Leaderboard

He was no oil painting either. Speaking of which, that royal "portrait" you've posted bears about as much relation to reality as William Wyon's effigy on the coinage. Pistrucci was rather closer to the mark but even he had probably omitted the warts and pox marks.

Oh I'm jealous- the F76 is the one I crave. My F69 was off ebay- gambling on a bad picture -a £16 pile of pennies. A bit better condition than the £255 one on Bay last week.

Absolutely Richard. The guy who sold it had been a collector of bun pennies from change, when he was a kid in the 1950's, and put them away, only to be re-examined all these years later, and sold on e bay. No doubt most of the others were run of the mill, but as with other kitchen drawer collections that have been looked at, just very occasionally a real rarity shows up. He himself never realised what it was. I thought it only reasonable to tell him, but he was just pleased it had found a good home. Fair play to him.

She sounds as mad as a hatter, or should that be the Queen of Hearts?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-42887063

These both appear plated. I am careful in my choice of words, but assertions have no place; I do not believe you can state the 1/2d is NOT plated. I am somewhat of a specialist in both Victorian and E7 silver, but also love off metal strikes (OMS). The farthing is within tolerance on weight, the halfpenny is about 0.5 gm heavy compared to standard. However, the coin DOES appear heavily plated in the photograph with loss of detail secondary to this - a bit of blurring that I have seen often with heavier plating. I will add that heavy plating may be "resistant" to non-penetrating assays/tests, including chemical, scratching, XRF. Specific gravity will pick it up & would anticipate with some likelihood that this 1/2d will register as near copper, but slightly higher. By quick memory, bronze is somewhere around 8.8-8.9 and sterling silver about 10.36-10.39.

Thanks Mike - that was a hell of a bargain.

There's something about this listing that doesn't seem quite right. Perhaps a fakehttps://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Reverse-Legend-In-Gothic-Script-1870-Queen-Victoria-Florin-2-Shilling/332537882394?hash=item4d6ccd671a:g:9FEAAOSwXOVacJCs

Here it is - just freshly photographed a few minutes ago !!! (not the best, but beggars can't be choosers. I was damn lucky to get it for just £58.