Chris Perkins

The variety is often called a 'leftie' as the milled section when you look under the hologram with the Queen' side facing you is usually to the right of the hologram. On lefties it's obviously on the left and there are actually some where the point is slightly milled (like a middly :S). It is certainly not a 50/50 thing like with the writing orientation on £2 coins and is no doubt due to the collar/dies not being fitted 'properly' although I think the RM have stated that there is no wrong or right way, so it's just an interesting variant. Here's my page which has more info: https://www.checkyourchange.co.uk/the-six-new-1-coin-varieties/ They seem fairly common for 2016 and less so for later years.

Firstly, condition is everything. Coins of most dates are very common in normal used condition and tend to be very low value. The best book to gauge condition is this one: https://www.coinpublications.com/product/the-standard-guide-to-grading-british-coins/ And a book for values is this one: https://www.coinpublications.com/product/collectors-coins-gb-2018-1760-1970/ (both also available on Amazon). It is a lot to take on at first!

Actually, that's a little bit of a security hole that I've just fixed! Guests were able to start topics within the technical support area and were allowed to reply to stuff elsewhere. Guests can no longer post anywhere and for the last couple of months I manually approve every new member. I did not approve Andeson because his email address looked odd and his IP is from Bangladesh, which is more well known for its spamming bots than it is for collectors of British coins!

Actually my new theory on the coppery coloured 20p's (they seem to occur a lot more for the 20p than any other current denomination) is improper annealing causing the atoms to migrate. First proposed in the USA by Mr Diamond, who really knows error coins. More info here: http://www.error-ref.com/improper-annealing/ These days the RM also charge £20 to look at coins, so no longer worth doing for minor things like this.

Oh look, it's all new and has all new bells and whistles. It was a bit fiddly but I got there in the end. Hope there are no issues now.

Note that some may experience bugs on the forum for the next day or so. I am trying to update and old version of the software to the latest version but only got as far as updating the server PHP version today, which may cause (and in fact already has caused) problems for some depending on browser and so many other factors these days. Sorry about that. It'll be worth it in the end!

Interesting stuff.

Where did that come from Zookeeperz? Peckris is sound as a pound and really does know his stuff.

Thanks! Yes, those and the coin ID cards are pretty much all I do now in the way of accessories.

I don't actually anymore Rob! It was a lot of work for low financial rewards. I tend to recommend Andy at http://www.coingallery.co.uk/

Peter, stop winding people up. Just ignore him PWA.

The Kindle version has been known to have alignment issues. In the printed version it is clearer (and the £30 is properly under Fine), but it is possible that a tab is missing there too. I will make sure they are moved over and adjusted next time.

The answer is that the 2018 predecimal book already available (since the 8th December). The 2018 decimal book will come in about Feb/March, as I need to wait for the RM to release the 2018 sets first, something they now seem to do on the 1st Jan and no longer in the previous November. I do often quote silly newspaper gossip, but the actual prices are real ones at the time of going to press.

A 2017 main (obverse) dated pound with micro 2016 dates on the reverse was reported to me yesterday. I haven't been able to confirm it though and it may well be that someone is confused and it is the known main 2016 date with tiny 2017 on the reverse type.

Hello toddmeister, thank you joining the forum and thank you for buying one of my books.

Yes, it's a replica sovereign-looking half of a coin that would have originally been stuck in a cheap ring.

Thanks. Mind at rest now!

I don't suppose someone could do me a favour and attempt to buy something cheap on predecimal.com (once with paypal as payment option and again with card selected as payment option). Someone reported that it doesn't work and goes into some kind of loop. Obviously I'll refund any payments taken. Something cheap would be this 1981 crown for example: http://www.predecimal.com/crown-1981-p-213.html

Hardly a week goes by when I don't get offered one of those RM canvass sealed bags of 1967 pennies or halfpennies Matt. I wish I could sell more than about 10 of the coins for a £1 or so annually, but there are just so many of them. The rest I scrap as 95% copper. The start price is probably not far out for 15kg, but I'm not sure exactly what the value of copper is at the moment.

Those were the best pics I took out of a few. They show the Mary bust best, but they do look old (the tooling).

And this is what the original Flanders Groot botdrager should look like.

I found this very interesting today. This came with a load of other coins and had a label stating it was a Philip and Mary Groat with portrait of Mary only. I thought nothing of it at first because it's not in great condition, but on closer inspection the shield and cross looked wrong. On even closer inspection the legends also looked wrong - what's left of them. In fact, for a P&M groat they are totally wrong. It took me quite a while doing detective work (hammered aren't my thing really), trying to work out what it says after the very clear 'PHILIP' and on the back between the arms of the cross. There are a lot of tooling marks on the shield and the faint bust of Mary. As my eyes tuned-in better to the writing style of those days it gradually became clearer with a lot of googling that the reverse actually reads ...NOME DNI BENEDICTVM, which led me in a French direction and eventually helped decipher the obverse which instead of reading PHILIP Z MARIA, actually reads PHILIPP DEI G D BVRG Z COM FLAND.... It's Philip Duke of Burgundy (1384 - 1404) and the coin is a Flanders Groot (groat) which should look like the coin posted in the comments. Someone at some stage, at least 150 years later and for whatever reason, has filed off what should be on the obverse (a lion with a flag) and has replaced it with a scratched out effigy of Mary in order to masquerade it as an English groat. That's a lot of effort to go to on a piece of silver that would have probably been readily accepted as cash at the time in its original form! Why?

Yes it can be, but these are real. Another has also come to light but I haven't seen it yet so can't confirm 100%. I suspect they struck a lot like this with wrong alignment.

A new discovery, confirmed by me (I have one) and with 2 other confirmed examples known. 2015 Britannia £2 with die alignment out about 100 degrees. There must be more out there. http://www.checkyourchange.co.uk/2015-britannia-2-incorrect-alignment/