Red Riley

Welcome to the forum Mick and Merry Christmas. You will see in other threads that individuals have coins for sale; one person has kilos of them! This is going to sound dreadful because I wrote one of the books above, but before you start collecting seriously, it may help to read up a bit on the subject so you know what you are looking at. I would recommend that at least initially, you don't specialise in any particular denomination, but buy a mixture of coins at the lower end of the market, just to see what it is that gets you going, and e-bay is usually OK for this; any mistakes can easily be sold on. The advice usually is to buy the best you can afford and whilst this is generally good advice, you could easily blow your entire budget on one coin - and one coin does not a collection make! I could go on for ever, but it is Christmas day and I've got a turkey to stuff...

Hmmm... I have a feeling she might just have got the best deal! Anyway Bob, happy Xmas to you and yours and all the regular posters on the forum. I won't be getting anything numismatic for Xmas - I think she's just lined me up with a new dish cloth.

No we're not fools; if we have a failing it is as you have already discerned that we do have a tendency to take ourselves a tad seriously. But isn't that a failing of the human race in general? Believe me, there are far worse failings at large than getting disproportionately worked up over a few metal disks.

Actually Queen Victoria did veto the first couple of stabs at the 'bun' coinage. There are IMHO only two crowns worth collecting since the war, and those are the 1951 and 1960 offerings. Since my avowed aim is to collect all types of coin up to decimalisation this is a problem for me. I am desperately looking for a pretext to sling the Coronation and Churchill crowns out on their ears. No commemoratives you say? But that means I would have to chuck the excellent Festival of Britain crown too. The best definition I have come up with so far is 'all types of coin up to decimalisation except crap'. Doesn't really cut the mustard does it?

It's a farthing. Unfortunately, these are very common and in this condition, worth a few pence.

That might be stretching the accepted definition of the word a tad far, but it does give provenance to my avatar and if anybody asks, I just say, 'That's Aunty Jane'.

In a word, no. Technically, the bronze (pre-1998) 1p/2p pieces may be worth slightly more than face value when melted down, but it is (I believe) illegal and you'd have to have several tons, and what's more, persuade somebody a little bit 'the other side of the law' to take them off your hands in order to make a probably miniscule profit! What I would suggest is that when you empty your charity buckets, keep an eye out for undated new type 20p's and then flog them on e-bay immediately, the price is falling all the time. And finally... probably what you were referring to with this New Penny/Penny thing is the 1983 2p; some were erroneously minted with 'New Pence' as opposed to 'Pence', but none have yet been found outside the official year sets, so finding one would be at lottery winning odds, but still worth only £400 or so if you did! Hope this is helpful, and best of luck with your collection.

I think this now needs to be put into the 'nothing whatever to do with coins section' but I have just hit on a bizarre coincidence. Following my downloading of the Rossetti portrait of the beautiful Jane Burden as my Avatar, I did a bit of Googling on the subject, and it seems likely that she is a very close relative, possibly my GGG Aunt. The whole thing hinges on her mother's maiden name (Maizey - my GG grandmother's surname) and her place of birth in Oxfordshire. Weird or what?

Hi Jimmy, welcome to the forum. Personally I use the Lindner sets, although some of mine are looking a bit dog-eared now. Squeezing coins out of sticky plastic envelopes never ranked terribly highly on my list of tactile experiences, so I abandoned that method a good many years ago. I guess it really comes down to your budget, with coin albums being at the lower end and coin cabinets at the upper. Lindner sets, for me, are a happy compromise.

It's just a girl... actually it's a painting called 'Proserpine' by Gabriel Rossetti. In classical mythology Proserpine was the daughter of Ceres and was abducted to the underworld by Pluto but later freed by the gods. Because she had eaten a mouthful of pomegranate while in Haedes, the gods ruled that she would have to spend half of the year in the underworld. The model was Janey Morris, one of the great beauties of the 19th century and also Rossetti's lover. Buggerall to do with coins but hey, I'm not a one trick pony! The reason I changed was because a woman at work saw my old Avatar and described it as simply a lady with no clothes on. My protestations that it was actually great art fell on deaf ears, so after due consideration I changed to this more um... acceptable image. What's the story behind yours?

I often bang on on here about the historic value being more important than the monetary value, and this is a case in point. Probably worth peanuts but tells you so much about public opinion at the time. Thanks for posting it.

These sort of things were frequently produced in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to espouse some political cause or another, a well known example being those minted in support of the anti-slavery movement ('am I not a man and a brother?'). This particular one was produced outside the period we normally associate with the circulation of tradesmen's tokens, although I suppose it may have had a redeemable value somewhere (a farthing?) but I couldn't imagine it being widely used. Others may know more.

If 'nearly part of the furniture' is for fairly prolific posters, then perhaps the next stage up should be 'three legged occasional table' or 'Edwardian dumb waiter'. Just a thought...

I'm trying to work out what has been done. 1869 dates are generally well alligned (unlike say 1860s) and the obverse is generally correct for 1860-74. The normal trick is to lower the entire exergue and the 'fuzz' around the 1 and the 8 seem to bear this out. The only logical numeral to change is the 9 but this actually looks better than the 6. I'm at a loss.

The good thing about bun pennies is that you can build up a fairly complete collection quite quickly and cheaply, whilst retaining a long term plan to improve the qualty. Only the obvious (1869, 1871, 1875H and a few varieties) should cost more than a few pence in low grade. With the advent of e-bay you are unlikely to lose much more than postage on an upgrade. Bargains can be had too - 4 years ago I bought an 1875H in GVF+ for £31; looking at Michael Gouby's website, I notice he has a very similar coin for £750!

Re 1940 penny, you'd probably need to post a close-up of the exergue line. When you know whay you're looking for, it's quite obvious - all pre-1940 pennies by the way, are single line and all post-1940s double line, so you can compare say a 1937 and a 1948 to establish the difference. If my memory serves me correctly, the single line is the scarcer by some way.

You would be able to tell narrow/wide date, Heaton mint, 1860, 1874 or 1881 portrait, flat/convex shield; you may even be able to tell 1865 5 over 3. I am surprised that you can see the signature under a portrait in poor condition, but will take your word for it!

As an erstwhile penny collector, perhaps the best thing I can do is simply to state what I have done. I have 120 bronze pennies, dates and varieties. That is all I want, the more esoteric varieties do not interest me. However, that 120 does include a narrow date 1879 and several other narrow date varieties. When I started collecting coins, I used the Coin Monthly year book as my bible - this publication included a random selection of varieties, such as '1860 LCW below foot', '1881 new portrait' etc. etc. but not narrow/wide dates, so initially I didn't collect them. My coin collecting activities then went into abeyance with family commitments etc. When I returned to the fold, the published variety pecking order had changed and narrow/wide dates were now accepted varieties, so I looked out for, and bought them. I personally would regard the narrow/wide dates as 'key' varieties for the simple reason that they are collectable right the way down the grading scale, whereas the '1860 LCW under foot' has to be above VF for the distinction to become apparent. The crunch comes with 1874 where varieties fly in all diections, with 4 distinct (i.e. recognisable right down to 'poor') reverses and 2 all-grade obverses. So perhaps that's my criteria, 'Is the variety recognisable in poor condition?' If so, collect it (in better than 'poor' obviously!). The years where I have more than one variety are as follows: 1860 (2) 1861 (2) 1864 (2) 1865 (2) 1874 (8) 1875 (3) 1876 (2) 1879 (2) 1881 (3) 1895 (2) 1902 (2) 1912 (2) 1918 (3) 1919 (3) 1926 (2) 1940 (2) Everybody will make up their own criteria, but that's mine - and I still don't have an '1860 LCW under foot'!

This is a topic that's been on here before. I get the impression that the number of collectors in the UK has increased substantially over the last few years, but still we haven't got a magazine that even comes close to giving us what we want, which is sad. Last time round if I remember rightly, we came to the conclusion that it would just be too much hassle to produce one from scratch.

I would guess that's about the going rate. Certainly doesn't look a bargain.

I think I agree with you, but I'm afraid that I don't like and never have liked the BU grade and seldom use the term myself. I have seen coins in this condition, straight out of the mint and with no handling whatever - but anything of any age which has not been tampered with will have fallen below that category unless it's been stored in outer space for its whole life. In my view, any grading system falls down once we establish that a coin has not been circulated. With base metal, indicating a percentage of lustre can help, but what of coins where the lustre has dulled uniformly, what of silver? I have gone off at a slight tangent, but returning to the main point, don't try too hard to ascribe a grade to an unworn coin, just describe what you see, oh, and include a photograph!

Hi Rev, with your interests, you should have a lot to say. Your location reminds me that on my first date with a real live female of the species, I took her to see a film called 'Goodbye Columbus'. Ah, happy days!

You could bury it in the garden for a year or so (tip: remember where you buried it). Another idea I have heard is to bake it in a potato. You could also try the toning fluid Tourmaline, but I'm not sure how well it works on silver.

I think I agree with you. 'BBitanniar' and the like are interesting as they underscore the fact that mint workers of the time were illiterate and prone to make such mistakes. The 20p has interest, as it shows that even with modern technological mint processes, cock ups can still happen. Those which don't really do it for me are pieces which result from failure of machinery or process such as brockages, coins with a sector clipped out of them, or where a small piece of the lettering has been damaged. Generally speaking, I think the market agrees with me. But as ever, each to his/her own.

I'll put it with my limited edition 37th anniversary of the first staging of the Outer Hebrides Amateur Wife Beating Championships commemorative plates.