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I hope you'll all join me in wishing the Carol Vorderman of Labour a speedy recovery from her case of "toomuchofaliabilityititis" Nice to see she'll be stepping aside from Home Office though (probably to take up the Chancellors position)........and we thought that the USA had it tough having to choose between Trump and Clinton!

Something I have done a couple of times is to get together the coins from a particular monarch and spread them on the table then pick at random 4 or 5 of them. I then try to place them in ascending order using my judgement and a grading book noting key indicators for wear, weakness of strike or whatever the book tells me is significant for that series of coins. I then place them back in the pack and pick another 4 or 5 at random and repeat the process until I get bored. I might then pick another monarch and look for the key indicators for that series and repeat again. It might sound labourius but it's actually quite quick. I don't use the Sheldon scale far too many variables for my brain to wrap around, I just stick with the good old F, VF, EF, UNC and a few inbetweeners such as AUNC. I also seem to work it out better if I start off by deciding what it is not rather than what it is, that might sound a bit backwards but it's just a case of elimination sometimes it's really obvious and sometimes it's a choice between two grades if thats the case I will go for the lower grade until proven otherwise. Just the way it works for me, I keep it simple and I am happy with that.

Doubt it. Most of those that you see are flat, knocked about a bit and generally in a state of disrepair. Hang on............

If it's technical grading what you're interested in, there is a book titled 'Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection' that, although solely focused on the Sheldon scale on American coins, is wonderfully detailed and explains many of the small aspects and intricacies of the grading process and I learnt a good few bits from it. I wish there was one adapted to the European grading scale.

But they are just opinions, and it's different how a coin looks in hand than in a photo. Auction prices are in some way more solid: if a coin that is clearly worse than yours sells for £150, and a better one for £200, then you can work out the value of yours.

The farthings can be difficult because the small patches of wear get magnified when blown up on a screen. I agree with John on the 1887 and 1901, although the 1901 could easily be nearly fully lustred, these darkened farthings can be very difficult to grade from just a photo. The 1878 I also think would be a similar grade and it looks like there is traces of lustre in the legends, just some tiny patches of wear. The 1887 is a tougher date than is often appreciated.

I don't think it is a 5/3 because the angle of the line is wrong. It is more likely a continuation of the flaw that goes from the 7, through the crown to the 4, or an associated one if not connected.

The 1/2d around VF, farthings 1887 and 1901 probably nudging EF, the 1878 GVF and the 1929 6d A UNC judging by the reverse.

I scraped my new car driving out of the block. One side looks crappy and the side is smack. Would I scape some paint off the smack side too? Whether the coin has been cleaned on the obverse can only be guaranteed on manual inspection. So please don’t do anything drastic.

Sorry here is the obverse.