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A recent find, now on Richard's site as the 8th known example. As I already have a better example I will be selling this piece; if any member is interested please PM me with a sensible offer. It is a little better than Example 7 (which was also my coin), and definitely better than Example 5, both of which were sold for £160.

A young Scouse woman was so depressed that she decided to throw herself into the Mersey. However, a handsome young man just managed to stop her in the nick of time. "You have so much to live for," said the man. "I'm a sailor and we are off to Australia tomorrow. I can stow you away on my ship. I'll take care of you, bring you food every day and keep you happy." With nothing to lose, and the prospect of going to Australia, the woman accepted. That night the sailor brought her aboard and hid her in a small, but comfortable, compartment in the hold. From then on every night he would bring her three sandwiches, a bottle of red wine and make love to her until dawn. Two weeks later she was discovered by the captain during a routine inspection. "What are you doing here?" asked the captain. "I have an arrangement with one of the sailors," she replied. "He brings me food, and I get a free trip to Australia". "I see," said the captain. Her conscience then got the better of her and she added, "plus, he's screwing me". "He certainly is," replied the captain. "This is the Birkenhead ferry."

......and this is what it used to look like over 10 years ago

Sad day for me yesterday, seeing my lovely Cherry tree like this! 😭 It was a mature tree over 40 years ago when we moved in, but now seen it's day, and had to go before it dropped on someone's head.

Does anyone know if Mike Hopkins is ok? He used to post several times a week, but I haven't seen a single post from him now for several weeks. Thanks

I guess if it was his daughter then "she would be walking out the door like she did one thousand times before. Don’t you love her ways, tell me what you say”

Hi Mike, that coin has been sold twice before on ebay in the past 3 months, and by same seller..... previously for over £300 on both occasions. Just a word of warning if you actually bought it, that maybe it won't look so good 'in the hand'. I could be totally wrong, but did think strange that it has been returned twice already.

I see that someone got 'suckered' into buying this, it's a 😭shame! 1856 Queen Victoria Copper Penny. High Grade. | eBay

I have had one of these for donkeys years, but never really look at it so thought I would sell on. This is an old book, and with exactly the same cover as the one which can be found on this link. The Coinage of the British Empire: An Outline of the Progress of the Coinage in Great Britain and Her Dependencies, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time by Humphreys, Henry Noel: Good Hard Cover (1861) Third Edition. | The Armadillo's Pillow (abebooks.co.uk) I don't need anything like the amount AbeBooks are asking, so a sensible offer from a member would probably be acceptable.......... if anyone is interested. Please PM me if you want it, and I can then send pictures to show condition, not dissimilar to the one in the link.

Just put my spare copy of this on ebay if anyone is interested. Also a couple of difficult Victorian copper penny varieties

Hi Mike, I let the book go for £80 as was a previous customer, he also took the 1854/3. You are right about the 1853PT with italic date obverse, very difficult one, but not widely recognised. No one seems interested in that as I don't even have 1 watcher! Did you see the 1862 F38 which came onto ebay last night on an auction? I looked again this morning and someone had already snaffled it on a Buy it Now for £55.......at 2.46 in the morning would you believe? 😳😜

Bramah book and 1854/3 penny have now been sold. Still have 1854 No colons and 1853PT with Italic date available

This discussion has prompted me to take digital pictures of the various numeral 9’s on my own 1859’s, and I now show some of these below. The pictures were all taken at 140x magnification by sliding next coin under the microscope without changing settings. These are all decent grade coins so I don’t think that ‘flattening’ through wear will have made much difference to the measurements which I have given. I have only taken measurements of the lengths, as width measurements would have made the pictures too busy, and I think one can see the width variations without needing to have their measurements. We all knew that Gouby B has a visibly different smaller 9, so no great surprise on that one, but I think there are a couple of other interesting things:- The 9 (top right), which has been the subject of this discussion, is indeed narrower (in itself) than the other type of 9’s. So, in addition to being the narrowest date width of all 1859’s (at 9 teeth) it could also be thought of as a ‘narrow date’ type based upon the width of the 9 itself. Note that this 9 also has other distinguishing features e.g. shape of its tail. The surprising one for me is that I now believe that the numeral 9 on Gouby Date Style Ab is slightly different to that on Gouby Aa. In addition to the measurement difference, I think that the area within the top loop also seems more circular on Ab. You will see that I have drawn in a blue arrow to highlight a protrusion bottom right, this can be checked against the picture on MG’s website to verify that this is the exact same die which he references. CP 1859 date varieties (michael-coins.co.uk) P.S. My experience is that Gouby Aa is by far the most common type for 1859, and I have this morning taken measurements of several other Aa coins, all coming in at 1.62mm, albeit with varying amounts of doubled numerals. I can also show these pictures if anyone wishes to see them.

Richard / Jerry, Yes, I am sure you are correct in that this flaw is a unique identifier of type. I have owned 6 examples over the years and all have had this flaw at front of truncation. The flaw progresses, on later strikes, right through the base of the truncation and then down to a border tooth at the back of Victoria. This die also has another progressive flaw through the VICTORIA legend; the attached pictures refer. I am, therefore, almost certain that the numeral 9 which we have been discussing only appears on a single obverse die.

Yes, that's the narrow 9 date style Mike, and a nice looking example too, well done 👍

Yes, not easy to find those Richard. The Gouby Date Style A variations are far more common than either of the 9 fonts in my picture which you have shown above. The style that I called 'New Style X / Narrow 9' is also a perfect fit with the protrusions that can be seen on the 1860/59, see picture now attached. When I described it as 'narrow' it was because the entire date is only 9 teeth wide, which is less than all style A variations I have ever seen, and also half a tooth narrower than Gouby Style B (with the smaller numeral 9). I wasn't meaning that the numeral 9 is narrow in itself!! Hope that makes sense. It's another year that I must try to do some stats on from my 5-year ebay study. Problem is my wife keeps wanting holidays! 😉

I'm inclined to agree Richard. I think I have a couple of irregular shaped 'extra metal' pieces myself, will check when I'm back home.

Thanks, it seems to be the sum of the❤, 😀 and 🏆 symbol scores, which I see I'm now at 697, one ahead of my 696 content score. Knowing me I will now start watching this, so not sure you've done me a favour!! I guess that no one will react to this post though, so you will be dragging me down to 697/697 😉

Agree that detached clover on it's own is not sufficient, there are definitely other dies which exhibit that. The clover is just a useful additional thing to check to give extra confidence after first looking for the obverse flaw and 4 colon positions on reverse. Those are usually the easiest things to see anyway. As you say Richard, the die flaw is the unique definitive identifier. Just one other thought, on the 8/? (similar die to 8/6), I have noticed that all 3 examples I have owned have the flaw clearly exiting bottom left of the C of VICTORIA. This is probably easier to see than whether the flaw starts between teeth or centre of a tooth, so should help members to identify the obverse die.....assuming it's always present!? Picture below illustrates

Thanks Blake, not really sure what that means, but it sounds like a compliment....much appreciated.

There is another 1858 smaller numerals (over)date obverse die which is paired with the exact same reverse as the 1858/6. Furthermore, it’s obverse looks very similar to the 1858/6 obverse!! Please carefully examine the set of 4 pictures below, which shows flaws, and overdates, for both these obverses. Note in particular that the flaw commences in between border teeth for the 8/6, but the flaw commences in the centre of a tooth for the other type of overdate. Also, the flaws exit the base of the C’s at different locations, which means 2 different dies. I would welcome views as to the other overdate e.g., is it an 8 over 8, or even a different type of 8/6 which this time has no bar down the left-hand side. I have just seen that there was one of these on ebay, and bought it:- 1858 Penny (WW) - Victoria British Copper Coin - Very Nice | eBay

Hi Richard, Well spotted. All examples of 1858/6 which I have seen have a die flaw running from between two border teeth to the top of the C of VICTORIA. Later strikes, like the one pictured top left, have a more developed flaw. Once you know that the 1858/6 is paired with a single reverse die you can then check for the reverse ‘features’, some of which are pictured below. You already mentioned the mis-aligned colon after DEF; the other colons (particularly after REG, see picture) are also mis-aligned. When examining all 4 sets of colon dot positions they become a good indicator of type. The 1858/6 reverse also has some additional ‘features’ which provide further confirmation of type; some of these are illustrated below e.g., detached clover, botched repair to G of REG, and protrusions around some letters in the legend (e.g., NN of BRITANNIAR). There are a couple of others which are less obvious. Clearly if the ebay pictures are half decent one can also see that date, and at least be able to see that the coin is a ‘smaller numerals’ variety. This in itself significantly narrows down the possibility that it may be an 8/6. BUT BEWARE!! – See Post Below

It's the combination of several things Mike. If you've got a decent example yourself you may be able to find them! It's knowledge like this that has helped pay for my own collection 😉.

Hi Mike, I have checked my past sales and find that I have owned 10 x 1858/6’s over the years. A long time ago I realised that, like some other overdate pennies in the YH series, it is often possible to identify an 1858/6 without being able to see the date. All of my 10 coins have had the same features on both obverse and reverse which indicates that this type is always struck from a single die pairing. Having said the above, and also just checked ebay where I can see at least 2 of these, I don’t think it is as common as an 1858/2 or an 1858/3, and far less common than combined 1858/7 types. For 1858 known varieties my ‘top of the head’ guess would be to place it roughly on a par with Bramah 26a No WW Missing Serifs, but definitely more common than the two ‘Large Rose’ types. Hope this helps. I really need to attempt some 1858 stats from my 5-year ebay study! P.S. The Ingram coin shown above is the type described by Michael Gouby as 1858/2

... and me too...