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100% agreed. There are more and more of those infernal "retro souvenir" pennies on e bay. Anybody with experience can spot them instantly as fakes, but a novice might fall for it. Especially if artificially toned and touted as real. I'm sure some of the sellers will start passing them off as real before long. Depressing thought.

Hello, this is CHP with a new account I just registered. It seems to be working now.

Not at all. Counterfeit, but contemporary counterfeit. A nice souvenir of the everyday lives of ordinary people in the 1770s. Worth a few quid, but so what? The value is in it's age and the part counterfeiting played in the social history of the period.

Coppers forgeries weren't punishable by death, only silver and gold.

Not really forgery was punishable by death so the forger could plead in court there was no intention to decieve as per coinage as their "copy" had a beard so nobody would be fooled . In reality everyone would be , as dickins rightly said "the law is an ass"

If 20mm dia then it is a farthing, not a halfpenny. There are no bearded coins, but a better picture would help establish what you have. If it is really a beard then it would have to be a forgery (there were many around in the 1770s), however, the reverse lettering doesn't look bad from the (too small) image. A picture as close to 500kB as possible would be good.

Clearly with your wallet.

As for the verdigris, I would personally bin it given the number of scratches from previous attempts to remove the mess and upgrade to one that's only a midge's off unc from yours truly

Yes, there are two 9/8 dies if I remember correctly

That's an interesting point as they use one characteristic to measure another - amount of reflectivity versus amount of frosting contrast on the devices! I believe I had seen reflection of a pencil used. I am really OK with the three basic designations of proof, cameo and deep cameo (or ultra). There no doubt is some quibbling about coins on the border. I have shown my own 1839 half crown that is deep cameo (but where I have issues about what the grade is designated), and that one is clear as is the Adams 1961 penny. A separate number for amount of contrasting would be fought just as hard. But most collectors know that this is all subjective, the number or frosting amount depends on the judgement of the viewer.

If you log in....Click on Lots archive.... Type in the search box (top right)....Colin Adams....Two options come up highlighted .... click on penny sale.. A lot easier than trying to fill in all the daft boxes

Will do Des, will absolutely give you first refusal! Will get the info and images together shortly! 👍

Fab find, lovely.

From the picture could it not be a flaw or possibly a crack that appears to run to the rim ?.