Red Riley

Another thing that I noticed at W & W last week was what I perceived as a severe shortage of individual lots. Did anybody else pick this up? I have only been to one W & W auction before so this may be normal, but in my view there just didn't seem to be a huge amount there.

I hope your northern coin auction does get off the ground, at present the whole thing seems very South East/Midlands centred and although my chances of attending a sale in Newcastle or Carlisle are slim, it will at least give northern dealers/collectors a chance to get a slice of the action, which I clearly didn't do over lot 20!

I would go with violence and persistence but otherwise agree with you. There are too many people in prison for non-violent crimes they are never going to repeat (remember the case of, I think it was Gary Hart who accidentally drove a trailer onto a railway line which caused a fatal accident? He was gaoled because he had had insufficient sleep the night before. A case crying out for a community sentence, but instead he got 3 years - a total waste of time and money).

Be prepared for myriad edge knocks, laminate is much more numismatics friendly.

I tried that one on a recent purchase... Unfortunately, the auction house decided that the invoice/receipt needed to be sent to my home address, and given that Mrs Cerbera and I share the same first initial and the aforementioned auction house hadnt thought to prefix 'J Cerbera' with Mr or Mrs, she opened it Was I for the high jump that evening when I got home from work! Hmmm... the answer out of that one is to say that you bought it at a good price and intend to make a profit on it, that usually placates them. If she investigates further, just open an enquiry entitled 'cosmetics - cost of' that should work. Having been in wedded bliss for 35 years, I consider myself something of an expert on the subject.

You are probably right. I thought estimates were there to help the bidder, not to be used as a commercial tool. In this case, the estimates were as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

I would echo that several lots sold, a predictable price obtained and no obvious problems.

Usually unexpected wear like this is due to it having been kept in a purse or a pocket for an extended period of time with the rest of the loose change (and people used a lot more of it in those days). 10 years in those conditions doesn't do anything for the grade!

To be honest, I was very pleased with the lot that I bought which strangely was not heavily bid; around 150 coins, 100 total junk but the rest quite saleable whether on e-bay or through my website. Not only did it include the cu-ni error coin that we have been talking about recently but also an 1804 dollar in condition approaching VF, an 1887 YH shilling above EF and an 1855 obv. 2 farthing in NEF. I would estimate that I could easily double my money without charging outlandish prices although to be fair I need a hell of a lot more like this to make a living... A feature of the auction was the number of bids from the floor, far more than I had seen at previous sales either there, at Lockdales or London Coins. I don't envy you, John, living so far from the main auction centres as it appears to me that in the present climate, distance bids are doomed to fail.

With cleaning, I would go for about £20-£25 on a good day. They are interesting coins but quite common ones (I've got no less than four in Fine-VF), so Palves, tell your friend to keep his money in his pocket and shop around. Just one word of warning, they do get rather expensive in the very highest grades.

I don't know... the colour of the obverse is similar to a well-worn specimen that I have (http://pennycrowncoins.co.uk/shopping/pgm-more_information.php?id=103&=SID) whilst the reverse colour is either in need of Photoshopping or has already been 'shopped. Purely on the strength of the photograph I'm going for genuine.

Im just a naturally jolly fellow.

Bit of a Naughtie moment...

I'll tell you exactly what I think it is. 1967 pennies went on being minted at Tower Hill until 1970 I believe. I also think that Llantrisant (known locally as 'the hole with the mint') came on stream in what, 1969 or 1970 and until at least 1971 was only producing the vast quantity of bronze required for decimalisation. It therefore follows that Tower Hill was making everything else including the new 5, 10 and 50P coins. When the immediate rush had died down, the old mint would wind down and the workers at Tower Hill were faced with the choice of moving to South Wales or being made redundant. It is a time-honoured British tradition that workers thrown on the dole in such a way have a slightly cavalier approach to their work. They don't sabotage things exactly, but they certainly don't work quite as their employers would like. I think we can propose up all sorts of theories about proofs and trial strikings etc. but I am sure that what happened was that a disgruntled employee simply threw a 10P blank into the penny hopper and this coin is the result. Peckris has already said that 1967 pennies are renowned for the quantity of strange errors that occur (including his famous 'clunking' penny) which would tend to back up my theory. So, nothing complicated just a worker, soon to be made redundant, who had a few too many beers one lunch time and indulged in a very minor act of vandalism. Do I get 'Post of the Day' for that?

What kind of help? I'm happy to help where I can. (Mutters under breath "bagsy pennies or halfcrowns") As long as somebody else does the gold.

Hi Chris, This is clearly an item which transcends mere coin collecting and moves into the area of memorabilia. Could go well at an auction but even they might have trouble deciding what to catalogue it under!

It is undenible that grading has changed but there would be pause for thought if a particular design was always coming up with strange bi-grades such as GVF/F (I'm not saying that applies to this particular coin) and I suspect that there has been a trend to even these things out a little. Some anomolies however still exist and it is commonplace for most George V coins to have a higher grade on the reverse than the obverse, principally because the obverse has so little detail that what there is quickly erodes leaving a largely smooth head whilst retaining a very bold legend. The 1902 crown seems to work in the opposite way to the halfcrown - if you lay it on a table obverse down, the whole thing pivots on the side of the king's head but turn it over, and it sits perfectly flat. The result is a worn head and an apparently unworn reverse. Who said grading was simple!

Amongst a batch of unremarkable George VI halfcrowns that formed a part of a bulk lot I bought at auction yesterday, I found this oddity. It is clearly made of cupro-nickel and at 11.2g is almost exactly the same weight as a florin (the florin I weighed as a control came in at 11.21g) but at almost 30mm. has a slightly larger diameter. The design clearly exceeds the size of the flan as the rim is not complete and at this point the coin seems thinner, almost certainly due to the lack of a rim. And it looks very, very genuine. I would be interested in members' views.

Plain as a pikestaff.

I did do a bit of research on this, the concensus I got being that most people considered the garter to be part of the design rather than the legend. Since this bit wears so readily, if it was treated as part of the legend, there would be no coins (or at least the reverse of them) in Fine or Fair at all, the grading effectively dropping from VF straight through to Poor.

Next time give me a shout beforehand.

I would agree Peter although it only just scrapes over the line.

Er... so have I (that was me sitting near the front wearing an appalling Lonsdale sweater). I was prepared to bid up to £1600 on lot no. 1 (est £1,000) but the bloody thing went for over £3k and that continued pretty much throughout! I bought a couple of nice individual lots and a sticky and smelly bulk lot that had clearly been in somebody's attic for decades. Hopefully there are a few bits and pieces in there to make money on. Anybody want five complete Elizabeth II halfpenny date runs? It may just be my imagination but I get the impression that the hammer prices at W & W are even higher than those at recent London Coin Auctions sales.

It's a William and Mary, any fool can see that. Actually, if Carlsberg did tin farthings it's exactly as I would expect them.

I walked there last year from just south of Munich. Beautiful countryside and Fussen is a nice town. Incidentally, there is always that well known Lincolnshire town, Sc*nthorpe.