Paddy

Great link @Sword. The drawing from the OP appears about half way down and the debate is whether it is Elizabeth I or Mary I. I don't think Mary Queen of Scots is suggested.

Is this group any use to anyone here? PM a reasonable offer to include postage.

Well with a bunch of other tokens and bits, the whole lot went for £14 hammer. Someone got a bargain I think!

I see this example on Numista: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces378246.html As noted there, extremely rare and should be gold. As such, quite a high chance of being a replica or fake. Picture of the other side is what we need first along with some idea of how it was discovered. If it proves to be genuine, you might have quite a valuable piece there!

Could we see the other side please? Also, can you crop the picture so we can see it better? First thought is that the letters look to be in the Greek alphabet.

Listing has now been ended by the seller. I messaged them yesterday again pointing out it was an obvious fake - I don't know if this had any effect.

Ah well, they have now all gone off to auction as part of a job lot. Anyone belatedly interested, let me know and I can tell you which auction and lot number - comes up Friday 10th November, so after that you are too late! 🙂

Sorting through the rest of the farthings I bought on Monday I noticed that I now have two 1860 F496 farthings with very different die cracks. Just thought I would post them for interest:

I am not the slightest bothered if anyone wants to declare another micro-variety on this. I would point out though that of the two I posted, the one that differs from the standard as posted on the aboutfarthings.co.uk website, is the first one, for which the condition is pretty good.

It was not the die crack that led to the discussion about another micro-variety but the difference in the colon after F:D

I agree - I wasn't searching for a new variety. In any case, with the aboutfarthings.co.uk site frozen I'm not sure who or where new farthing varieties are being logged now.

Welcome! First to say - never use Brasso on any coin - it would destroy any value there might be. Anything that won't come off with warm soapy water and a soft sponge is best left, and if the coin is in great condition with good lustre, don't even try that. Sadly 1967 pennies are extremely common. The range of prices you are seeing is down to Ebayers chancing it in the hope of catching a mug. Even in Brilliant Uncirculated condition you would be lucky to get £1 for one, and anything less they are scrap metal. @Sword has replied while I was typing with much the same response.

Yes - I assumed that at first, but with both pictures up I can see that the colon after F:D is 1 1/2 dots on the first one, but 2 full dots on the second.

... and the second:

Our friend Lukasz again - I think he has been discussed on this forum before.

I probably won't be able to answer this query, but I think we need to know what era you are looking at, as the identifying features are likely to be different. I was looking at mid 18th century halfpennies earlier and see that Peck notes slight differences in the positioning of some features of the coin for proofs.

Some may remember that I had a small batch of these a while back. I have one left and in my clear out it has to go. Inevitably it is the least good of the batch and the lustre has broken down in a few patches, but it is still pretty good. First sensible offer by PM, to include postage, gets it. Paddy

This has now gone to auction, so you are all too late! If you want to know which auction, PM me.

I am considering it - depends how high it goes! So far I have only gathered contemporary counterfeits in passing when they have come in with other coins, and all are in the 1770s. I have handled a few evasions, but always sold those on as the Americans tend to go crazy for them. The only list I have at the moment is at the back of the Withers Token book One.

That was the conclusion I was coming to. Seemed unusual to see one dated so early - I usually associate the contemporary counterfeits with the late 18th century but I see some of the evasions are dated much earlier, so that makes sense.

Here is the reverse:

Any thoughts on this? Vendor's picture, so please don't ask me for better ones. Described as 1739 Halfpenny, and size and reverse seem about right but this bust looks wrong to me. Is it a contemporary counterfeit, a modern forgery, or just unusual deformation of the portrait?

I use Chrome and am having no problems at all. The address bar does show "Not Secure" but it always has done in the forum area as far as I know. It might be worth checking/comparing your Chrome security settings. Click on the three dots in the top right corner of the browser window and select "Settings" and then "Privacy and Security". Under "Safe browsing" I have "Standard" rather than "Enhanced" selected. Further down under Advanced I have "Always use secure connections" turned off. I am not necessarily suggesting you change your settings, but if they are different it may explain where the issue is. Further - I just tried putting https before the predecimal address and got a "Not allowed" message where previously it said "Not Secure".

I usually rely on others to sort these out for me, but as no one seems to be replying, I will add my thoughts: I think the 1* obverse is clear - the lack of knot with the beaded border is clear. Not so sure about the reverse. The halfpenny website mentions A and A# , not A* - was it A# you meant? See https://halfpennyvarieties.wordpress.com/victoria-reverses/ A close up of the shield might help - looking for the extra incuse line for A rather than A#. Variations in the position of the 0 in the date are mentioned for both, so that alone is not an identifier. In any case the website suggests that in either case they are not that scarce. Or maybe I have missed the point with the A*?

... and I did not dispute that "fact" though I have seen no evidence to support it. If it happened 50 years ago, it was wrong then and remains wrong today. I doubt that it was as wholesale and targeted in the past. I was at university 45 years ago and I recall very little of what you describe. My fact, supported by current evidence, was completely discounted based on left wing bias against any media that does not support their narrow viewpoint. What really gets me is that the Labour party, supposedly champions of the working classes, for which I laud them, has now become the puppet of wealthy, privately educated and privileged trendies from London.