Red Riley

I will answer this one. The finer points of grading are extremely difficult to assess and in all honesty, nobody does it entirely consistently. I'm afraid the answer is something like 'spend 10 years studying and then guess!'. I would suggest that e-bay is not the place to learn grading but good honest dealers are, which can mean a lot of web-surfing as I would imagine that more coins are reliably depicted online than is the case with banknotes.

Had a quick dig around, and the price really isn't that outrageous. I'm clearly getting out of touch as I wouldn't have paid that much for it, but it looks like a lot of people are. Pennies are clearly flavour of the month and prices in the mid to lower grades are being dragged up by the fortunes being realised for top notch coins.

2 things. The reverse die is about to break up (see the crack around 'O') and the obverse die has clearly clashed with its partner at some time. What looks like a spider's web between the neck and the bun is a reverse image of the fabric around Britannia's waist. This is extremely common, so common in fact that a quick check of my collection shows that 5 out of 22 pre-1874 pennies suffer from it to some degree. 1867 is not that rare in the low to middle grades but is actually quite scarce in tip-top condition.

I have seen attested modern fakes of fairly common coins in mid-grade condition. A coin which is worth £50 or so, is far less likely to raise suspicion and be easier to sell than an FDC Gothic, but the workmanship is still spot on. If the annual wage you can get at the local factory is only £500 a year, then you don't have to produce many coins to exceed that figure, and the secret of being a succesful criminal (so they tell me!) is not to be too greedy. Being a numiswotsit is dashed hard these days. The weight you quote is close to that of a genuine coin (13.9g as opposed to 14.1), but I'm not sure whether it's within normal tolerance. Perhaps Chris or someone with more knowledge than me could tell us.

I've just checked 3 or 4 photos of these coins plus one genuine example, and the strength of the dots does seem to vary. I hope I'm not teaching Grandma to suck eggs, but the die axis should be as per modern coins and not 180 deg. to each other. The pre-Victorian shields were notorious for the dies blocking up and some were very vague indeed.

Wasn't it something like 'wosip' or similar?

It would have to be a very good fake. In my view (although I wouldn't want to contradict Chris!) modern fakes emenating from China are far more believable than those produced contemporaneous with the coin, so if it's a fake I would go modern.

I agree, but to be fair they have been quite honest. Personally, I think most Gothic crowns will have seen a bit of Duraglit, or similar at some stage. They were effectively collectors coins from day 1 and 19th century collectors were far less concerned about polishing than we are today, and I don't think it stops at Gothic crowns. Quite often I have seen silver coins in the highest grades where the fields under a magnifying glass reveal the tell-tale signs of abrasives. I think this is something we need to get real about, it need not reduce the grade that much, but its affect on the selling price may be considerable and we should really be on our guard. Anyway, going back to the original post I just wouldn't touch this coin at all unless you must have a Gothic at the cheapest possible price. Even then it would be an unsure investment as your only market if you decided to re-sell would similarly be the 'must haves'. A dealer would only offer you a fraction of list price as the market would be so uncertain.

But those people aren't potential collectors, they are just clueless dorks - and they bug every profession, believe me! The worst experience I had of the industry was of a well-known dealer in London where I agreed the price of a proof set on the phone before walking over to pick it up during my lunch break. When I got there, the price had gone up by 50% and the proprietor denied ever having spoken to me! I will leave it to others to guess who I am talking about. In the end though, he was the loser - at the time (no longer, alas) I was in a well-paid job with money to burn, and he ruined his chances of getting any of it.

Probably something north of VF, but it's an awful picture.

To save me the bother of writing it out, I quickly Googled 'To Hanover' and the answer is here: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Coin-Collecting.../coins-1839.htm. Common and never worth much, the damage renders it nigh on unsaleable, but the historical background to this counter is quite fascinating.

It's hug a coinie day! I think we're actually quite a loveable lot, although I will admit that when I've had a particularly bad day I could qualify for Grumpy Old Men. Sorry to anybody who has encountered me on one of those days, but it was the wife's fault, honest. I was talking to Chris a while ago, and we both agreed that the miserable, bad tempered rump of dealers are still out there somewhere (no names, no packdrill) and if a newby was to bump into one of them first time out, it would put them off for life, as their predecessors nearly did for me. Far better to log onto this forum and ask anything you want of us pussycats!

Can't see a huge amount from these photos, but yes, it is worn. However, the population of the USA grew exponentially in the 19th century which meant that the number of coins produced also grew in proportion. Because of this, anything American and old (I would class this as old) is worth something, not a fortune but £15 -£20 sort of level. RCL35 is probably your man, but I think to give him a fair stab, you should have another go at the photos.

Impossible to be absolutely certain from a photograph, but I would go with something like NEF. Unfortunately Santa's sleigh broke down and I don't have the latest price list. How much does the dealer want for it?

You have a fair idea of what it's worth now, so should give you all the armoury you need to deal with potential buyers whether here or in Aus. My gut feel says that you might get a higher price from a UK based dealer as they have much closer access to a ready market, but that's all it is, gut feel. One thing however does need to be said and that is that there are very many Chinese sourced counterfeits out there, particularly of UK and US coins. I have however never seen a forged wreath crown, but have no doubt that they do exist. For the record I would grade the coin at NEF.

I will give my usual response to this. Don't throw them out as being worthless, just find an eight year old and give the whole pile to them. They love that sort of thing and you might just start a lifelong interest.

Erm... from the picture I'm not sure what it is. But if it has a square bit in the middle I guess it's a case of 'if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and goes quack, then it's probably a duck'. Tin coins can be so horrible that they would frighten those of a nervous disposition. I have three of the bloody things, the worst of which (a 1691 farthing - probably) seems to have been the subject of some peculiar Quatermass experiment which has turned it pink, and it is absolutely, totally and undeniably vile! The things aren't technically rare but they rot quicker than a bowl of loganberries on Bondi Beach. Nonetheless, a tenner for a tinny in whatever condition seems to be a real bargain. Did the seller have the remotest idea what it was?

Another point worth noting is that the perfect 'EF', 'VF' 'F' etc. doesn't exist. You could quite easily have gone to a dealer to buy that 1758 shilling and found he had three, all VF and all at different prices. There are so many variables to take into account in addition to what I would call the micro-grade (i.e. if all the VF 1758 shillings in the world were laid end to end, between which two coins would it fit?). There is also the attractiveness of the tone, does it have any damage, however slight? Is it well-struck, are any letters weak? I could go on, but you get my drift. Price guides are simply that - guides, not bibles and an experienced collector can often work out whether the compiler was being cautious or anticipating a price rise that didn't materialise etc. All this comes with experience, which can actually be fun to acquire. I wish you luck.

Ask him if it's a toothed or beaded border. Go on, I dare you!

If my recollection serves me correctly, all 'no colon' pennies still retain the vestiges of the colon even if it is only discoverable under a microscope and are presumably therefore simply the result of die wear. A moot point whether varieties created in this way should even be regarded as mainstream varieties at all. On a lighter note, I always thought the description in The Coin Year Book; 'Rev no colon' sounded like a rather unfortunate vicar...

I guess that was pretty much business as usual, the raw material for coinage has always been primarily other coins. Although 20 million seems to be a pretty serious number, I think we often underestimate the number of coins produced in earlier times. I did read somewhere that by analysis of the number of dies used, archaeologists estimate that there were more than a million Cunobelin gold staters minted at a time when the population of Britain was itself only about a million. Whatever you say about the Iron Age, somebody must have been seriously rich!

I have heard that explanation for the 1944-6 pennies as well, although no explanation really holds much water as i) we still hit the problem of why halfpennies and farthings weren't done; and ii) the darkening soon wears off in circulation making the whole thing a thoroughly pointless exercise anyway. Personally, I don't believe that the strike of the H and KN pennies was significantly worse than those produced by the Royal Mint. Quite the worst made coins in terms of strike that I own are are two Royal Mint pennies from 1918 and 1920 -both high grade, the former has an almost featureless effigy and the latter an almost smooth Britannia. Where Heatons do fall down however is in the amount of ghosting on their coins which seems to be far worse than either the Royal Mint or King's Norton.

I have a feeling that collecting from change mushroomed in the 1960s, and that was the point at which most of the KN pennies were withdrawn from circulation. By this time the coins were over 40 years old and had generally descended to fine and worse. Coins withdrawn in the twenties and thirties would have been in better condition but there were less removed at that time. I think also, the awareness of the multiple origins of the 1918 and 1919 mintages did not really get spread among the populace in general until quite late on. Overall this resulted in a glut of low grade coins and a dearth of coins in higher grades especially EF and above. The 1926ME was always a much scarcer coin anyway, and considerably more difficult for the layman to spot but nonetheless, the same principle applies with most withdrawals occuring in the 1960s. The reason I heard for the mint darkening pennies in 1944-6 was pretty much as Scott states it, but thinking a bit further along those lines, this may have been aimed at the large number of American servicemen in this country at that time who might otherwise have been tempted to take bright new pennies home as keepsakes. Still can't really get my head round it though as i) all seems a bit half-arsed. Why pennies and nothing else? and ii) I can't believe that with the numbers involved it would have made much difference. Perhaps it was all the idea of some low grade clerk in the Ministry of Wotnot that just got out of control. Who knows.

Probably not. They are relatively expensive because they are perceived to be rare i.e. the mintage was low. What the prices don't account for is the number which were hoiked out of circulation by the likes of you and me. I posted something re KN pennies in a thread some while ago and saved a copy: 'I was wondering to what extent contemporary collecting activities have affected actual rarity, and whether the prices listed in guides are distorted by looking at the mintage figures rather than the ultimate numbers in existence. Firstly, the 1951 penny with a mintage of 120,000 which ought to make it pretty damn rare. But no, they all went to the West Indies and the great majority of them got pulled out of circulation early; I wouldn't mind betting that there are still in excess of 100,000 of these sloshing around the coin collecting world making them fairly common. Second point, KN pennies. I was in the fortunate position of having a father who ran a shop and I checked every penny that came over the counter for a period of two and a half years (approximately early 69- decimalisation in February 71 and beyond) - i.e. tens of thousands of pennies; I found precisely zero KNs. Not one. In the same period I found probably fifteen 1918/19 Hs. To take 1918 as the example, the combined mintage of the Heaton and King's Norton mints for that year is given as 3,660,800 making them on the face of it, pretty scarce but then I look at ebay (just the auction sites) and for 1918 see the following pennies for sale: 1918 Royal Mint 9 1918 Heaton 8 1918 King's Norton 15 Alright, the common or garden 1918 is pretty unsaleable below VF, but 15 mostly low-grade KNs for sale in what I assume to be an average week surely tells its own story. And most of these do sell; not for much granted, but people are still prepared to part with their hard-earned cash for them.' So the market is not perfect. Some coins sell because people think they're rare rather than because they actually are. The 'Birmingham' effect has a knock on where the common as muck 1912H is concerned and the prices are higher than would be expected (this is one coin where the 16m odd mintage figure can be relied on). Without actually looking it up, Michael Freeman reckoned there are literally hundreds of millions of pre-decimal pennies still kicking around, and presumably the same applies to other denominations. In another thread two or three years back somebody posted a contemporary newspaper cutting saying that only one third of all bronze farthings minted where ever melted down by the mint, so the other two-thirds are in drawers, under floorboards, down the back of very old sofas etc. In fact one can assume that a large proportion of coins currently being collected were at some time lost and their grade would depend on i) how soon after the minting date they disappeared and ii) their circumstances once they had been lost i.e. a coin behind a bit of old oak panneling is likely to be in better condition than one dropped in the middle of a field.

I would have to say they look to be uncirculated but given the quality of the photograph, could be anything from EF upwards. It is very difficult to tell on photographic evidence quite where to place coins generally. In the upper grades they really need to be inspected in the hand and so unfortunately this response is probably not as helpful as you would wish.