Red Riley

Or perhaps some baby oil...

Hi Peteuk, welcome to the forum. Condition of the coins is very important, but as a start can you post images of the 1903 and 1918 penny reverses (tails side). As you have surmised, the vast bulk of these will be worthless but you never know...

I alway s come back to the days in the late 60s and early 70s working on the cash desk in my dad's shop. A few random thoughts; Silver from the whole of George V's reign was pretty common i.e. 1911 up, but it did get scarcer as time went on. The oldest silver I can recall was an 1872 florin (just legible) but that was the only Gothic I ever saw. Anything pre-1911 was pretty scarce. Pre-1947 silver was still around but getting fairly shabby by that time, say Fine max. Unpleasant to handle as worn coins tend to stick together. I never saw a 'Standing Britannia' florin in circulation so extrapolating that fact, I would say that the 1950s is way too late for the demise of the Gothic florin. I would guess that other than the odd straggler they dropped out of use around the time of the First World War; Banks withdraw underweight coins for the simple reason that, certainly at that time, change was weighed into bags and not counted. Worn coins therefore mess up their calculations. 92.5% silver wears very quickly, much more so than today's cupro-nickel issues and after 20 or so years we are perhaps talking Fine. It was not unusual to see at say 1970, the George V Modified Effigy series with the legend at least half worn away. I find the actual use of coins in circulation and how they wear to be a fairly absorbing topic. More thoughts as they occur to me.

Which translated means, 'I saw, green, I conquered' Back to school Dave...

Brute aderat forte Caesar adsum jam Brute sic in omnibus Caesar sic intram. Will that do? I was fortunate in that my old Dad taught me Roman numerals when I was about six (why, I have no idea) and I've remembered them ever since.

Coin images are frankly a nightmare. I've been known to photograph a coin a dozen times just to get it to look like it does in the hand and in certain cases I've failed and just put it in the back of a cupboard in despair. Silver is easier than bronze, copper and even gold where the lack of tone makes a coin look 'flat'. If a base metal coin has uneven or mottled toning, the camera confuses this with its design contours and even though the coin may be near to uncirculated, the result is simply a muddle. When a coin has the slightest speck of verdigris, virtually invisible to the naked eye, an image can make it stand out like a spotlight.

The medal/medallion on the queen's shoulder is the acid test here. You can also try the lions on the reverse, but quite frequently the dies blocked up and muffled the detail.

Last time I used them it got lost somewhere between Mombassa and Timbuktu...

On the other hand the coins may be several hundred years old by the time they are slabbed. Somehow or other their lustre/tone has survived to this point. If you treat them with care they shouldn't really change that much.

Totally agree. In cases like the rare 1905 halfcrown, where fakes exist, CGS comes into its own. Yes I agree, the only coins worth slabbing are those where the market has become overheated and there is a problem with Far Eastern forgeries. Northumberland Shillings spring to mind.

I think that makes it more likely that it is a modern forgery. Viking settlements were seldom on the site of modern towns (or if they were, the towns have expanded exponentially). More likely a kid got it on a school trip to the Yorvik Centre, got bored of it and lobbed it out the window.

And if you're not interested...

Just a bag or box or whatever where you throw the coins you aren't immediately interested in.

I agree that it is similar to the tone found on ancient coins and although the surface is stable, nobody is going to buy a coin that colour whereas it might be worth £10 or so with a normal patina. Anyway, here it is; The scan, as usual makes it look far worse than it is. The obverse is far less badly affected.

Among the coins in a bulk lot I acquired at London Coins auction last Sunday was quite a pleasant little 1867 halfpenny in NEF condition. Although it doesn't suffer from verdigris, its tone, although only visible in certain lights is dark green. Has anybody come across this phenomenon before and if so, have you had any luck in converting it to something a little more conventional? If not, it'll have to go in my 3 for £1 box.

Don't know, I'm only a new boy there. If he is, we'll no doubt find out (cue begging letters...)

I hope I'm not revealing any confidences here, but one of the regular members of the Reading coin club was grubbing around in his odds and ends bag (we've all got one) the other day and pulled out a well worn 1863 penny. A quick clean revealed the die number 5 (in the 'H' position). Only the second known apparently...

I mean honestly, what a load of twonk.

Phew! Thank God for that, my head was aching trying to remember all the hammer prices you were asking me for.

Crikey, now you're asking! My recollection was that it went for a bit more than upper estimate but I didn't keep a record. Currently sorting out the 153 coins I bought...

Surely that can be a mixed blessing. Thinking that you had not won the coin, you go on and bid for another lot or several and spend your last penny on them. Then you get the bill for the coin you originally wanted but thought you hadn't won...

Crikey, Derek. Is that your 26ME? Or is it a 27? 'No it's my personal 26 ME' he lied.

If you think any are, post pictures on here and we'll check them for you.

Tumbleweed blowing slowly across the desert...

Your wish is my command. If my computer's not playing silly b*ggers, the second image is the ME. Quality may not be great in order to fit within the size limits. Yes, it's playing silly b*ggers, it told me that was going to be 10 cm. across... You should however be able to download and enlarge if you have the right equipment.