Paddy

OK - so I have copied it across: "I am not sure there are any experts specifically on Victorian penny forgeries, but there are lots of Penny experts here, who can spot a forgery a mile off! Are you looking at contemporary forgeries (I am not aware there are many of those), or the ubiquitous modern fakes? I think a new thread would be best."

I am not sure there are any experts specifically on Victorian penny forgeries, but there are lots of Penny experts here, who can spot a forgery a mile off! Are you looking at contemporary forgeries (I am not aware there are many of those), or the ubiquitous modern fakes? I think a new thread would be best.

After another couple of months, it now looks like this. This photo taken with the new camera I have just picked up - I have not quite got the hang of the focus and exposure yet - sorry! The "copper disease" is much less evident in the hand and the coin will never be perfect again, but I think better than it was.

I then set about an attempt to retone the coin. A thin coating in vegetable oil and then left on the window ledge in the sun. After a couple of months, it looked like this:

Here is the coin after cleaning. I started with the Sodium sequicarbonate, both hot and quick and slow and cold, which removed most of the patina but not the verdigris. I resorted to a short dip in diluted Ammonia, which got rid of the verdigris and most of the residual patina. The remaining red staining would not shift - is this "Copper disease"?

I have been experimenting with trying to recover a 1739 Half penny since December. I am going to post 4 pictures to show how things went. Firstly, this is the start point after I had picked the coin up and given it a quick Acetone wash, only to discover the verdigris hidden under old polish/varnish or whatever.

OK - I have taken both routes! The phone holder is on it's way with Amazon, so I will report on that later. In the meantime I have picked up a refurbished Pentax K20, which is similar to my old Kr. I am still learning to drive it - I need to work on the focus and I haven't figured out how to control the exposure time yet. I am about to post some pics in the Free for All section, so you can see there...

Thanks both, that is helpful. I will report back... P

I think a snuff box is unlikely. A screw fit is too likely to clog up and too fiddly to open for a regular snuff taker. A tape measure is a good call, in which case it may be very difficult to take apart.

This is indirectly related to coins, but any advice welcome. I have been using a Pentax DSLR with a standard 50mm lens and Macro rings mounted on a small tripod for my coin photography, and have achieved acceptable results. Now the Pentax body has given up the ghost. It was a bit erratic for a while, but now comes up completely dead. (I have tried checking and recharging the batteries to no avail.) As I see it, I have two options: 1. Replace the Pentax body. A new one would cost around £900. A second hand one on Ebay may be cheaper, but then reliability might be dodgy? 2. I can switch over to using my mobile phone. I can buy a mount to fix the phone to the tripod cheaply, and I can sort out the lighting, but would the results be good enough? Has anyone there had experience of doing it this way and can comment? (My phone is a Motorola Android.) Cheers

Thanks @Jacqui for the edge pictures. With the knurling on the edges I would think this one will unscrew, the ridges offering the extra grip necessary to make the twist. If/when you get it open, you may be able to see the other sides of the shillings. PS - if you find you can't get it to unscrew, try a little 3in1 oil in the joins.

Nice curiosity! What size is it? Difficult to see what denomination of Queen Anne coin has been used. I think we would need to see pics of the edge and hinge (if any) to guess how to open it. It may just be a push fit that has become too tight, or there may have been a catch on the opposite edge to the ring. I have also seen things where the ring mount itself can be pulled or twisted to unlock the box. Some tobacco boxes just required squeezing in a particular direction. Could be almost anything!

That one has been ended by the seller last night. I wonder if in reaction to a tip off that it is a fake or because some mug bought it?

I cannot say definitely that is the case, but it certainly seems a possibility. I suppose the other way would be if parts of the die were fragile and broke off around the nascent crack, but I don't think the metal used in the dies was usually that brittle.

Could be they drilled a small hole in the die to limit the crack. It is a well known technique to drill a small hole at the end of a crack as it reduces the stress at the tip and so makes it less likely the crack will propagate further.