Mr T

I haven't looked closely to see if there is anything new but it's just a two page summary of new farthing, halfpenny and penny varieties since Freeman.

So in Iain Dracott's article in the November Coin News - I'm assuming that the C1 and J1 reverses he talks about are the C# and J# from his 2004 articles?

The only reverse D image I had handy was at https://headsntails14.wordpress.com/victoria-bronze-reverses/ and it looks like the new obverse has an extra strand on the tail of the helmet? Between the tail and Britannia's head.

Do you have a photo of the whole reverse out of curiosity? Are the two lines the only strange thing about it?

Okay that was my assumption too - the silver coins book doesn't go into the depth of Davies that's for sure. Any looked at a copy of the first edition?

I have nothing to contribute but congratulations on the new find! Must be very satisfying, although filling a gap you didn't know you had doesn't really get you closer the complete set.

My only thought is... die fill has occurred, then somehow the build-up in the die has fallen off and been struck onto the coin. Maybe. I'm not sure what else it could be.

Someone sent this to me the other day - it looks like the tin is full of valuable coins. Hardly the usual tin of granny's coins.

Sometimes it says there are unread posts if someone has modified a post.

Wait there was a first edition? What is it like compared to The Gold Sovereign?

Very nice. Is that example yours? I know it's a low mintage coin but surely it's not rare enough to warrant faking - there's hardly a shortage.

For me there would always be the element of doubt - mintmarks are one of those tiny areas that are prone to die fill.

Well-spotted - is it Freeman D or one of Paul Holland's reverse D variants? I don't think it's Holland D* at least.

I wrote that book so my opinion will be biased but I was also frustrated by the number of references I needed on hand, especially for halfpenny varieties. If you go to https://www.commonwealthcoins.net/book/british-fractional-bronze there's a link to a .pdf of the farthing section only if you want to get an idea of what it's like. Major differences to Freeman are that I consider Victoria obverses 11 and 12 the same (I looked at many photos and it looked like both obverses exhibited similar features, not to mention that some published diagnostics are contradictory) and the George VI varieties get some proper coverage. Any feedback, please send it my way.

Yeah there were certainly a few different systems in place. Looks like Canada and Honduras had 50c = one florin and Hong Kong had 50c = a half crown India, Mauritius and East Africa all had a rupee half way between the florin and half crown so they didn't quite match any denomination. All the lsd colonies had coins that were almost the same/the same (though Jamaica and Nigeria had some coins were a couple of mm off). I think Cyprus and Demerara and Essequibo were the only two that weren't lsd that had most coins match British coin sizes more or less. And India probably needed to decimalise more than any country with a system like that.

That's what I thought too but nothing to stop the melting in Canada or Mexico I assume. Again, unlikely to be economical any time soon.

What is the process for bronzing a copper coin?

Cyrpus had coins with roughly the same sizes as British silver coins (9 piastres was one shilling) and I read recently that Essequibo and Demerara were the same (one guilder was one shilling). Does anyone know of any other examples like this? I think most of the rest of commonwealth used the pound or some sort of dollar (where the half dollar usually seemed to be equivalent to a florin).

What are the page numbers of the last article? They're cut off.

Although I don't suppose it's illegal to melt British coins outside of Britain? Though it's hardly economical to transport a few kilos to France.

Surely not?

I thought that lots of American coin collectors hoarded the pre-1982 pennies for their copper, but I agree, surely not worth it in the long run.

Looks live a reverse D to me as well - the lighthouse matches.

I've noticed this error when trying to post a link a few times now.

Yeah, some "modern junk" is surprisingly hard to acquire.