Peckris 2

Oh God, I do hope not.

Even as a Classicist, it's not a sentence I expect to write again!

The 1968 figure is bizarre .. yet true .. the 50p hadn't been introduced yet.

I'd say your 1913 is 1+A - the reverse is clearly so, and if you look at GRA:BRITT on the obverse and compare it with the 1915, you'll see there is a bigger space between A:B and the I of BRITT is to a space not a tooth.

Could the LE stand for 'Limited Edition', and the CM for 'Confirmed Mintage'? No idea what the other letters would be unless the final P is 'Production', or even 'Proof' to indicate there is also a proof issue for that coin?

Ah yes. I think the reverse is upside down? I think I can just see the curve of the Rho in the bottom left quadrant.

Yes, it's hard to predict, but given that the 'not fully struck up' specimens were not the original intent, there are bound to be a minority that - for some reason or other - ARE as intended. Obviously those are worth a premium.

It looks like a Roswell AE3/4 to me. Definitely if the mint mark is AREA51.

What many people don't realise is that native British - mistakenly referred to as Celts - traded all around the Mediterranean, I believe as far as Turkey? Maybe even beyond. This didn't stop with the withdrawal of the Romans, and Tintagel may have been one of those defended strongpoints that also acted as a trading port.

Only $10 Bernie. I remember once doing a big double take when I saw a 1928 penny with a large portrait .. after some investigation I found the same seller was offering a 1927 penny with a small head.

I think the answer to that is with halfpennies, where they didn't introduce a modified reverse - I remember collecting in the late 60s, and halfpennies between 1911 and 1924 had reverses that were really badly worn, Poor where the obverse was Fair to Fine.

It was a combination of obverse and reverse. I think the biggest problem at the beginning was the lack of rim on reverse, which caused rapid wear.

Didn't someone have a line about "Caesar's wife"?

I personally think that's the answer. Maybe the experiment was conceived and initial dies prepared in 1914, but by 1916 there was just too much demand on the Mint's resources. That's the first reverse (pre-1914) which often has fewer problems compared to the 1914-1921 reverse; the rim and teeth especially are different.

The row of icons you can click against each post should include , and probably as well.

But it IS a very high grade - it stinks!

Note Britannia's fully struck up breastplate and little sign of ghosting, showing this was a successful experiment that was strangely not continued.

Yup. I also note many late 18C early 19C coppers don't now get a BU value in Spink (unlike 2012) as they're so rarely on the market. Tbh, I haven't seen so many price falls since the 80s. I blame Brexit!

Ice wear bye spell cheque.

You can have that Ernie Wise for a mere £1500!

Not really. Disability allows me just about to wield an iPad, and my Lumix camera in automatic 'snapshot' mode, but that's about it.

I'm afraid this is a typical example of a scan obliterating all that's good about a coin's tone. However, it's the best I could do back then, but it doesn't show the penny's glossy dark blue/green patina.

I only update the values in my database every few years - in fact, the last time was using Spink 2012. I just picked up Spink 2018 for a reasonable price; having an interest in the history of values, I input all values listed in Spink for each coin, not just for the grade I currently own. This is useful when I upgrade coins, for example. But I was in for a shock this time. Very occasionally, even an UNC value has gone down in 6 years, but generally these have increased, sometimes substantially. EF gains are much more modest, if at all. VF is often static, but often too, the values have gone down. But in F, virtually nothing except the highest rarities have shown any increase, but mostly prices have fallen. To give examples, F bun pennies which were £4 or £5 in 2012 had fallen to £2 by 2018. Yet a not unusual bun penny goes from £2 in F to £700 in BU! That's 350 times. However, it's probably true to say that buns before 1883 are at least 350 times as hard to find in BU as in F. The lesson is clear: if all you can afford is a date run in F ... DON'T! At least, not unless you are in it purely for the fun and you don't give a fig about values. The perennial dictum about "buy the highest grade you can afford" has never been more true than now. Fewer coins but in higher grades will do better (and be nicer to look at IMO) than a whole load in F. The market now wants the rarest coins and / or the top grades. Everything else is starting to fall by the wayside.

I have an 1862 penny with a wide rim, glossy almost reflective fields, and a sharp strike. I've always written it off as "not a proof" but I'd be open to it being a specimen.

To get started, you could usefully invest in two inexpensive books (banner ad above): 1. Collectors Coins (predecimal edition) which lists prices from the 18thC onwards but also has a wealth of useful information 2. Grading British Coins which shows pictorial grades from AUnc to Fair for all major types from 1797. otherwise, Welcome!