Paddy

I certainly have noticed the site running very slowly for the last few days. Takes ages to switch from one section to another, and it is not my connection as every other site is going fine.

I'm assuming he means Fahrenheit - not many British ovens will do 300c without burning the house down!

... and for the unitiated, "Rang" is Peter's word for worthless or ugly coins. Translation service free of charge.

The Cillet Bang wouldn't shift anymore black, so out come the big guns - Hydrochloric acid (available surprisingly easily as "Spirit of Salts" at the local hardware store): So now all I need to do is "retone" it somehow. I have tried one suggested technique - mineral oil and gentle heating over a gas flame - but it has made little difference. It is now sat ready for the sunshine in the morning to see if that helps, though that may be a long process. I wondering whether to buy some Sodium Sulfide on the web to accelerate the process....

With the verdigris pretty much eliminated I went to work on the black staining, which the ammonia didn't touch. I tried detergent and surgical spirit - no response, so on to the next "killer" - Cillet Bang:

Well as you asked so nicely, here is progress over a number of posts. I tried Lemon Juice and then vinegar - no effect at all. I then went to ammonia, which is excellent at removing verdigris, but of course removes a lot more. After careful dabbing with a cotton bud we got to this:

That might be cruel - but I did pick up this one as an upgrade the other day. Not necessarily my favourite - I have posted those elsewhere - but not bad:

It cost me so little that I am using it as practice - trying a range of chemicals in increasing strength to see what happens. If I succeed in stripping it to bare metal I will then experiment with re-toning. If it looks any good at the end, I will post a picture - if not you wont hear from me again on the subject.

I quite like the albums and sleeves that WH Smiths do - the double action means they are easy to get in and out when you need to, but there is no chance of them escaping when you don't.

I don't get to coin fairs much myself anymore, but I am sure someone else will chip in. I found this website listed quite a few: https://www.antiques-atlas.com/dbevents/

Personally I find bullion coinage boring! Much of it is modern and it's only worth is the metal content. For me coin collecting is about history, so I like coins with age and a story to tell, from anywhere in the world. For me the focus has always been British coins, and the simplest goal there is for type sets for each monarch as far back as you can afford. If British coinage does not float your boat, then maybe World "Crown" size coins, being silver, comes closer to your bullion desire too. Just beware that in this area there are a lot of fakes on Ebay and elsewhere, so you really do need to do your research first - or find a dealer you can trust. As well as the books suggested, I would get either some albums (WH Smiths do a reasonable selection) or trays (from Numis or Lindner online) and sort what you have into them. This may focus your mind on what/how you want to collect. Get along to some coin fairs too - looking at a good dealers display may get your target clarified.

Welcome Stephen! I am glad we got you through the registration at last.

Well I have just visited a friend in Weymouth who has two of these, and based on the above conversation I have checked them - and they both fail. Wrong orientation, dent over the eyebrow, diagonal dent on the neck, breaks above P and E in Pense, even the dent halfway up the second 1 in the date. Even more worrying he bought his 10 years ago or so from a dealer in Arundel for £250 each. I fear there may be a great many of these out there. The only consolation for me is that my one seems to pass - orientation is correct and it matches none of the dents and scratches. If LCA got fooled twice in the same auction, it is a worry for us all.

Whoops - can't work out where I left my memory.

Ah yes - but I guess yours will not be cheap? BTW I don't think I have your website...

Yes, oversize images is a perennial problem here as you are restricted to 0.5Mb per posting. I use Photoscape, which is a free photo editing package, to resize them withing range.

Hmmm! That is concerning as that means either mine is a fake too, or the OP one is actually OK... Here is mine, which I bought about 5 years ago from an old guy I knew very well and had inherited it in a collection of other excellent coins from his father.

Looking for expertise please. I picked up the attached Halfpenny cheaply today - the seller had it marked as 1858, but on closer examination it appears to be 1859 with another number, possibly and 8, under the last digit. 3 Questions: 1. Is this a recognised variety? (I have Freeman but no other books on varieties.) 2. Is this an example of such a thing? 3. Whether I should try to clear off the verdigris, and if so, how? Cheers,

Any indication as to how they know it is a fake? Just so we know what to watch out for...