Grading

[TomGoodheart]

Aha! I have learnt to attach (you'll all learn to regret that!)

Dificult to see but WWP in centres of shamrocks and WW initials in border three notches up from the end of the serif of A in ANNO.

Sadly not a perfect coin else it would be clear as er... something or other.

[TomGoodheart]

Whereas this is a good VF (Spink told me to say that..)

[Sylvester]

with hammered though it depends on the series what the grade is.

(that Geo shilling... i'm always fascinated with how WW hid his initials to start with, very different to BP, who spelt his name out in full!)

[TomGoodheart]

Ah well, I gather they were rather different characters! Pistrucci wasn't the type to hide his light behind a whatever by the sounds of it.

[Sylvester]

Pistrucci was very egocentrical, very talented no doubt about that, but very arrogant.

[Edward]

I wonder if TomGoodheart knows if anybody but Wyon and Pole knew what Wyon was doing with their initials until the dies had been made....

The Quest for the Stephen UNC is really at the heart of the difficulty grading hammered. About the time Tom posted the pic of that Chas shilling I was offered an example of that very coin, including the messy mintmark but couldn't bring myself to put that amount of capital into a coin that could have been EF based on the Stephen quality or aVF based on Spink's pics.

Does anyone know of any written descriptions of grading for individual hammered pieces? As Sylvester points out, with hammered it has to be a matter of knowing the general quality of coinages or of an individual type.

So this is where you hid the grading threads... in public. Very clever of you all.

[Half Penny Jon]

What coins do you collect Edward?

[Edward]

PM, I collect mainly British, though any world coin with character will catch my eye. I have been really concentrating on British for a little while now, putting together types. I will even add the occasional US coin in good enough grade.

[TomGoodheart]

I wonder if TomGoodheart knows if anybody but Wyon and Pole knew what Wyon was doing with their initials until the dies had been made....

About the time Tom posted the pic of that Chas shilling I was offered an example of that very coin, including the messy mintmark but couldn't bring myself to put that amount of capital into a coin that could have been EF based on the Stephen quality or aVF based on Spink's pics.

Does anyone know of any written descriptions of grading for individual hammered pieces? As Sylvester points out, with hammered it has to be a matter of knowing the general quality of coinages or of an individual type.

So this is where you hid the grading threads... in public. Very clever of you all.

Fraid not Edward. I got my info about the initials from the Coincraft catalogue!

Can I be cheeky and ask what amount of capital we are talking about for the Charles shillling? (Or point me in the right direction!?)

I don't know of any written descriptions for grading hammered. I think there's a degree of subjectivity that would make it difficult. Particularly those coins that are well struck in one bit and poorly in another. Tone is also really important of course. I subscribe to Spink's Numismatic Circular which I use as a reference work to compare grades (as well as a sale catalogue) and also occasionally buy aution catalogues. I have noticed Spink use the term 'for this issue' which basically means '.. it's not a VF but for this coin you won't find much nicer..' so it's kinda imprecise.