Leaderboard

I would agree with NGC for the following reasons a) Looking at Britannia's left tit you can see some wear and on top of this wear there is a coating of colour (artificial shine?). Now if the coin were to wear it would have taken the luster off first. The fact that on top of the luster there is wear is suspecious There are some minor scratches/hairlines as I have shown in the circled areas. The area around the leg is particularly interesting. These scratches again have luster which fills the crevices. Only rarely would we see such a degree of scratches on a platchet before it is struck. The fact that the coin had this level of scratches before the luster was applied makes me believe this luster was applied after the coin saw a bit of circulation.

NOT SURE WHATS GONE ON HERE - BUT STILL A LOVELY COIN

Many Victorian coins were counter stamped as advertising pieces it is rarer to find uk coinage that is counter stamped as it was more often done on french or Spanish penny sized coins that often circulated in the uk along with our own currency . These i must admit are common finds uk stuff is rarer as is was considered bad taste to ruin coins of the uk. Halfpennies of george the third 170-1775 are often counterstamped to weed out the forgeries (most people were illiterate and totally unable to tell if coinage was real or not , so many were coutamped as a warning not to take them

I must add the obverse looks fine to me and it is a nice coin.

It won't be long before you're "Almost a piece of furniture", or something like that.

Interesting piece, the caveat as always is that it is best seen in hand. I have seen similar that apparently were cleaned & thereby stripped down to raw copper alloy, then retoned in an envelope with then "retoning" on the high points of devices and rim. I still, however, can not totally rule out original surfaces with differential toning. Lustre is a tricky thing and does not IMO always appear stereotypically.

It is great to see quality and these bad boys will still be in the same shape in 500 years time. We won't.

Really nice Penny Prax. Good purchase!

Hah, well done Prax, glad to see you holding back! Lovely coin!

No, I'm a Royalist long before I will ever be a republican. The comment relates to how little detail there is per unit surface area on today's coins compared to times gone by. Greek, Roman, Celtic, or even Saxon coins had a very good level of detail by comparison, but clearly were not subject to the far more rigorous operating conditions demanded today. The design must reflect the functionality of the die, i.e. first and foremost it is just a tool. John Bergdahl, one of the current mint engravers, gave an enlightening talk at the BNS meeting in Manchester a couple years ago where he discussed the question of allowable relief in the design. It's remarkably little, even when magnified prior to reduction, we are talking typically of less than a mm relief (0.7mm was a figure mentioned for one design in question). There isn't much room for error and given the portraits of Tudor monarchs are in similarly low relief, I think it is probably better to applaud their efforts whatever technological period we are in. 500 years ago, regular die failure was part of the expectation, whereas today, die longevity is considerably more important given the capital cost of the equipment involved. It needs to be working to earn its keep. Scott. First time I saw the boar's head, I thought it was a woman with her possessions over her shoulder too. It's amazing how conditioned we are! The traveller in childrens' books is always depicted in this manner, but how many books contain a reference to a wild boar? Not many I suspect.

They use those tridents down in Louisiana to hunt bullfrogs...Think they call them "gigs" or something to that effect. Rob, I take it then that you are not in particular a Royalist? LOL

Bored now!

I found this today, in my own forum, from a google search! I'd also be interested in pictures of the decimal varieties of 1p if anyone can provide some that I can use on the web and possibly in books.

You're the man, Dave! Whilst I'll never be collecting in this field, or will ever check my change (even though I do occasionally look at my 20p's), I totally respect the methodology and dedication!Great stats...and just when Declan thought he was free!

Excellent.