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Hi all, I am a keen observer of this forum, I do not say much on here but look at the forum daily. Some of the coins I see on here are beautiful and the knowledge that goes with them is incomparable. I have seen many pennies over the past few weeks/months and they have started to interest me but I have found myself to sometimes be following the threads and getting confused with the enormous amount of varieties. So, I recently purchased a copy of Freeman's Bronze Coinage of Great Britain and thought I would see if I could follow any of it! I have quite a large lot of pennies (pieces that have just been put in a junk box really) and thought I would try and attribute a Freeman number to them. I have tried on the 2 1861 pennies attached. Anyway, I was wondering if maybe some of the experts on here could advise me where I am going wrong/right in interpreting the differences in varieties that Freeman lists (some of them seem minor enough that I find myself struggling). I have gone for the first 1861 Penny as Freeman 21 3+D and the slightly better 1861 penny as F25 4+G. I am fully prepared for these attributions to be slightly/very/astonishingly wide of the mark but thought that I would give it a go and if anyone had a spare minute they could advise me where I am going wrong. Hopefully I can get a slightly better grip on this series as I really do find it fascinating. Thanks for all of your help and for continuously posting such lovely coins and useful information.

Hello! I've been lurking here since January but only just started posting. I'm so impressed by the knowledge and passion here! I'm Dan and I live in Cheltenham. I was interested in coins as a youngster which probably stemmed from being given a silver jubilee crown when I was at primary school. Elderly family relatives then gave me their pre-decimal coins that they had kept (mostly bog standard bits and bobs that they had just kept from change as curiosities, nothing particularly rare or in particularly good condition) and I would then spend my pocket money from time to time in a coin shop in Bristol, mostly on pre-1920 shillings in about F grade if I was lucky. My parents bought me 3 coins during this time as birthday and Christmas presents (a cartwheel twopence in GVF to NEF, an 1838 three-halfpence which is about EF and an 1889 double florin in GF) which were the absolute highlight of my collection then. My interest then lay relatively dormant apart from the odd commemorative crown or Royal Mint pack for about 25 years. I then won a sovereign as first prize in a 10k race. I was so pleased with this that I did the same race for the next 3 years and successfully won 3 more! There was also another 10k race with the same sponsor, but this was much harder to win and I only managed it once in 4 attempts. So I have two 2005 sovereigns... Roll forward another 5 years or so and the Olympic 50ps piqued my interest. I managed to find 25 of the 29 in change and then I bought the Royal mint set with the folder and completer medallion. This then led me towards the 2013 and 2014 £20 silver coins, and the commemorative coin proof sets (I know, I know... but I like most of the coin designs especially the £2s). At this point I then decided that I'd rather spend any further money on coins by acquiring some proper predecimal coins. I dusted off my old schoolboy collection, and while it still gave me a lot of pleasure I was slightly dismayed by the quality of it, with most of it being in the Fair to VF range. Plenty of scope for upgrading and adding different denominations or types. So then onwards to the slippery slope of the online coin dealers! Wow, what lovely coins there are out there, and this is how I came across this site and its fantastic forum. I bought a small number of coins from here in January, although since then have bought mainly from other dealers who seem to have more stock and a more regular flow of new items. I do still check here regularly though... I now wanted to acquire a decent-ish example of a coin in every circulating denomination and also a decent-ish example of every obverse design of each monarch's head (if that makes sense). By decent-ish I mean GVF and above, ideally GEF if I could afford it. So these last 9 months have been a lot of fun trying to find nice examples of different coins with good visual appeal for reasonable money at dealer prices. Given that I'm collecting for pleasure rather than investment, I've probably overpaid on a few occasions but overall I'm very pleased with what I've found and now have what to me at least is an interesting little collection! I'm not sure where I'll go next: I do still like shillings and might upgrade a few more, or go back in time a bit further (earliest I have is a William III 1700 plain in angles). Equally, I think halfcrowns are particularly lovely coins and I might go back further on these (earliest I have is an 1885 YH Victoria). Anyway - hello! And thanks for reading.

Thanks everyone, after nearly 10 years I was ready to crack this one open, but now it's back in the safe. Would still be good to know if any member actually has a piece with same dot, so if anyone happens to read this in years to come and has one of these coins then do please let me know. Just realising it's good to have a site like this to share views, will try to make more use and contribute in the future. P.S. There is a 60/59 on ebay.com at the moment, NGC AU58, but at £3,700 it seems too much to me, although I see he's taking offers.

Normally its me who is stupid ,nothing wrong in asking questions if so i would of been deleated ages ago.

Thanks guys, Jamie is on the case with it, I have seen via one of his facebook posts that his has contacted the seller.

F10 vs F13 - Check the last colon of D:G: - points to gap on F13 and tooth on F10. Fabric rose (near V of VICTORIA) is complete on F13 but bottom half missing on F10. As last resort - count the teeth ! (143 on F10; 138 on F13)

Sadly I do - that way I discovered the pattern QEII obverse which Michael Gouby now calls C*. It also makes identification of some coins more precise. And it comes in handy when I can't get off to sleep.......