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You must be exhausted.............

I must say that I agree and disagree with you Pete, You must remember you gave me a beautiful wide date 1898 penny , well it has the appearance of a cameo as on close inspection the effigy of the King and of Britannia are matt finished , but the field is semi polished but also has some scratch marks . These scratches run in absolutely straight lines up to the effigy , but not onto them , indicating they were made to the surface of the die or onto the planchet in the Mint before being pressed . Pic. below. In the case of Kipsters coin , also an exactly the same 1898 wide date penny with the effigies appearing to be Matt finished with the field semi polished and with scratches running in absolutely straight lines right up to and straight through the legend with no curving as it crosses the raised up letters, as it would do if you scratched across a coin. On Kipsters penny though it does look as though it my have been lightly polished around Britannia's arm . ?

Indeed I have! Along with all my decent finds from the late 60s, which include the first ever 1926 penny I found - which, after several months and a very close look, turned out to be an ME - plus an UNC 1938 halfpenny with good lustre, an EF 1935 halfpenny with lustre, and a 1909 halfpenny in better than VF.

I’d have been 12 in 1967 and 11 or 12 sounds about the age I’d have been searching. I used to stay at my nan’s in Seven Kings in the summer holidays and get bags from the bank nearly every day, mainly pennies, halfpennies and threepences, but sometimes sixpences or shillings Never found a 1918 or 1919KN, 1869, 1950, 1951 or 1953 penny or 1946, 1949, 1950 or 1951 threepence. Lots of pre-1947 silver, but hardly and pre-1920 I still have the albums. Mostly worn rubbish, but pretty nostalgic.

Ah well Pete we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Below is a 1953 Cameo I gave to Richard , and as you can see it has Minute scratches across the field , but none of them cross onto the queens effigy which is clearly frosted . it is the same on the 1898 penny, and it would be impossible to polish the field alone without running over onto the raised surfaces .

The decimal era was well in by the time of my teenage years and there weren't anything remotely exciting to be found in change. Just the CuNi florins and shillings circulating as 10p and 5p coins. I still have some of the stuff I collected but they only have sentimental rather than numismatic value. But it has occurred to me that the "modern" commemoratives I saved are not so modern now as decades have passed. The most notable set I have kept is the 1975 Panama proof set which featured then the world's biggest and smallest "circulating" coins. I would hardly be impressed by that sort of gimmick today. Even the humble rocking horse crown is now 89 years old and will soon reach "antique" status.

Quick question regarding this 1898. It's a wide date of 11 teeth, but not the bisect variety. Is this a scarcer variety than the BP1898Ba and BP1898Ca?