Please help the unknowledged

[Don Camillo's God Son]

Hi.

First post and I hope some of you can help me.

This is the situation I find myself in.

Recently a family friend died. In their belongings their was a box with a couple of hundred old coins. I doubt there are any wonderous finds but they appear to be mainly from the c17 and c18, and from various countries.

Now these coins belonged to a fine old Edwardian gentleman that I have known and respected since my childhood in the early 70's and I'd like to do something in his name as I unfortunately feel his family is quite happy to trouser what they can and forget about the man himself. I'd like to realise what I can on the coins and spend it on some kind of memorial.

Now my problem is that I've a box of old coins and I have no idea what to do next.

I'm guessing maybe the best way will be to (obviously) work out what they actually are, and sell them on ebay or something like that.

What are they? For a start off they were at the back of loads of stuff in an old cupboard and they're pretty dirty. Lot's of them have green deposits on them and I'm not sure how I should 'clean' them to at least be able to figure out what they are.

I guess that's the first thing I need to do really. How do I get them in a condition I can have a chance of figuring out what they are without damaginf them. To be honest the only (bad I expect) idea I have is to chuck them all in a bowl full of cola!

Please help me, but please accept that I know nothing and may ask stupid questions.

[Chris Perkins]

For some reason I find myself whistling the godfather theme while I write this!

Erm, where are you located Don Camillo's godson?

[Peter]

Scrub and polish them up...sell them on Ebay and with the proceeds buy a KFC with a free family bottle of Cola.......Scrub and polish them up...sell them on Ebay.......

Is it me or have the lunatics escaped again?

[kuhli]

To start with, if they are covered in a green deposit, then they are already damaged. This is known as verdigris, and is a chemical reaction between copper and certain elements, which has already pitted and damaged the coins. You cannot reverse this damage, nor repair it. But you can halt any further damage. First step is to rinse them in distilled water (not tap water!). Once they are completely dried, put them into a bowl with olive oil. Put the bowl someplace safe, and out of the way, and forget about them. Take them out once a week, rinse the olive oil off with more distilled water, and repeat this process with fresh oil, until you are sure that they are as good as they will get. This may take a couple months.

Once you have removed all the verdigris residue, then you can really start to determine what you have, and what value it might have had before they were ruined. You may even find some that are quite salvageable, although any damage at all will greatly reduce their collector value.

If you can provide scans or photos of the individual coins, identification is usually much easier.

[Don Camillo's God Son]

Chris - I'm in Newcastle at the moment,but I'm also regularly in South Bucks. And don't worry - no mafiosi here. Don Camillo was the eponymous hero of a series of books written in the 50's by an Italian author called Giovanni Guareschi, and he was a priest (which doesn't preclude the mafia, but...).

Kuhli - olive oil?!!? Never have thought that would work in a million years! Cheers for that, I'll give it a go. I've ordered a few reference books from the library as well which should hell in identifying them.

Peter - lunatic is a bit strong, don't you think? I made it clear that I knew cola was a bad way to clean them but it's the only way I knew thanks to 2nd form physics many many years ago. Maybe idiot would have been more appropriate.

[Peter]

If they are 17 & 18 Century coins I would strongly advise you not to do anything rash.

Identify them first....I'm sure this Forum can help.

[Don Camillo's God Son]

Good advice.

I've decided that what I'm going to do is take it slowly and try to identify the more obvious first and to that end I've got a couple of coin 'yearbooks' from the local library.

I'm not going to be able to have a good root through 'til later this week, but looking at them there were two particular coins that grabbed my attention.

1 turns out to be called a 'cartwheel penny' from 1797 in reasonable nick (I'm a long way from being able to grade coins!).

The other has me though (not a good start - can't figure out the second one I try to find!).

It's dated 1897 and I'd guess it's gold. The 'heads' side (obverse?) has the legend 'four generations of the british royal family'. There is a crown at the top with a kind of sunsplash around it, and a laurel leaf type thing at the bottom by the date. Four heads, with Victoria on top going back through (I presume) a couple of Edwards and Georges to a baby. The reverse has the legend 'to commemorate the 60th year of her majestys reign 1837-97'. Inside that there's the same sunsplashed crown, with three shields below (harp, 3 lions, lion rampant) and below that a garland that looks too weird. It could be a mixture of a rose, dafodil and thistle...

[Peter]

The 1897 coin you describe...is it similar to Ebay item 3964392235 ?

I think these were massed produced in various metals.

You're cartwheel could be a 2d you can check it for size in most coin books(I think the 2d is 40mm)

It would need to be in excellent condition to be worth anything (Chris the owner of this site has a couple for sale with pictures).

Only 198 coins to go.

[Geoff T]

Good advice.

It's dated 1897 and I'd guess it's gold. The 'heads' side (obverse?) has the legend 'four generations of the british royal family'. There is a crown at the top with a kind of sunsplash around it, and a laurel leaf type thing at the bottom by the date. Four heads, with Victoria on top going back through (I presume) a couple of Edwards and Georges to a baby. The reverse has the legend 'to commemorate the 60th year of her majestys reign 1837-97'. Inside that there's the same sunsplashed crown, with three shields below (harp, 3 lions, lion rampant) and below that a garland that looks too weird. It could be a mixture of a rose, dafodil and thistle...

This one's always turning up!

It's a medal to commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. It shows the Queen with the next three generations of the royal family - the heirs who became Edward VII, George V and Edward VIII.

There are several designs. Spink did a handsome one with the heirs surrounding the portrait of the Queen and an obverse by Brock. It tends to be in white metal. There's also a fairly common bronze one with the four heads all facing left. I've not come across one in gold, although their may have been gilded bronze ones.

Geoff

[mitch91]

Do you have a scanner or a powerful digital camera or botth because one of them would help us help you value these coins but if not a good description would help alot

I'm back everyone

Edited March 16, 2005 by mitch91

[Don Camillo's God Son]

Peter and Geoff - thanks, that's the one. I've also found two more with the same 'head' but an advert for 'Remington Typewriters' on the other side...

Mitch - unfortunately not, although it'd be a good idea if I borrowed one for a while I guess.

Error - when I said c17 and c18 I was getting my centuries and 100's muddled up. Although there are quite a few earlier, they're mainly 1700's and 1800's.