oldcopper

I wonder if that's the Gerald Jackson example sold Spink USA in 2014.

and the drapery is correct.

This coin was in the first Sovereign Rarities auction of 2018 (1,300 hammer + 5% import duty). Very bright on the whole.. https://www.sixbid.com/en/sovereign-rarities-ltd/5153/british/4309059/victoria-1837-1901-copper-penny-1856?term&orderCol=lot_number&orderDirection=asc&priceFrom&displayMode=large&auctionSessions=&sidebarIsSticky=false

I think "we have" means "there is"!

Did you see the F7 in person, because DNW weren't so complementary about it - "sometime cleaned with surfaces somewhat dull". It would have been interesting to see the ""cleaned but now retoned" 1853 penny proof, because it was difficult to tell much from the photo. Might have been a pleasant colour, might not!

Not that I'm an expert on halfcrowns, but is the proof from the sets the same variety as the currency? According to ESC, the standard proof is A1 (one ornate fillet, one plain), but the currency here is A3 - two plain fillets, which also has its own proof version.

Do you think these milled edge pieces were struck from spent proof dies? That makes more sense to me than specially making a die to strike only a handful of coins. Although you can't see any hairlines on your coin, there might be some very faint die polish lines if it was struck with a proof die. Perhaps that's what Glens picked up at a certain angle of light.

A dealer told me that all the bright 1841 halfpennies and the smaller number of the 1834 farthings were found in a box in India. Quite a few of these BU farthings have come onto the market in the last 10 yeas or so, so I'm surprised that Colin Cooke's collection seemed to have one (and they're of the 1834 variety that was always thought the scarcer one I think), as he must have got hold of his well before 2005.

Thanks Pete, nice coin. Now if only the person who put away all those bright 1834 farthings had done it instead with 1831 WW pennies. There's a thought!

Fair enough, a deceptive photo - and I think the best on the market I know of. Let me guess - MS62 - 63?

Slightly off-topic, good luck with the return, but this is one of the hardest of all copper pennies to get in top grade, far rarer thus than the 1837, 1849, 1860. Even the 27 and both 43 varieties are known in very lustrous condition. I know of no lustrous or unc. examples of the .W.W (though there's a nice one in lustrous unc in the BM). The Alderney example seemed to have edge problems and Colin Adams' was middle grade.

I notice from Edward Judson's collection (DNW March 2002), an interesting comment for Lot 519, containing 2 1858 pennies, one the postulated 8/3 overdate: "The very fine example is sold with Judson's original ticket stating the overdate as 1858 over 2; the wording on the ticket infers that it was acquired with a certification letter to this effect from the Royal Mint [now missing]" So it sounds like the RM also analysed this variety and came to the same conclusion as Gouby did some time later.

And not having an internet bidding service makes people even more reliant on their integrity.

Just quickly, sorry, this is off the thread of coin cabinets. Everything else can go to rack and ruin just so long as house prices keep going up...seems to be the last twenty years plus of government strategy. I think there are two factors - first all these people who used to commute to London want a place in the country now, so they can Zoom everything and maybe pop into the office only now and again. And secondly, where has all that excess money the government has been printing and borrowing gone? - into asset prices (including coins) and the stock market so far, not yet that much into consumables, though oil's going up. So government inflation CRP and asset inflation would appear to be two different things. And if inflation really rears its ugly head with all this excess money now slushing around, how much are the government going to keep interest rates pegged down to protect the housing market, in the process destroying the value of people's savings?

Yes, I saw it the other day - though of course being dealers they are less fussed about long-term degradation of coins via surface contamination (the coins have long ago been sold by the time that would have an effect), but granted, edge knocks are an immediate effect for anyone! Provided the trays are wide enough that they can fully get their fingers around the edges of the coin before picking it up, that's pretty important. otherwise it's almost unavoidable for fingers to intrude over the rim. I did raise my eyebrows when they mentioned that wisps of cotton fabric from cotton gloves could cause hairlines. I can't ever see how that could happen! Also it depends on the metal - lustrous copper or bronze need a lot more care in handling than say, toned silver or gold.

Perhaps it was what they like to call a "pocket piece". So maybe not circulated.

There have been a couple of pretty ropey ones put through SNC over the decades. I can definitely remember one in fine or worse. Perhaps it should have marketed as - "almost unknown in this state of preservation". I'll look it up. I can't imagine they weren't initially produced for circulation (though what we see today must have mainly been put aside as Rob says) as they are a rather substandard issue - askew die axis, bad die clashing seen on all specimens, degraded lettering (more apparent on some than others), the partially blocked date and flatness of Britannia's breast on many. Also, the only instance in the copper or bronze series where two numbers in the date are overstruck rather than the more prevalent one (OK, for the pedants - excepting the 43 or 41(?)/39 proof halfpennies). So all very makeshift. Due to the massive bronze production of the early 1860's, most copper would have been exchanged or put aside by 1864 I would guess.

It's Edward VII's first pattern penny. His only young head! There was a 1901 similarly tooled also smoking which was ex Peck (Feb 1972 SNC).

I heard a good joke on Classic FM a few years back. Yes I know, an unlikely source: Two friends, an Englishman and a Frenchman both own cats. The Englishman's is call "One Two Three" and the Frenchman's "Un Deux Trois". One day, they decide to race their cats against each other over the English Channel - One Two Three starting from Dover, Un Deux Trois from Calais. Whoever's cat gets across the channel first wins. Come the big day, both cats set off, a few hours later One Two Three reached France, but even by the next day there's no sign of Un Deux Trois. The Englishman phones up his friend to find out what happened. Well, Un Deux Trois cat sank.....

I saw this the other day - well done and appreciate them doing it, but as usual the key drawback of slabs (to me) is not mentioned - it's not so much whether you can handle the coin in question, but that you can't enjoy the coin in directly reflected light. So it's much harder to appreciate the brilliance or beautiful multi-coloured toning, say, of an old proof, as you're mostly seeing the light reflection off the plastic which drowns much of that out.

I noticed DNW or the seller didn't bother much with putting the coins the right way up or even in their right pockets. But they did show the empty boxes which must be a first. Still, it obviously worked as each set went for about £200 each - and they're both missing the crown's ribbon shock horror. Strangely, the owner must have had a problem with these. https://www.dnw.co.uk/auctions/catalogue/lot.php?auction_id=598&lot_uid=389951

Never heard of that to be honest - like their search a coin archive from the sound of it, you key in any general info about a type of coin and it comes up with "No lots found". Complete waste of time.

SNC's final issue staggered out at the start of 2014, and it had been getting more infrequent in the couple of years before that. It used to be 6 a year (and every month long ago). The bloke in charge unfortunately had a serious car accident at the time which was the final blow. It's not on Spink's website.

I notice some of these W.W's, including mine (which is better condition than this, say Fine), have a weakly struck FID: It's very unusual for a Royal Mint 19th century copper coin to have such noticeable weakness in the legend like that.

I take it this die got re-used in 1844. Presumably you've got one of those.