My first coin

[pies]

Sorry for highjacking your thread with that question pies.

No probs whatsoever im learning too

[TomGoodheart]

Brilliant! Thanks for that Generic Lad, when I first started looking at coins I asumed that "toned" was never a good thing. I saw a couple like the florin pies posted, and my first impression of those was that someone tried to clean them, but only managed to clean the middle! I have much to learn.

Ah, toning. There's another thing to learn I'm afraid. Particularly with hammered silver coins. Before they were struck the planchets (coin blanks) were heated and de-greased and would come out bright or nearly white. But with time (and remembering people weren't terribly fussed about cleanliness so most coins would get greasy from food, stored in a damp leather purse and passed from grubby hand to grubby hand) the silver would start to oxidise (tone) very soon.

This coin is nearly black, particularly in the areas that get less wear. Left to age naturally, most coins will end up like this eventually. And actually, I find this one with it's velvety tone quite attractive in the hand:

This on the other hand is more typical being a slightly pinkish grey. You can see that the high points, particularly the lettering of the legend are brighter. This is an example of cabinet wear - the coin has been in a collection for many years, but stored in such a way that as the coins were inspected it has slid around and the high parts of the design have been polished. Not ideal, but not uncommon either and as it's a scarce type and didn't cost me much ...

Of course, you do get shiny coins looking much as the day they were made. Found coins sometimes need cleaning and people do silver dip coins that have toned unevenly and unattractively. But generally I prefer mine to have some toning. Not the rainbow stuff though!

Edited June 3, 2012 by TomGoodheart

[1949threepence]

Hi all well i finally started my collection with this edward vii florin If i've graded it correctly its "fine".More to come hopefully

How do you all get such good quality pics up here

Very, very nice ~ and much higher grade than fine. Look at the hair detail on the King's head. That would grade as NEF or EF.

Good start to your collection.