mint_mark

OK, it took me a few moments to remember, but there is a whole series of coins from Mozambique issued in 1975 that have very high catalogue values. It was the coinage of the people's republic (socialist government) which was in power for only six months between independence from Portugal and the formation of a proper republic. If it's not these your colleague has then I expect there are similar stories for other countries... quite a few of the "last colonial" or "first after independence" issues can be scarce. Some the last colonial issues of Rhodesia and Nyasaland have high values too...

I think they do sell them "raw" at face value... but not until quite a while after issue. I've bought some before from their website for £5, with free postage!

Cor! This is just like being on Time Team!

Yes it does! Very cheeky

Don't say that! The Royal Mint will probably do one when she dies :/

Good theme! The first coin I thought of when I read that is my Viet-Nam 1 dong with Ho Chi Minh on it... my next thought was that noteriety depends on a point of view. Maybe you should get a set of modern US coins Ooh! You could have coins from each of Napoleon's puppet states... shouldn't be too hard to find some with portraits...

Well, that was easy! I found 7 spare 3rd reich coins, 6 of which were Berlin but the best is only about EF and somewhat mottled (1939 5pf). The others are 3 zinc 10pf (VF at best) and a couple of aluminium 50pf more like F. Still, the small ones shouldn't be hard to come by, even the zinc issues. For some reason I've never seen many 2pf though. The 2M and 5M seem pretty obtainable too. I was assuming you meant nazi as in with a swastika... if you're interested in late Weimar I found a spare 1936A 5pf (obv EF trace lustre, rev worse) Like Chris, I'll have to do some digging to check my decimals but I wanted to sort them out anyway, so now I have an excuse... might be a day or two...

Hmmm, I have a few spare of those too. Are you looking for some Sylvester or disposing of them? PS, I'll see what I have in those decimal date ranges too.

So how many people here save new coins? I have a reasonable hoard going back over the years, but I also have some gaps in my collection. I know Chris doesn't sell single decimal coins, but he once said he's got some tucked away too!

Chris you're absolutely right of course. I myself was born in Brentwood (Hi HPJ!) which is only just outside London these days, but I know that places such as Romford, Hornchurch and Ilford have all been swallowed in the past... a sort of progress I suppose. Sorry for insulting your ancestors... I certainly appreciate the difference between a good Essex town and a London suburb! Back to Walthamstow... I think some of the buildings from the metal works where this token was made still survive... there's a dealer on ebay who shows a photo of them when he sells one of the tokens. Nothing for sale at the moment though.

I recognise that! It's a Brutus halfpenny token... they were made in Walthamstow (NE London) in about 1812 (it is undated). This was a time when there was a shortage of small change, so companies and merchants made their own coins to use. I think this one was made by a metal working company. These tokens were also taken to the new colonies (Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc) where coins were also in short supply, so you often see them referred to as colonial tokens. If you type "brutus token" into ebay's search you should find some for sale...

Honestly, with the abundance of commemorative coins these days it's really tough trying to collect a full set from change... I'm still missing a few from 2004!

OK, just to add to what William said... 1) is fairly scarce worth 2 or 3 pounds in average condition, but these big, soft coins get beaten up quite easily. 2) is from Guernesey, where 4 doubles was equivalent to half an English penny. 1914 is a common date. 3) is very common in the UK.

Well, with coins condition is everything as far as value goes. I'll have a go at identifying them from your descriptions... 1) is a Swedish 5 öre and quite scarce in very nice condition. In average condition it might be worth around a pound. 2) is a French 5 centimes. I think it must be 1853 (or 1863)... The picture is of emperor Napoleon III (who was Napoleon Bonarparte's nephew and is buried in Farnborough!). The value depends somewhat on the small letter just below the eagle (this shows where it was made) but the 1853 dates are all fairly common... no more than a pound in average condition. 3) Hmmm, I would normally think that is an arabic date, but 1429 is still in the future in the Hijra calendar! There are other calendars used in the far east, but I think we need another clue 4) is a Danish 10 øre... scarce-ish because Frederik VIII was only king for a few years. Up to 2 pounds in average condition. 5) is a coin from nazi Germany. You don't say what denomination it is, but if it is dark grey (zinc) then these are all very common even in tip-top condition. There you go... I would say they are not useless bits of metal but tiny pieces of history!

Hi Sue, Your coin is from Belgian Congo in central Africa, which became Zaire and now the democratic republic of Congo. It is worth very little (much less than a pound) in this condition, but quite unusual to find in the ground I would think! The full writing is (I think) "Leop. II R. D. Belges Souv De Etat Indep. Du Congo" which, at a guess, means something like "Leopold II king of (R.D. is roi des) Belgian sovereign? independent state of Congo"

The thing is, back then the value of the metal in the coins had to match the face value of the coins, so you couldn't just make coins bigger without changing their value too. I had a quick look through a book and it says there were several times when the relative values of gold, silver and copper varied, so new coins were a different size to older coins (usually smaller... inflation). Within each reign there were often several designs and portraits of the monarch too... maybe some changes due to vanity? Finally, the question says 18th century and increased size, so you have to think of the 1797 cartwheel penny and two pence coins (of George III). They are some of the largest British coins, and the first official coins manufactured using steam power, but they are really only large because 1 and 2 pence was a lot of copper in those days!

As you suggest, these tokens were made by local towns and merchants because there was a shortage of coins. Although there may have been enough official high value coinage (gold and silver) there was a shortage of low value small change, so those with little money ran out of coins to spend and nobody else could give change. This has happened several times in Britain... these 17th century tokens are often found with inscriptions mentioning charity or alms or the poor... this is because people could use a farthing token to make a donation where a penny (the smallest silver coin) might be more than they could afford to spare. There is another series at the end of the 18th century ("Conder" tokens) that have huge variety and interesting designs... again mostly issued by local merchants. And again at the start of the 19th century. Each time the government eventually minted more coins and the unofficial tokens were declared illegal. I believe there are similar tokens in the US from the civil war period called "hard times" tokens, as well as some unofficial coins made in the first colonial settlements where coins were also in short supply.

It's an interesting question... the crowns seem similar enough to suggest that they are meant to be depictions of the same actual crown, so maybe we just have two artists' interpretations. The portrait for India was re-engraved in 1911 because of the "pig elephants", but I don't know if the crown is different between those two versions... For Canada they changed the legend in 1911... they left out "dei gra" the first time.

I remember when the Euro came in they had special machines that rendered the old coins unusable (basically it bent them out of shape and defaced them) so that they could then be stored and transported without high security (just scrap metal now). Then they basically got melted and many were made into euro coins. I don't think they would save any for collectors because coins being withdrawn from circulation are not worth saving and the collectors have saved all the ones they want anyway. New collectors get theirs as old collections get broken up. I did see posters in Germany though (from a bank I think) telling people about rare dates and mintmarks to look out for in their change and advertising how much they would pay for them.

Hi Jennings, thanks for posting your pictures and getting us to discuss them... it made me look at my 1860 farthings again. I think your farthing B is excellent. I often find it a bit harder to spot wear from a scan rather than a photograph (the lighting makes the picture much "flatter"), so it makes grading more difficult. Certainly yours is a lovely sharp strike... I noticed that my own 1860 toothed border, although more worn than yours, is a sharper strike than my 1860 beaded border. You should try and find one of those too! Here's a general question.... now that many collectors can have access to such high resolution and high magnification imaging systems, what effect do people think this will have on grading and variety discovery? I once read some advice which said "never grade using a magnifying glass" and it seemed to make sense... it leads you to undergrade because you see every little defect and no coin is perfect. But, using a glass is much easier, especially for older eyes and smaller coins. Now, using a camera and a monitor is easier still... does anybody routinely examine coins using images such as these? (I don't, although I have been toying with the idea). I'm looking at your farthing in the usual places for wear and there is very little evidence... but usually it would show up mostly as a difference in colour on a coin like this and maybe it's more apparent with the light at a different angle. I would go with aUNC. I think the berries are all supposed to be in the laurel wreath and I can count 6... one at the lower front, two pairs and one at the back just above the strands of hair going into the bun. Thanks again for sharing your pictures,

Since the Georgian period they have used a "reducing machine". This allows an operator to trace over a large version of the design using a stylus and the machine reduces those tracing movements down to coin size and there is an attachment on the end that is actually engraving the die. I believe the die is quite soft metal at this stage and it gets chemically hardened later. Anyway, the large version of the design being traced is what is prepared by the engraver and I think it is made in plaster. These look to be 20-30cms across in pictures. It's not someone bending over an actual coin die with tiny tools, although it must have been like that before the reducing machine. The only reason I suggested computers is that there are plenty of computer controlled lathes and other machines around, so it seems logical that a computer could do the reducing step after scanning the plaster model. Perhaps we'll find out in the future if the circulation coins start showing blocky pixellation artifacts

Crowns traditionally have writing around the edge... usually in relief but sometimes incuse. One exception is Victorian jubilee head crowns... I remember the first time I picked one up and said "Where's the writing?". They just have a grained/reeded/milled edge. The dots inside the circumference are usually described as a "beaded border"... the other common type is a toothed border. Never seen a wreath crown though... someone will be able to tell us about the edge soon I expect. As for engraving, I suspect they can do it all on a computer now and then click the die-making equivalent of "print"!

Maybe the gold ones were. Many minor colonial coins were minted by Heaton and Kings Norton (as some British coins were, of course), although there seems to be a distinction between the company that does the minting and the company that prepares the dies. For example, some East Africa dies were prepared by the royal mint (I think) for use by both H and KN and bore both mintmarks, the idea being that each company erased the other mintmark before minting coins... but sometimes they forgot and you get coins with KHN. These coins also appear with I (India) and SA (South Africa)... and Indian coins have Bombay and Calcutta variations, Australia has Perth and Melbourne (and more). So really the empire used lots of mints all over the world, including US mints. Just as many countries use the royal mint to make their coins, we have used other mints too. I think it's best just to think of it as a factory... there's no reason why they shouldn't make anything they like, but I think it should be kept separate from the "legal tender" business. My favourite story about the Royal Mint was last year (I think)... they were going to have an enquiry to discover why £25000 was taken from a safe... it was left open all day with builders in and out of the area

That's what I think too... as in "minor". Either meaning smaller denominations or meaning non-precious metal as opposed to precious metal.

I haven't seen the last one circulating yet... anyone? Of course, if sentiment ever does turn against the commemoratives and the bottom drops out of that market, then the last few issues would probably be quite collectable