Rob

Aye. To keep his hand in his pocket..............

A comparison of the sublime with the ridiculous? I'm awfully jealous of the adjacent George Noble.

No, just a plethora of literature. I don't absorb it all, I just have a reasonable idea where to look.

" Pistrucci's engravings of George III's head on Jasper discs. I recognise the second one as being the sixpence or shilling, and the third one as being the 'bull head' halfcrown, but what's the first one? " A model for an 1816 pattern guinea or sovereign, struck by Thomas Wyon after Pistrucci. WR185 & 186 refer.

Not certain. The overall darkness suggest it is dipped/highly polished. There are no obvious signs of casting. There are a few nicks and a small flaw off the top of the G. I think I would want it in hand to make a decision.

Maundy (11mm diameter) or regular currency (30mm diameter)?

It's a few grains short which could be metal loss from corrosion, but the style is good. I can't make out if the shield rim is double lined, but assuming it is I would say it's ok. The lettering is even, the numerals are ok and the drapery agrees. There's nothing that screams counterfeit.

Without a picture it is difficult to say, but if missing the dots due to die fill, this is a normal progression through use and would be worth £2. If the die was blocked with grease giving a significant amout of missing legend and general weakness, add a quid or two for the error collector interest. If you desperately want to go on a voyage of delusion, call it £200.

Hence the value of provenance

Looks like a pin was soldered on the back to wear it as a brooch/badge

What a surprise. Presumably Chinese? And given the ease of acquisition, is the story legitimate? You would be amazed at the number of 1933 pennies passed down by grandad, unbeknown to the Royal Mint.

Yep, that's a wrong'un. Yet again, the rhetorical question. Why do people insist on buying something they are unsure about? Answer - the desire to pay less than market price for a good one. eBay has a shedload of 1902 crowns at any one time with better pictures. Better still, buy from a reputable dealer. People need to stop being greedy. If in doubt, leave it out.

me me me me me. Have a 50:50 chance to get my Lavrillier. And I got my money back on the lottery last Friday What could possibly go wrong?

If you try to upload a larger than 500kb file, I think it retains this 'on account' so to speak, so a smaller image just gets added to the initial figure. If there is a problem loading and you know the file is less than 500kb, exit the thread, come back in and try again. This should work.

Unfortunately it isn't that simple. For whatever reason, die life shortened to the point where it was hampering output in the second half of the 1840s. The figure of 30000ish per die typically had stood for more than a century, but was severely reduced for a while - see Linton's article on the 1848 halfcrowns in the BNJ. Once you get past 1850 the mint accounts are available. If only they went back a bit further.

Ebay ties itself in knots from time to time. Somebody bought an item from Spain, but it then blocked another from Sweden saying it required a permit international sales to proceed. No consistency. It's probably their continual tinkering that produces unexpected consequences.

I like 61s and 62s quite often. I have a very nice formerly slabbed 61 that was better than a 65 from a 'premium' collection.

I rest my case. I had one in change last year.

Put up a date run and it would be a novel way of displaying a collection. OK, I'll let you off the 1933, 1937, 1952 and 1954, but those aside you can get a full run at scrap.

I questioned it simply on the basis of numbers. Whether 100K or 200K struck is immaterial. To have 700 of them is a ridiculously high number unless you have had access to a known pile of them. Based on Wiki, which can't be accepted as gospel but should be of the correct order of magnitude, a total of 136m 2008 20p pieces were struck and the cumulative total of 20ps to that date was 3.248bn. 100K or 200K is only 0.07% or 0.14% of the total struck in 2008 and 0.003% or 0.006% of the total number of 20ps struck up to 2008. Based on a random distribution, to acquire 700 would necessitate looking at 22,736,000 coins based on an average of 1 in 32480, or half these numbers if 200K were made. Nobody has that much time on their hands, nor would I say access to sufficient material in the normal course of events to find that many. I'm sure they were released into a specific area or two as part of a mint consignment, which could skew the distribution curve, but it is not realistic to find the numbers quoted just from a random search of your change. How many people would see even a couple thousand 20p pieces in their change over a 7 or 8 year period let alone more than 10 million. To buy 700 off eBay or similar would cost too much, so ................ the whole thing just doesn't add up unless you were able to buy a mint bag of 20ps and they just happened to have a large number of no date coins. Or you can get them from alibaba.

The numbers struck from a pair of dies varied over time. 1825 halfpennies had 4 die pairs for a mintage of 210,000 which implies about 50-60K per die. Mint output of halfcrowns in 1848 was 91K ish but a total of 24 dies were used and there was concern at the RM over the short lives of the dies. One would assume this is also related to the number of overcut dates seen at the end of the 1840s. Exactly when the die life shortened I am not sure, but seems to be in the second half of the decade. Although neither are pennies, it would seem likely that a typical figure of approx. 50K is a reasonable assumption, with the caveat that occasionally one will break earlier rather than later, though the large size might cause them to fail quicker than a small die.

The links don't work for me, so a guess using the initial images. In CGS-speak, 80, 75 & 70. All appear to have some wear on the roses, so it is likely to be a spread around EF. The first is decidedly better than the last two. Those numbers should equate to Good EF, EF and aEF in proper grading terms.

How many of these have been taken from circulation and how many bought from the likes of dealers or ebay? The latter would obviously represent quite an investment and with them not being particularly rare, I would question the rationale for such a strategy.

I had one in change the other day, but as you say, 700 is a huge number unless you manage to acquire a bag of them from the mint. Does anybody know the number in a bag as would come from the mint? Given a journey or two were believed to be the total number struck, this figure of approximately 100-200,000 would suggest it be almost impossible to assemble 700 without access to mint bags, or alibaba. They were struck over a very short period of time, so there would be no chance of picking them from change in the normal sense because they would be dispersed faster than you could pick them out. I smell a rat.

Not sure why. All that is being discussed is a selection of numbers. Whether the poster puts up an inconsistent number or the TPG gives an inconsistent grade - who cares? Of far greater use is the knowledge that the number may or may not be an accurate reflection of a supposedly consistent set of criteria, irrespective of what is written.