D* is the most common at a glance.