Coin aquisition of the week.......

[ozjohn 488]

Nice coin. I'm afraid my knowledge of this type of coinage is very limited. What would you grade it at?

[JLS 209]

Looks a straight VF to me, very nice. 

[ozjohn 488]

That's what I would have said but for an old coin to judge its grade you have to have some of idea of the original strike which I guess would not be as sharp and well defined as a modern coin. That's what makes it so hard to grade George V silver because of the variable quality of the strike.

[Paulus 1,878]

Just landed, type 3a2 with welcome provenance and tickets, the plate coin from Maurice Bull's "The Halfcrowns of Charles I" vol 2 (with his tickets too, I believe)

[Paulus 1,878]

A DNW win today (sixpence)

[Sword 1,268]

That's a great looking coin!

[Paulus 1,878]

On 2/12/2020 at 10:04 PM, Sword said:

That's a great looking coin!

Thanks Sword!

[Paulus 1,878]

This just in, never thought I'd justify the money for a decent one, but here it is!

[ozjohn 488]

On 2/12/2020 at 2:13 AM, Paulus said:

Just landed, type 3a2 with welcome provenance and tickets, the plate coin from Maurice Bull's "The Halfcrowns of Charles I" vol 2 (with his tickets too, I believe)

I say this from a position of ignorance and with respect I fail to see how this coin qualifies for a grading of NVF. Please believe me I am not trying to degrade any coin. As you have probably seen my experience  is from modern coins 1816 +. I am not disagreeing with this grading but fail to see how it is attributed. If I was asked to grade this coin based on my experience of modern coins I would give it a grading of fair. The design is flat in places the inscription around the coin is not clear all the things that point towards a coin of low grade. Having said this the coin is seems to be manually struck coin however I was always told the age of the coin has nothing to do with the grading and the coin should be graded accordingly. Your advice is requested.

Edited February 16, 2020 by ozjohn
More info

[declan03 149]

 

An interesting 1697 William III Shilling with error on A.

According to ESC (1992) ESC1108B rates at R4 - 11 to 20 examples known to exist.

Would this info be correct?

 

[Sword 1,268]

1 hour ago, ozjohn said:

I say this from a position of ignorance and with respect I fail to see how this coin qualifies for a grading of NVF. Please believe me I am not trying to degrade any coin. As you have probably seen my experience  is from modern coins 1816 +. I am not disagreeing with this grading but fail to see how it is attributed. If I was asked to grade this coin based on my experience of modern coins I would give it a grading of fair. The design is flat in places the inscription around the coin is not clear all the things that point towards a coin of low grade. Having said this the coin is seems to be manually struck coin however I was always told the age of the coin has nothing to do with the grading and the coin should be graded accordingly. Your advice is requested.

The grading of hammered coins is very different from milled. Most hammered coins have flat areas due to weak striking and not from wear. These do not normally downgrade the coin but qualifiers are sometimes used. E.g. NVF but weak spots in legends etc. Grading of hammered is more about assessing the amount of wear on the best struck parts. 

Grade is also considerably less important for hammered as there are other important factors to consider such as the shape of the flan (whether it is round or irregular), size of the flan, flan cracks, strike, weight, if the design is well centered,... etc

Each coin is unique and so cannot be treated like the mass produced milled. 

 

[copper123 1,273]

6 hours ago, ozjohn said:

I say this from a position of ignorance and with respect I fail to see how this coin qualifies for a grading of NVF. Please believe me I am not trying to degrade any coin. As you have probably seen my experience  is from modern coins 1816 +. I am not disagreeing with this grading but fail to see how it is attributed. If I was asked to grade this coin based on my experience of modern coins I would give it a grading of fair. The design is flat in places the inscription around the coin is not clear all the things that point towards a coin of low grade. Having said this the coin is seems to be manually struck coin however I was always told the age of the coin has nothing to do with the grading and the coin should be graded accordingly. Your advice is requested.

Its a Good fine for me , it could have been a better strike though , pretty typical of the period. As a plus its a nice round flan with no clipping

Edited February 16, 2020 by copper123

[ozjohn 488]

11 hours ago, Sword said:

The grading of hammered coins is very different from milled. Most hammered coins have flat areas due to weak striking and not from wear. These do not normally downgrade the coin but qualifiers are sometimes used. E.g. NVF but weak spots in legends etc. Grading of hammered is more about assessing the amount of wear on the best struck parts. 

Grade is also considerably less important for hammered as there are other important factors to consider such as the shape of the flan (whether it is round or irregular), size of the flan, flan cracks, strike, weight, if the design is well centered,... etc

Each coin is unique and so cannot be treated like the mass produced milled. 

 

Thanks for that. I'll look at hammered coins with different eyes in future.  I still think having an idea of how these coins would have looked when they were struck is important when assessing their grade.

As an aside when grading a lightly struck massed produced milled coin I always check the condition of the milling not just for knocks but signs of wear which is a good indication in deciding between a light strike and surface wear on a coin.

[Sword 1,268]

9 hours ago, ozjohn said:

I still think having an idea of how these coins would have looked when they were struck is important when assessing their grade.

With milled coins, you would normally have a very good idea of what an UNC specimen would look like. Problem is that most hammered coins already look very different when they were first made.

Just as you would check the condition of the milling for wear and decide if some loss of details is due to weak striking, hammered collectors would check out the best struck parts for wear. 

For example, this specimen was described as probably about as made with very little wear evident. 

 

[ozjohn 488]

23 hours ago, Sword said:

The grading of hammered coins is very different from milled. Most hammered coins have flat areas due to weak striking and not from wear. These do not normally downgrade the coin but qualifiers are sometimes used. E.g. NVF but weak spots in legends etc. Grading of hammered is more about assessing the amount of wear on the best struck parts. 

Grade is also considerably less important for hammered as there are other important factors to consider such as the shape of the flan (whether it is round or irregular), size of the flan, flan cracks, strike, weight, if the design is well centered,... etc

Each coin is unique and so cannot be treated like the mass produced milled. 

 

Thanks for that. I'll look at hammered coins with different eyes in future.  I still think having an idea of how these coins would have looked when they were struck is important when assessing their grade.

As an aside when grading a lightly struck massed produced milled coin I always check the condition of the milling not just for knocks but signs of wear which is a good indication in deciding between a light strike and surface wear on a coin.

[Paulus 1,878]

Just acquired my first George I crown (today's DNW auction)

[Paddy 1,400]

Not the greatest coin in the world but I was pleased to pick up this 1904 Sixpence in an album full of otherwise scrap coins last week. Seems to be a scarcer date too. A slight upgrade for me:

 

[Unwilling Numismatist 503]

Picked up this little beauty for a tenner.  A scarce R over B. Better than my previosu VF too

[ozjohn 488]

Perhaps a stupid question but how could a R over B  error happen or was it simply a case of poor spelling?

Edited March 14, 2020 by ozjohn
Typo

[Unwilling Numismatist 503]

1 hour ago, ozjohn said:

Perhaps a stupid question but how could a R over B  error happen or was it simply a case of poor spelling?

That would be a question I'm neither old enough nor qualified enough to answer. 

 

[Rob 2,865]

An error is simply that. There's nothing to say an overstrike should be logical, nor illogical. It could be absolutely anything.

[ozjohn 488]

21 hours ago, Rob said:

An error is simply that. There's nothing to say an overstrike should be logical, nor illogical. It could be absolutely anything.

Still represents very poor QA. 

[ozjohn 488]

My latest acquisition received today. The obverse is pretty good for a low relief 1921 halfcrown while the reverse has some weakness  on the lions' faces on the shield  and also the scotch lion. Overall I think a well struck coin for the period

[copper123 1,273]

Is the B/R shlling a recognised variety ?

It looks a bit like it could be R/R with a small die crack at the bottom , my opinion only

[VickySilver 691]

For some reason, well struck and detailed1920 and 1921 half crowns with good colour and lustre have become my favorite G5 coins. OZ, yours is very nice!