Paddy

Hi @youliveyoulean and welcome to the forum! I do not collect the Silver proof decimal coins myself, so I do not know much about their relative scarcity without referring to books or the Royal Mint website. Chris Perkins book "Collectors Coins - Decimal Issues of the United Kingdom", which is much promoted on the home page, lists mintage figures for most Decimal Silver proof coins, so that would be a good basis for you exploration.

Yes - I had got as far as the Gallo Belgic Staters - I just needed to know the other side was blank. Not really my area - I have two books that vaguely cover it: Standard Spinks (my version is 2011). Closest match in here is S11 - but that expects a zigzag below the horse, which yours clearly isn't. R P Mack Coinage of Ancient Britain 1975. Here it is M27 and describes a "Decorated exergual line" beneath the horse, which may cover yours but may not! The pictures in Mack are so poor it is difficult to be sure what they are looking at. From your recollections of what Philip said, it certainly does sound unusual and probably something the British Museum would like to see. From your picture it certainly looks more like a figure covered with shields - possibly a funeral ritual? That's as much as I can help - I hope someone else chips in.

Wow yes! That guy must be seriously deranged, but the sad thing is, no matter how much the authorities may fear he is dangerous, until he does something crazy they can't detain him. In the old days we had asylums for this sort of person - now we only have prisons. He deserves to spend the rest of his life in one now, but if he had been identified and detained earlier, his victim would still be alive and he could have been dealt with more humanely.

I think the Americans would say: I take the Fifth!

Welcome @Paul O to the forum! Very nice looking coin - Can you post a photo of the other side? Also some idea of scale and weight would help. Where did you get the understanding that the symbol below the horse is a torc? Did you get an identification of which coin it is? It certainly doesn't look like a torc to me, so it may have been a mis-identification in the first place. With a view of the other side I am sure someone here will be able to tell you more.

I agree wholeheartedly with Paulus! I set myself a huge target initially - one of each and every British coin (date and type) from the start of milled coinage to date. In the early days I was filling gaps quickly - not much challenge in acquiring most 20th century pre-decimal coins, but still satisfying as the albums filled up. As I knew exactly what I wanted, I could lable the slots in the album for the coins that were intended to fill them, and so filling gaps became a very visible accomplishment. As time went on, it became much more difficult to fill gaps. Ebay got a lot of my business but soon the prices of the few remaining became prohibitive. Auction houses turned up a few more, but then I got into buying "job lots" either at auctions or through adverts in the local paper. With these I get the great satisfaction of searching and sorting through everything, labelling up for onward sale anything outside my area, and then (joy of joys) comparing any within my area to the current place holder. If the newbie is better than the old, then a swap is made and an upgrade achieved. A spreadsheet became a necessity to keep track on where I was, and the collection steadily improved. Only more recently have I got into photos - mainly for sharing on forums like this. At present I only have a scanner, but with the next bonus I must get a decent camera set up going so I can do better. In the meantime - the thrill of the chase to fill gaps or get an upgrade. Only today a 1748 halfpenny upgrade from barely Fine to GVF!

Sorry for rattling your cage - I only posted images of the thing, I didn't make it.

We don't seem to have a slot for British Colonies so I guess these belong here. Picked up yesterday in a job lot - not had any of them in hand before: Gibraltar 2 Quarts 1842/1 Essquibo & Demerary 1 Stiver 1813 St Helena Halfpenny 1821

In case anyone is interested, this is an extract of the RM 1994 flyer on the Royal Mint trials at the time, showing both styles of £2 being considered and also options on the 50p. If anyone would like to see the whole document, please let me know.

Yes - I know all that - I have both the bimetallic RM set showing construction, and the single metal trial of the same year. My point is, if the latter can be recalled, where does it end? There have been many trial coins over the last 200 years or more. In particular there were 50p trials in the same year (1994) as mentioned on page 33 in Chris's book. Are these also now ilegal in private hands? Under what law (if any) could the RM demand them back? BTW, I contacted the RM when I first obtained the single metal version and they kindly sent me literature pertaining to the trials in 1994 for both 50p and £2 coins. It includes pictures of both varieties of the trial 50p and £2 coins - if Chris P is watching, would you be interested in copies for your future publications?

The bi-metallic £2 coin was issued in packs - the single metal version was not. That is the one that concerns me. (Mentioned on page 71 of Chris's excellent book on Decimal coins.)

Fair point - most of the other trial coins that are collected are for coins thaat never entered circulation in that format. Still not sure what "law" they can apply though.

Yes - I was wondering where all the much older trial coins are left if this one is now deemed illegal to sell. Would also be interesting to hear a lawyer's point of view. Is it illegal to sell from a criminal or civil point of view? If the latter (as I suspect) then the only person breaking the law would be the one who was issued the coin by the RM and then failed to return it. There is no contract between the RM and anyone else who might have come across one (in change for example). If it is a criminal matter - what law has been broken?

I wonder where this leaves all the previous trial coins produced by the Royal Mint? I have the single colour 1994 £2 coin, which was never issued for sale - I presume I would run into the same problems selling it? (The bi-metallic one is OK as the RM sold it in sets.)

Not sure if Ebay have pulled them too, or just they are all sold. I can't find any still for sale there at the moment...

Looks like they are finally getting on with the circulation issue of the Hastings 1066 50p coin: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-37610910

Not much of my stuff is good enough to show much toning, but I pulled out these 3 that look OK:

I thought this was resolved - The Royal Mint had authorised a run of up to 100,000 and this figure was initially fed out to the media, however recent enquiries to the Royal Mint by Sarah - copied earlier in this thread - got the response that only 17951 were actually produced.

It seems to be real, though I am not sure how rare yet. This is one of many completed listings for them: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/50p-2015-Battle-Of-Britain-ERROR-NO-DENOMINATION-Uncirculated-/182192563983?hash=item2a6b85e70f%3Ag%3AYToAAOSwvg9XWVVH&nma=true&si=zZhGW%252BO%252B5CIGHB58mUnWTxAkPqo%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 It may not be an error as such, and it seems possible the early release coins in the folders were struck with the 4th bust (and no denomination) whereas the circulation run was struck with the 5th bust. Not found the 4th bust in circulation yet.

Yes I wish there were some way of stopping the constant stream of new "rareties" that Ebay sellers keep inventing. I regularly sell collectable decimal coinage at flea markets and I am approached almost every week by someone trying to tell me about the latest scarcity going for a fortune on the net. Poorly struck letters, missing dots and "upside down" lettering are standard fare. Then there are the attempts to declare some regular struck coin as rare - there was a concerted effort to make the Benjamin Britten 50p into another Kew Gardens recently. Two rumours I am less sure are spurious, which someone here might be able to clarify: The water lines across the face on the Olympics 2011 Aquatics 50p The 2015 Battle of Britain 50p struck with the type 4 obverse instead of the type 5, resulting in a coin with no denomination.

I was never a great fan of the Whitman folders - either the coins kept falling out and people used glue or selotape to hold them in, or they got so firmly stuck that you destroyed the folder if you tried to remove them. I think the gap in the market has been filled to an extent by the new "Coin Hunter" series, which I think is from the Royal Mint. Certainly it has boosted the interest in all modern 50ps, not just the Olympic ones.

I switch allegiance to the pre-strike camp, an idea I had not heard of before. I cannot see them as adjustment marks - no one would adjust across the centre of the coin, particularly if it meant defacing the monarch. I hear the arguments against it being deliberate defacement - the parallel nature of the lines and the fact that they are evident in other places on the coin away from the head.

As I am also a member on the US Cointalk forum I passed on a link to this thread over there. It seems that many of them already know of this company and none (so far) have a good word to say of them. Here is the link: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/dodgy-company-from-the-us-trying-it-on-in-the-uk.284440/#post-2530327 although may need to login/register in order to see it.

I go the other way - I have always seen adjustment marks done to the edge of the coin, often with a file. I can't see the practicality of scraping metal off across the middle. Also it would have been taken as a slight to the king in any case.

Haven't seen any of those yet - another gap to deal with! (but to be fair I would rather a Saxon penny to fill one of my gaps....)