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these two have faults, the 3 pence would be easy to dismiss until I took a closure look. on the obverse, the bust looks corroded or so I thought taking a closure look at the letters the "A's seem deformed, the area by the front of the nose looks corroded ? I undersatned to coin is rubbed but thought i was worth looking into, 🤔 The 2 Pence has cracks going to the right hand of the top of the crown, also at the 3 o'clock ... I do like a fault. 👍

I'm still finding interesting Empire coinage as I sift through..... these I had but not ventured near in over 35 years, now I have a page that covers different monarchs, dates and country's.... I do like the colonial use coins as well, 👍

The point about the gilts was of course that a surface layer need not be removed by scratching, nothing to do with identification of the variety. The silvered 1841 colon currency penny in the latest Spink auction, initially wrongly described as the silver proof, was heavily marked and worn but with the coating fully intact. In that case though the silvering was probably applied to an already worn and marked coin, unlike with Soho gilts where any markings, scratches etc would happen to the already gilded coin. The halfpenny is nowhere near worn enough to cancel out the circa 15% increase in weight that would be observed in a sterling silver analogue of similar dimensions. So the weight would be useful to know.

I only have one these days. 20 years ago I bought a whole collection of Indian silver including several dozen assorted Rupees, but sadly I sold them all. This is William IV, 1835:

I cant upload a picture? Says " You have used all of the attachment space you are allowed per post. Manage Attachments to free up space" I have sent you a message with the image, many thanks.

Hi @terrysoldpennies can I ask you thoughts on this coin please. The Aa coin pictured left in my attached file is the coin you have. The right hand picture appears to match Aa, it appears shows the slight doubling? on the top of the 0. To me the right hand image appears to be Aa. Could you please let me know what you think? Many thanks

I love these…great designs!

aha, yes theres this one as well that I found awhile ago,

very interesting information / knowledge 👍

I would go with the RMM opinion, however you can do another test if you want to check yourself that doesn't involve working out the specific gravity. Simply place a strong rare earth magnet on the coin and tip the coin up to let the magnet slide off. If the the magnet free falls at normal speed its not Silver. (You need a strong small rare earth magnet for it to work) If the magnet slides down across the coin much slower at a constant speed its Silver. Worth thinking about metal sliding across the coin and potential damage /scratch you could place a piece of paper on the coin so the magnet doesn't cause any damage. Its called magnetic braking. The test would not work on a copper/silver plated coin because copper's high conductivity will cause the magnet to slow down although the magnet will still slide faster than silver.

Lovely! I've been getting 1 rupees whenever I can. I have a Hyderabad one in my watch list too. I'll continue to look for one per year of the Imperial ones and then one from each Princely state that minted them.

Yes, but the big difference there is that the gilt pieces are patterns or proofs and so readily distinguishable from the currency issues. This one looks to be a normal worn currency piece that someone has had fun with. The weight is likely similar to what it should be. Silver is only a bit denser than copper, so the wear will likely cancel out the difference at best.

Does anyone have contact with Verene? Trying to get some details on one of the lots for my research

surfaced today amongst a mixed bag of foreign and 1950's British coin, glad I did take some time otherwise it would be on its way to the charity shop, so for your consideration a 1892. Victorian and Ganga Singh 1 Rupee, It was minted by the princely state of Bikanir under the British Rule. .917 Silver, Weight 11.45 g

An obvious question is - what's the weight and how does that compare to the standard bronze weight? Also, Soho gilded coins can often tolerate field scratches without breaking through the gilt surface.

Ok, thanks Rob , I wasn't sure, still a nice curiosity piece😊

You sometimes get silvered base coins for use as a pendant or similar. I see yours didn't have a hole for suspension, but the intent will likely be the same. If the silver is recoverable as part of a bigger lot, then best recovered that way, but sadly no or very little collectable value.

Sorry, I think I put this in the wrong place😔

Hi guys, its been a while, I hope everyone is well. I have a bit of a conundrum , I have an 1886 halfpenny that according to The Royal Mint Museum is an authentic coin , but has been silver plated, the thing is it has deep initials scratched/gouged onto its surface and I see no underlying bronze at all, I took it to my coin dealer and we did an acid test, which came up as silver , slightly magnetic and he thinks it is a low grade silver, but the ping test came out as a normal halfpenny, by the way my coin was gone for 4 months , not the usual 6 to 8 weeks, when I got in touch with a guy I email regularly he chased it up for me . The RMM response said "they had no reason to think it was not authentic", but at the end said it was "silver plated". I would appreciate any help on this please Many thanks in advance

Arrrgh!

Yes. I have full sympathy with Commodore Perry, who seemed to attach his tickets to coins like this .. less chance of them being misplaced I suppose.

Bit of a tragic tale, that!

The collection was sold through DNW in conjunction with Stephen Mitchell, who was a favourite dealer of John's with many supplied through that channel. Apparently a box was dropped when picking up the collection. It isn't impossible that it was lost at that point, even falling through the drain grid. A metal detector around chez Hulett (decd) might be of use, but a bit of a bummer though, if it was lost at that point.