Rob

Details with the catalogue, but yes, same account. £15 all in.

Thanks Mike, I'll get it in the post this pm.

VF/VF+ depends on which bit you are looking at. Hair is quite reasonable, but it looks like wear on the eyebrow. Left side of the shield is better than the right. Nobody is going to argue the toss over a + sign - unless you are the seller

I'd give it VF - obvious flat bits to both sides, so I can't go higher.

That's the rub. You can't be all things to all men. Sit in the middle and you p' off both ends of the spectrum. There might be a workaround if you could tag the basic item (as a search option) and then fill the varieties as fully as possible. Specialists are never happy because they are always on the lookout for unrecorded material. The merely recorded therefore becomes run of the mill. Miss out what to them is a glaring variety and the work will always be suspect.

Spink and Krause is only a small part of the reference problem. For a general collector this is probably all they need, but by deliberately listing all Freeman varieties you have forced the need to incorporate the other references too, so to be useful these must be searchable and sorted by names. Very few specialists use Spink and Krause other than as a tool to remind them of the current going rate for the common variety. They have their own database of pieces that have come to market and prices realised. So you have two distinct camps. The danger from your perspective is to be too complicated for the generalist, and incomplete for the specialist. As we all know, any reference is outdated the moment it goes to print. The Fiji example shows you can't have a one size fits all template. Each country to its own. A monarch may or may not be appropriate. What to do with double obverses and reverses? If a Taylor restrike was struck between 1862 and 1885, yet has the effigy of George III, what do you call it? The date is certainly wrong. George V pieces dated 1936 were mostly struck after his death and therefore technically Edward VIII. Again? You will clearly have to shadow a previously adopted format/list, but suspect you will end up with a compromise. You will also have to proof read the information. All that is written is not true. The Weyl pattern article was researched and written because the coin I had purchased was roughly x3 too heavy for aluminium as described. Yes, the aluminium ones existed, but subsequently it became apparent that a whole raft of other ones were out there. The P2114 (F839) Moore pattern penny described by Peck as struck in antimony, is not. Freeman's Coin News article show that he analysed the coin and found it to be two parts tin to one part lead, though failed to change the book text for whatever reason, which means that even now it is listed as antimony. I analysed my own P2114 and can confirm the tin/lead content, though the ratio looks to be considerably higher than 2:1 given the very weak lead peak at 2.3keV (the other lead peaks are over 10keV and left off the graph), but as this wasn't run against a standard I cannot give a definitive figure. In fact, it is difficult to know how Peck was sure this coin was struck in antimony as analyses for tin and antimony tend to give remarkably similar results with the same patterns seen, separated by only 100eV. The odd coin purporting to be in Cu-Ni should not be magnetic .These are not the only examples. Lead-Antimony comparison P2114.docx

Has anyone got an 1835 1/3 farthing in perfect condition because this is only EF? It looks distinctly like there is an underlying 4 as evidenced by the upturned serif on the topright of the 5, the vertical dropping down from this point and the angle of the 4 joining the end of the 5's tail to the nearest angle. There is a small pointed bit protruding from the loop of the 5 at 3 o'clock although you have to look from the side to see this.

Do you intend it to be used by collectors, or is it just an exercise in listing all the varieties you can find in one document? This matters. Collectors use standard reference numbers to talk about a particular coin. So penny collectors will use their preferred choice of reference together with the unique identifier listed for a specific penny. The references used tend to follow the latest acceptable tabulation from the collector viewpoint. It used to be Peck, then it was Freeman, then it was Gouby. There will be others, so your list will need to have the ability to sort by reference if it is to be useful. Your 1860 pennies have not included the patterns, some of which were also Royal Mint products. It also raises the question of where to put undated pieces and those of uncertain denomination. I also note that you have listed them by Freeman number which implies you have settled on a predetermined sequence with a view to adjusting this rather than starting with a blank sheet. Penny collectors on this forum have already identified a number of dies not included by the established references. where do these fit in as they are nominally already assigned a P, F or Gouby number. I wrote an article in the 2011 BNJ which expanded the list of 1860 & 1887 Weyl pattern pennies, halfpennies and Farthings by more than two dozen previously unknown types. 1887jubilee on this forum is currently writing a book where he has identified a few hundred varieties just for the year 1887. For numbering systems, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and it raises a lot of problems. The established references all use their own numbers and it is these that collectors refer to, so I think it needs to have a logical format if it is to satisfy both the collector propensity to speak in reference number and have the flexibility to incorporate new pieces. An alphanumeric string with logical identifiers is probably the best way to go about it, or at least that's how it appears to me. The old Coincraft system was good up to a point in this regard as Ruler and Denomination were part of the 'numbering'. The next level is to find a logical means of conveying the variety - e.g. plain, milled, lettered or grooved edge. If the document is to act as a concordance, then all varieties will need to be incorporated somehow into the list. There is still a lot of food for thought.

Usually someone has milled out the obverse and dropped a reduced size reverse into the recess. There is probably a sign on this just inside the rim on one side.

Construction of a reference site is usually the preserve of a specialist collector in that field. It has to be specialised because to incorporate it into a complete denomination database would be unwieldy and far to complicated for the average person. You essentially have two main targets - the general collector who is possibly looking for an example of each type and the specialist who will probably want more info than the programmer will ever know. As a rule of thumb, for British coins, the basic paper references such as Coins of England, Freeman, Peck, Marsh, ESC, Davies etc will form the basis of the collection. Most people do not dig too deeply into the finer points of a coin's design, and though there are some that do, they are very much a minority. FWIW I keep my info by denomination as this is the broadest category by which people collect. However, even that falls flat on its face when the coinage gets revalued, such as the 10% upwards revaluation of gold in the reign of James I. It would be perverse to list a coin issued with a face value of 11/- as a 10/- piece. If you can't untangle the sovereigns and half sovereigns, then your referencing needs some adjustment. The point of any reference is that it should be systematic and flexible. The first to provide a logical sequence for the coinage, the second to allow for missed items/new discoveries to be incorporated without disrupting the existing layout. The ultimate reference will list every die ever produced and the pairings arising. You would need a very large mobile library to carry the book around with you. I know what you are trying to do, but the complexity will kill the project. You need to find a way of keeping similar things together to save reinventing the wheel with every entry, whilst at the same time having the ability to incorporate a variety which will fit into the sequence. All collectors like a numbering system, as do cataloguers. If you don't have a numbering system, the work will be ignored.

I think the Furby offers the best collectability/investment potential. At £14.99, a relatively high value piece.

Yes, but at least the rest is struck up. Compare George's face or the horse's head, bridle, or the dragon detail. All the detail on your coin is mushy and ill-defined. It's a cast.

That doesn't look very nice. Where's the tail detail? Or the cloak, horse, dragon, George or groundline for that matter? Everything on the reverse is wrong. The obverse looks better simply due to the fact there is less fine detail. My 1893 attached. Ok, it's the other end of the time period, but the surfaces of yours look featureless with nothing clearly struck up, particularly on the reverse which is the bit with the finer engraving.

Bugger. He was quite a character.

Know the feeling. I went to view the DNW lots before the sale. Missed the 4pm cutoff for using my off-peak return ticket, then spent the coin fund on a non-numismatic book whilst waiting for the 7 o'clock Oh well.......

It would make a decent set if you put together a P1132 with 10 leaves, P1133 with 11 leaves and incuse dots, P1133A as previous but with raised dots, and an example of each of the unadopted obverse and reverse designs.

The coppers were lot 177. I finally have a H Young, Coin Dealer penny token as my example of that unofficial denomination. An early strike with the date intact, I have come second on a few examples in the past year or two which were all later strikes with the die flaw. The latter appear to be the norm.

Go for it.

I picked up one lot of copper and 3 lots of silver tokens. Got outbid on a lot of things though. Prices have been very strong for tokens in recent times with both today's sale and DNW's results showing some eye watering prices. Wasn't best pleased with the cataloguing today. A significant number of the multiple lots only had one or two at the most illustrated. There is no way a distance bidder can risk bidding up a lot 20, 30 or 40 coins if there is no image available to display the potential acquisitions. Some of the lots had 40+ coins of a single moneyer from a single mint, yet bids were made at seemingly silly prices. 46 Norwich pennies on one moneyer and a hammer price of 4800 suggests someone has lost the plot a bit. £120-130 a pop all in for a lot of 46 essentially similar pennies that you can pick up for less doesn't instil you with confidence of it being a stable market.

It's difficult to imagine a cabinet tray equipped to take them. However, there must be a sweet point where the size of the plate fits the cabinet exactly, and thus you have a tray with 5 holes to take coins as per your picture.

no it's not

Time honoured tradition that goes back a thousand years before this one

He shouldn't really say ESC 750 because it isn't - that applies to the genuine article. cf ESC 750 with a clear indication that it is a copy would be more appropriate.

Seeing as nobody has answered, I shall do so myself, albeit 10+ years late. Looking at the images of two dates below, it would appear that both exhibit traces of the same features, but are from different dies as one has a flaw from the edge to the U (coin 2) and the other a flaw to and through the adjacent S (coin 1). It therefore looks as if the 5 over 4 is on the master and not recut on the individual die, which would almost certainly mean that all are 5/4, and also that an 1834 could potentially exist. The third coin with the crappy image is from a third die which has a flaw from the edge to the I of DEI. That has long gone, so I don't know if it showed the same characteristics and the image quality is too dire to be of use. If anyone has an example of an 1835 third farthing, could they please check if it is a different obverse die to the three pictured and whether it is also 5/4. A decent image of the third die would also be appreciated. Ta.

No, but I don't follow decimal prices with any enthusiasm.