Rob

Bullion value is based on the spot price of the precious metal content, i.e. its intrinsic value. e.g. a sovereign contains 0.2354 troy ounces of gold, so the current (variable) spot price for an ounce of gold multplied by 0.2354 will give you the value of gold in the coin.

What is the weight, diameter and thickness?

The problem is the Royal Mint didn't issue anything that small, so if it is gold (which should be obvious from the weight relative to its size), it would be a private issue and only likely to be worth bullion.

Don't worry. The internet is full of literary garbage. The pictures are there. It appears to be very small, possibly toy money? Anything visible on it such as C, L or Lauer or anything else to indicate who made it?

It's a fantasy piece. Brass?

That's because the post was edited 6 mins ago - to add them

Keep them under 500k and it should work

Without pictures nobody can say what you have

Don't know. It is too early for IOM issues. The 1665 pattern farthing was only struck in London as far as I am aware. Presumably a modern concoction.

It was a bit spotty, otherwise I might have had a go. Don't have a beaded border penny.

I've got a couple of 1888 halfpennies, just shy of unc if interested.

It's a bit disingenuous to call most decimals rare. The only ones issued as intended and not due to due fill etc that can reasonably be called rare are the 1983 2 new pence and the acquatics face obscured 50p. The others are rare in appearance only because the not so clever British public have bought these in the past at inflated prices. All this nonsense about warts, necklaces, mis-spellings such as P for R simply due to die fill being rare is garbage and will come back to bite the backsides of buyers. It has all the scope of the London Mint Office rip-offs in terms of a disgruntled public. A good example being the MEGA-RARE undated 20p which had 863 of the bl***y things listed at one point after the tabloids got hold of the news. I had one in my change 3 months ago, and that is without religously scouring every bit of change I receive. Prices realised on ebay are somewhat variable - it might go for anything up to £10, or it might not sell at all. I stuck a lot of three brass threepences on the wife's listings a week or so ago - 1949, 1950 and 1951, I thought these being as rare as any of the allegedly rare decimals ought to sell ok. Guess what - it went for a quid. As a final point, if you genuinely believe these are worth so much, it would be in your interest to make a reasonable offer of 2/3 what you say they are worth, so offer £6 to buy it.

Thanks, another caveat to consider. All pics are not what they seem to be, even from the same place.

If it has been taken from circulation it will be worth 50p. Genuinely uncirculated pieces will be worth a couple pounds or so. A proof from the sets slightly more. It isn't rare. The hyperbole seen in the Daily Mail and similar is not designed to inform the public, rather it is a means to increase newspaper sales. If it was worth more than 50p, do you not think the banks would be selling them above face value?

There isn't anything that leaps out at you. They haven't confused die polishing lines with tooling by any chance?

It depends on whether you can return the coin to the auction house in the same condition that you received it. Auction houses will accept returns if not as described, but it might cost more to return it if you are shipping abroad as you will have to insure it for its full value. TPGs are not infallible, so it might come down to a bun fight as to who is right. Pictures would help along with the auction details.

At least that has decent rims

I'm going to pass. I'm not sure I want to revive that one.

And so we return to the question of Heaton proofs or specimens, proofs or prooflike.

I think most rarities sell for a consensus figure, as the typically small number of people chasing the few available pieces are usually talking from the same hymn sheet. Prices move when you have a new entrant to the market who pays say 20 or 30% above the norm for the type, and so a new base price is set.

The other point to consider about number 3 is that it is given PF status, but is it a genuine proof, or a just prooflike? Given the historical baggage in attribution by US TPGs I would want to see it in hand before parting with my hard earned cash.

The clear breakdown in price relative to rarity seen with the Gothic Crown for example makes it blindingly obvious that supply and demand is the overriding factor. People see an attractive design and behave in sheep mode, just like the latest must-have fashion accessory. A bit like personal number plates. Whether you ask nicely or not, you get a registration (that nobody else has) from DVLA without paying somebody a large sum to provide a plastic sheet sporting a visual clue as to who you are. The only way a unique or nearly unique coin will realise high values is if it is part of common knowledge or folklore such as the 1933 penny, otherwise it is likely to languish in the few hundreds to a few thousands of pounds, but some minor rarieties can still be picked up for tens of pounds. The main problem here is collectability. Many rarities can be obtained cheaply because the market ignores them on the assumption that they are generally unobtainable. Collectors as a whole migrate towards the reasonably easy to obtain pieces and that is reflected in the prices paid for exceptional examples of what is otherwise a common coin. However, fashions can also change. A few years ago it was possible to pick up most thrymsas for a couple thousand pounds or thereabouts, yet they were incredibly rare. Today they are becoming collectable, probably as a result of detector finds which have swelled the numbers to make a full run in decent grade of the 12 types perfectly feasible for maybe 100K outlay and only take a few years to complete. 10-15 years ago you were lucky to have more than one or two go through the saleroom each year, and the demand was not seen.

I still have 5 or 600 boxes to tick, what else can I do but make hay while the sun shines?

No, there is a finite number of coin varieties.

Good news, just picked up a 15th lot which I shouldn't have stopped bidding on yesterday - another one I've not seen before