Coinery Posted June 30 Posted June 30 I’ll be interested to see what this fetches, as I think it’s aesthetically awful, but is apparently NGC AU58. I bought one of Chris Comber’s Anchor Shillings, which is at least a grade less, but I prefer mine to the NGC graded piece by a golden mile! 1 Quote
Coinery Posted July 1 Author Posted July 1 (edited) 12 hours ago, Rob said: A clear case of the tail wagging the dog. I think so…it’ll be interesting to see what the slab actually represents in this particular example. We have an essentially scarce to, more likely, rare shilling (around 10-20 across auctions and eBay in the last 10 years [including the dross], so maybe 30+ available around, maybe a few more?), sitting as a “top pop,” but likely on account of the infrequency an anchor shilling is slabbed by NGC…it could even be the only one? Will bidders potentially gather in expectation of it being the finest known? I hope not! Edited July 1 by Coinery Quote
copper123 Posted July 2 Posted July 2 Just shows what ugly things most hammered coins are really sigh 1 Quote
Coys55 Posted July 2 Posted July 2 7 hours ago, copper123 said: Just shows what ugly things most hammered coins are really sigh That one certainly is. However did it get graded AU? Are those flat areas due to a weak strike or something? Quote
Rob Posted July 2 Posted July 2 22 minutes ago, Coys55 said: That one certainly is. However did it get graded AU? Are those flat areas due to a weak strike or something? Many hammered coins have an area of weakness unless it's a clean even strike. Small areas of weakness are quite normal. It really depends on what the flat surfaces look like under a glass. Abrasions are quite distinguishable. 1 Quote
copper123 Posted July 2 Posted July 2 Ironically many of the smaller coins ie groat down are much nice coins to own from the tudor and stuart periods Quote
Sword Posted July 2 Posted July 2 This coin highlights that the criteria for grading milled coins are not sufficient (or appropriate) for "grading" hammered coins. One can assume that milled coins generally have decent round full weight flans and much less weakness or flat areas. Then one can concentrate on assessing the wear as it is the dominant factor in grading milled. Lustre + hairlines, etc are other complementary factors. But for hammered, the wear is not the single dominant factor and is often not even the most important factor. The grading done by TPG on hammered coins often seem to ignore flat areas (can be much more important than wear) and shape of flan. Hence, I find grading numbers rather meaningless for hammered. 3 Quote
Coinery Posted July 2 Author Posted July 2 5 hours ago, copper123 said: Ironically many of the smaller coins ie groat down are much nice coins to own from the tudor and stuart periods Having said that, try and buy a nice Elizabeth Halfgroat…VERY difficult Quote
Coinery Posted July 2 Author Posted July 2 5 hours ago, Sword said: This coin highlights that the criteria for grading milled coins are not sufficient (or appropriate) for "grading" hammered coins. One can assume that milled coins generally have decent round full weight flans and much less weakness or flat areas. Then one can concentrate on assessing the wear as it is the dominant factor in grading milled. Lustre + hairlines, etc are other complementary factors. But for hammered, the wear is not the single dominant factor and is often not even the most important factor. The grading done by TPG on hammered coins often seem to ignore flat areas (can be much more important than wear) and shape of flan. Hence, I find grading numbers rather meaningless for hammered. 100% agree with you. Eye appeal on a technically lower graded coin, outranks a higher graded “road accident” on just about every occasion IMHO Quote
Sword Posted July 3 Posted July 3 (edited) Low eye appeal but high grade hammered in slabs is not such a bad thing. Let investors buy these and leaving the well struck VF for collectors 😀. Edited July 3 by Sword 1 1 Quote
TomGoodheart Posted July 4 Posted July 4 That seller always has really high contrast photographs, which I feel don't do his offerings any justice. I suspect it's a decent enough coin in the hand. But top pops are always a bit dodgy unless the coin is really common, since there are bound to be better examples of 99% of coins on ebay out there somewhere, and only a fraction get graded so it's all a bit meaningless to most British collectors IMHO. And of course, it's always 'buy the coin, not the slab' with these .. Quote
Coinery Posted July 7 Author Posted July 7 On 7/4/2025 at 3:50 PM, TomGoodheart said: That seller always has really high contrast photographs, which I feel don't do his offerings any justice. I suspect it's a decent enough coin in the hand. But top pops are always a bit dodgy unless the coin is really common, since there are bound to be better examples of 99% of coins on ebay out there somewhere, and only a fraction get graded so it's all a bit meaningless to most British collectors IMHO. And of course, it's always 'buy the coin, not the slab' with these .. Possibly, but there’s something other than contrast about this coin for me. My main bother is balance, the flat spots fall awkwardly for me, and the area at the obverse 3 o’clock is either crushed or corroded, which is also way too much for me. It’s a rare coin I guess, but… Quote
Coinery Posted July 7 Author Posted July 7 Anyway, it sold for £860, I thought the Americans might push it into the stratosphere…still prefer mine at £298 1 Quote
Coinery Posted July 7 Author Posted July 7 Another glitch! I couldn’t edit the above post just seconds later (I wanted to remove ‘anyway’)…it said the post cannot be edited as it’s either been deleted or is too old! 😩 Quote
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