Sylvester

with that money you could invest in a guinea pick something not George III and it'll probably appreciate very nicely. e.g i bought a James II Half guinea for £225 a year and a half ago, it's already cataloging at £350

I hate to break it to you but George I had no sovereigns...

look out world aluminium is on the way...

For the past three years i've been hoarding every machin head 2p and penny that i came across in circulation. (except those that are really mangled, or really really bad), as estimations go i must have rejected at least 100 2ps and 100 1ps. All the rest i kept. Now here's the startling results of this ongoing experiment... date/number recovered 1p's 1971 = 67 1973 = 16 1974 = 18 1975 = 12 1976 = 11 1977 = 16 1978 = 20 1979 = 39 1980 = 19 1981 = 20 1982 = 7 1983 = 16 1984 = 25 2p's 1971 = 179 (any surprise?) 1975 = 29 1976 = 4 (and all of them are in horrible condition) 1977 = 18 1978 = 24 1979 =34 1980 =50 1981 = 43 Anyone else shocked by how few there are there, i mean that's not alot in three years is it? The two pences are also more common.

i remember checking my 1953 farthing for that, (only just remembered now you mention it), sadly mine was common.

see i do have a wreath reverse crown... And it looks better than those Maklouf ones

if all else fails you'll just have to settle for one of these... http://www.omnicoin.com/coin_view.aspx?id=889341

AVF = Almost (or about) Very Fine (but not quite, has VF details though) GVF = Good Very Fine (better than very fine, but not as good as Almost EF) NVF = Near very fine is the same as almost very fine. Now for the price, right... Lets say a VF goes for $20, and an EF goes for $60. GVF would go for about $30 NEF/AEF would go for about $50 If you had an AEF with a scratch or something that slightly hinders the grade then it would be 'AEF with Scratch = $40' That make sense. It can get more complicated, especially if your in America, then you get EF40, EF45 and the like.

Yeah it was the flattened hair that was making the grading difficult. And you know i didn't notice the weak border beads either! That could mean that our coins both came from the same dies.

Sorry i don't have any George V shillings, i sold them all. I used to collect shillings but i never got round to getting a 1935, i quit before then cos i got fed up of all the English, Scottish varients...

well i'm always wondering whether it is VF or AVF? You know i've had that coin in my possession longer than i care to remember, at least 10 years, maybe a touch more. It's one of the few coins i've retained for such a long time, up until recently i still had alot of my original coins that i started out with but as my collection has moved away from those i've been selling them off. If i go on at this rather that shilling will be my oldest coin. (in terms of ownership) I like it, i know my father bought it for me, can't remember how much he paid for it, but it wouldn't have been more than £30, oh and i got given an Edward I penny free on the same day (i still have that too). No wonder why that coin shop went bust. (infact i also got a imitation Francis I ducat from there too, also free... i've still got that).

what would you grade that just out of interest? I'd say VF.

and the reverse...

Well no mention in Coincraft either, or in Seaby's of them changing the milling. Either it's a unrecorded minor variety, or perhaps it's a proof?

ingonre the quote above i accidentally deleted the bit i wanted to quote (but it won't let you post without some quote... ) That fine edge milling George V shilling, what's the date? Is it silver? (is it magnetic?)

It's the obverse that matters on these, in striking relation the obverse is much higher relief than the reverse, thus wear shows there first primarily. The reverse had to be in lower relief to allow the obverse to be as high as it was, otherwise you would have had clashed dies and ghosting. Funny how over different time periods they alter things differently. With EM they sacraficed the reverse for the obverse, in Modern Milled, thinking of Geo V pennies they did it the other way around, thay shrunk the effigy to prevent ghosting on the reverse. Now if the reverse had been a flatter and plainer design there wouldn't have been as much ghosting.

Ef?! Why did you buy that half guinea when you had an EF HAMMERED, ROUND groat on offer? Alright maybe GVF, sorry but it was alot more expensive than the half guinea, and the lure of James II just got to me, i also turned down a Charles II guinea that day too. Yes i bought the cheapest coin of the three.

i thought steel would be more expensive too, but i guess they're shipping it in cheap from abroad.

i knocked the grade down because of the shine

I'd say AVF, there's not much left of them laurels, same with the hair. But the obverse is comfortably above GF. Might get a VF on a good day, but i'd grade it AVF.

It's VF because alot of them looked pretty much like that when struck as far as we can tell. Most are off centre, have lots of flat patches, some are near impossible to identify to any particular mint. I think the reason for this was a number of factors, firstly the Civil War, perhaps moneyors though it better to make the coins hard to identify to a mint, afterall having a coin with Stephen on it was a political statement (just like those that minted Matilda coins), some even blundered the legends so that they could avoid committing themselves to either side. That i think is half the reason for the flat patches, or the fact that the reverse dies are practically always off centre and the mint name is the bit that's off the edge! The other half is that the coinage of the preceeding reign had been deteriorating and i imagine that the monarch and Co were not supplying the tools to make the coins with? If the moneyors are using inadequate worn tools and blanks then the coinage would deteriorate, would it not? So pretty much my example is VF because it was like that when struck, there is no real wear on the portrait as such compared to the flat patches, now the portrait seems to be damaged but that actually is from the minting process, what you can actually see on the obverse is ghosting of the cross on the reverse. Now if it had been struck from defaced dies it would have been worth considerably more. And i know what you mean about hammered coins and the clipping, creasing, missing pieces, it's annoying! I did once come across a gorgeous round groat in EF with a blue grey tone, and an unrecorded varitety!! ... i bought a half guinea instead

Laugh if you will mintmark, but i think it's coming to something when copper's too expensive to make low denomination coins out of, don't you?

Have you tried grading a King Stephen penny? (or a Henry I or II one for that matter, all as bad) Allow me to introduce you to (yet again) to a practically as struck example grading VF or better... (and yes the dealer stated that on the receipt, i for one agree with him on this) For this particular series this is a decent example... But from a milled perspective i bet none of you would ever have graded this as VF!

i wonder why i didn't spot that?

hammered is another language!