IanB

I think this needs to be looked at as purely a practical solution for the person who sunk the die. If the trident was on the right hand side it would probably be the deepest part of the coin sunk into the die and as such its length would have caused problems. If the tridents head touched the beads at the rim the shaft would naturally have to come away at an angle across the right knee and the end of the shaft would have been suspended in mid air, or it would have had a weird bend in the shaft to allow the head and the end of the shaft to lay flat. Its on the left hand side because its easier to cut into the metal and keep it flat. The supposed awkwardness of the arm is again just a practical solution to the placing of the trident and the position of Brittania. Anatomically the arm has to be proportional to the rest of the body or we would be debating why she has either a short or long arm. Hence the wrist is in the position it is. I do not believe there is any problems with LC Wyons drawing abilities and he probably did multiple drawing of a lovely model holding the shield and trident in all sort of positions but I do think what we have on the coin is just a practical solution to a 3D problem being transferred onto what is in effect a flat piece of metal.

It may be as simple as trying to convert a 3D subject, a model dressed as Britannia into and an almost flat 2D subject, a coin. Combined with problems of perspective and that it was being engraved onto a small lump of hard metal. Put these all together and something has to give. Any chance of a picture of yourself in a yoga position, with or without broom handle

http://www.coinfairs.co.uk/london-coin-fair.aspx

Then they were probably stored and looked after correctly. If they were not then there is a possibility that verdigris could occur.

Verdigris can appear on silver due to the copper content used in its manufacture. The lower the silver content the higher the copper content.

Hi Jamie, Welcome to the forum, well you have made a good start by finding this forum. Tell us a little bit about what has sparked your interest in coins. It might help people give you advice on what you are looking for. There are a lot of different things to choose so it's good to ask questions and to do some reading. The Rotographic books advertised on this site are a good start. Be careful of spending too much time on eBay it's just one place to look. If you delve around the site you will notice that there are some good dealers on here who will see you okay. But if you are a complete novice don't rush things even though the temptation is to buy loads at once, easier said than done I know. Start reading some of the threads on here and ask some questions. Ian

Yes Pete, the bottom one is a RE complete with broken tooth. The top one does not have a broken tooth but under an eye glass it look the same. I was comparing the hollow section behind the ear and under the ear lobe which is there on both, the top one being more worn. I also compared these two to a 3rd 1915 I have which is definitely not RE and there is a noticeable difference. Wishful thinking on my part no doubt

Would you say one or both of these is recessed ear, I am having a hard time telling, I know one is but not sure on the other. One has a broken tooth but to me under an eye glass both ears look similar.

You won't see that on a Paris catwalk

There is no reason for any grading system to be considered better than another, its all down to individual preference. As a beginner grading is difficult to get your head around and having a limited number of options is a benefit. If we only had the Sheldon scale most would just give up and call it a day. If however you are buying and selling for profit then I can see the logic in having a system that allows for a wider spread of grades which give a person more opportunities to differentiate between grades especially at the higher end. For me its just horses for courses, I am just an average collector and have no interest in buying and selling to make money, so using the standards of F, VF, and EF etc works for me and sticks to the KISS principle that I like to work with. If on the other hand you are a more serious collector then maybe the Sheldon scale is for you. There's room for everyone

If it were die bounce would we see evidence of this elsewhere on the coin and not just on the date?

All four do it for me

Lovely colouring, that obverse is nice and sharp, especially his moustache

I cannot wait to see the update, it must be good😂

No comment on whether it has been cleaned or not without seeing it in the flesh but I reckon the dot was caused by a piece of metal or something just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Have you tried flicking it off with your fingernail? From your picture there looks like a shadow line between it and the coin.

The simplest way to post a picture is to place it on your desktop and then in the bottom left of the area you write to post a comment you will see a paper clip with click to choose file. You should then be able to do exactly that. It needs to be less than 0.49mb in size so if it will not load then resize it smaller and have another go. You may need to close the post and reopen it if you are having a second go at reloading it. Try that first if it doesn't work let us know.

Sorry Sophie, I should have read your previous post a bit better, I see you already have a resizing app. Hopefully that will work for you. what size are you managing to get the pictures down to?

Hi Sophie, Because you are using an iPad you may have to download something from the App Store that will help you resize your photos you should then be able download them onto your post by selecting the " click to choose file " tab. Sorry don't know what would be best for this but maybe someone can recommend something. Another way of getting pictures on here is to save them to something like Flickr or some other hosting site and then cutting and pasting the URL using the "Insert other media" tab. Hope that makes sense Ian

Any chance of a better photos, its a bit blurry when enlarged.

Don't know the mintage figures for these coins but not every coin will have fire stain. It may still be there on a BU coin, but is lost in the brightness of the metal and only become visible when the metal loses its shine and becomes matt through wear. A way of spotting firestain is to place a piece of tracing paper in contact with the metal, this diffuses the light and reflections and the stain appears as a grey patch through the tracing paper. As I said not every coin will have firestain, it depends on how the metal was heated during production. It may also have been polished out prior to stamping. I have attached an article that talks about fire scale, another name for the same thing. http://www.silversmithing.com/1fire.htm

The greyish, pinkish patches spoken about earlier that appears on silver is called firestain. It occurs when silver is heated usually during the annealing process. Oxidisation takes places reacting with the copper used in the silver resulting in these patches forming on the surface. This can sometimes be covered by heavy silver plating but is more often polished away. In general acid will not remove it unless the silver is left in so long that it starts to dissolve.

Forgive my ignorance, but what are the dates of these coins and is it common to find a coin from all 4 corners in the same field or would that be rare. Was the field a site of importance such as an old market or something similar?