Red Riley

Hi Chris, Let me have details of the 1860/59 when you can. Since I now work (I know, I know...), I have been waiting for the weekend and good natural light to take a few photos. Hopefully I can get back to you early next week.

I have never looked at anything other than the UK ebay site or if I am desperate for something, the US as well. No reason, just a little lazy I guess and I have always felt that the chances of getting what I wanted in any of the European sites is very low indeed. Re 1840s pennies, I now only want 1849 and 1860/59 for (what I would regard as) the complete set of British copper/bronze pennies. 1860/59s are a known quantity - i.e too expensive for me and almost none in lower grade to cut the cost (if anyone has one for sale, I may still however be interested...). 1849s just never seem to come up in acceptable condition/price as a result of which I have given up looking, but you are right, anything 1840s other than perhaps 1841 or 1844 are worth a king's ransom and I suspect at least two of these 1847 and 1848 just aren't that rare. It just seems that the perception of 1840s pennies as being almost universally rare has pushed up the value of virtually everything.

**WINNER** (and I'm showing my age too!)

Known at the time as 'the Max Bygraves' 50p. Would anyone old enough care to explain?

I will state here and now that almost infinite minute variety just doesn't float my boat. Identifying 13 sub-varieties of a coin which is in itself a variety makes me think that the author badly needs to get a life. Don't despair Dave, just be selective about what you choose and ask yourself the question, 'will this variety be worth more to the average collector?'. If the answer is no, then forget it. For a start, you can throw out anything resulting from die wear - if you take that to its logical conclusion, with sophisticated enough optical equipment, every coin is in a variety of its own. It just depends where you draw the line and a sensible man would draw it way before 13 varieties of 1902 LT penny! Somewhere in Michael Gouby's book 'The British Penny 1860-1970', he states that there are two 'varities' of one coin identified solely by an 'I' or a '9' pointing to either a tooth or a gap, but in his mind that just isn't enough to classify it as a separate variety and he has therefore chosen to ignore it. Michael is heavily into varieties and this makes it clear that he at least knows where to stop. All you need to do, is to think through a sensible definition of a variety and take it from there.

Okay, apologies. Obviously a bad night. We do however get a lot of people posting on here with scant interest in an item beyond what it's worth, and to my mind that is falling into Oscar Wilde's definition of the cynic, whatever the subject. Having re-read your posting, I accept that that that wasn't the situation in your case.

Awwww bless.... thats sweet. Probably worth more than my bloomin 'sovereign' from my gran! Money really isn't everything. If you can't understand that i) your gran meant you to have this irrespective of it's value and ii) they are not a cheap fake but actually tell a far more interesting story than a bog standard Victorian sovereign, then I feel sorry for you. As Colin G says, look up the section on his website. Surprisingly there was a television programme recently on Ernst and his descendants. Damn, why do I always agree with scottishmoney?

Completely agree, but you know my feelings on the term 'uncirculated' anyway. In my view, they should have used the percentage system (e.g. AU50/75 etc.). In my opinion, the quality of the image just isn't able to tell you enough about coins in these high grades. Not certain how you can have a 'black BU' as by sheer definition, an artificially toned coin is designed not to be brilliant! As you say, nice coins though.

Not sure whether he's trying to say 'sixpence' or 'sex pest'. The translation seems to come from Babel Fish as well.

The cutting up of the coat of arms strikes me as being little more than a gimmick and, one which (if it lasts as long as the last set) we will be heartily sick of in 37 years time. The only good thing I can say is that it's not quite as bad as the Euro - but it is a close run thing.

Needs cleaning = needs binning. Obviously there is something wrong with our hobby's PR when a significant proportion of the public think we will buy any old crap just so long as it's vaguely round and made of metal.

Apparently not. I read somewhere that the average hedgehog is actually hung like a donkey and then some. Something to do with spines apparently, so perhaps we should be saying 'hung like a hedgehog', but I doubt it'll catch on. Who started this subject anyway?

The feedback's pretty impressive too!

You could try putting it in hot water which would make the plastic more malleable and shouldn't damage the coin.

This is a setup for Chris, the owner of Rotographic Publications but I'll beat him to it. The books you want are Roman Silver Coins and Roman Base Metal Coins (see top of the page). I have found both very useful. As I have just bought a batch of uncleaned Roman coins myself, I would be interested to know why you found yours so bad. Mine were okay, but nothing spectacular. I guess the fun is in cleaning them up and identifying them, but in my case this is likely to take some time. As far as American coins are concerned, there are a number of collectors from across the pond on this website, and no doubt when the sun catches up with them, they will help you out.

Generally speaking most coins before approximately 1800 were minted in such a way that the two sides were at 180 deg. to each other. The period between 1800 and 1887 was a transitional stage and from 1887 virtually everything has been minted the modern way with both sides the same way up.

Sadly my recollection of D-Day is a little sketchy but as far as I can recall, from 15 February 1971 pre-decimal bronze/brass coins (and I suppose the 3d joey) were only legal tender in lots which could be directly converted to the new currency i.e. 6d = 2.5np. That situation continued I believe until the August (i.e. 6 months later) when the 1d and 3d were officially declared to be no longer legal tender. It had originally been the intention to withdraw the 6d at the same time, but the Daily Mail or the Express or someone mounted a 'Save Our Tanner' campaign and the government relented, gradually withdrawing the little coin over the next few years until it too was declared non-legal currency. In the sixties, the government had wanted to adopt the 10 shilling/50p as the new unit of currency but for some reason they eventually stuck with the £. There was, as far as I am aware, no intention to withdraw the shilling and the florin as they were directly convertable to the new currency even if it resulted in twenty years of confused tourists. The crown at 25p, and for all I know the double florin are still technically legal tender. I suppose it is quite possible that by some quirk of the legislation, the groat is still legal tender for 1.666667p. Now that would cause confusion at Tesco's checkout... I hope this helps despite the lack of actual dates.

Hi Holger, I've checked my 1847 (a close colon) and have discovered that the colon after Britanniar is barely visible to the naked eye. This in fact is the only year in my collection where this anomaly occurs, but I think that if you look very carefully at your photograph, there is just the vestige of the upper dot. Therefore, I wouldn't necessarily agree that the coin you have posted is a variety, but merely a feature of all 1847 close dots caused by localised wear on the die.

I found this website whilst browsing: http://www.australianstamp.com/Coin-web/au...ny/penngeo6.htm. It seems to be a pretty common year and unless in excellent condition is likely to be worth little more than loose change. It did however surprise me that some pennies from this year were minted in India. Prices incidentally are in Australian dollars.

Yep, it's an 1806-7 halfpenny. Were they ever legal tender in Canada?

Not entirely certain what it is you want to know ,Jennifer. Is it about a specific 1943 penny, or pennies in general?

Okay, it's an 1817 shilling of a type which technically was still legal currency (for 5p) until 1990. This particular type of coin was issued at a time when the coinage was being completely modernised and so a very large number were produced; values are consequently low. N.B. There are quite a large number of contemporary forgeries of this design.

Yes but the kid he swapped them with has probably got an excellent collection by now, plus he's probably still got all his teeth. It's an ill wind...

I think it's a 1730 (the 'O' looks too big for a 1739), but it doesn't matter a lot since they're both fairly common. Based purely on the reverse and assuming that it can be confirmed as one or the other, I think you should be looking at approximately £10-£14.