Rob

Looking for a listing of either of Hamilton-Smith's W/SA sixpences. They were sold as a pair in his 1927 sale lot 399, with one boar's head rev mark and the other a tower rev. mark. They will be listed as Weymouth sixpences and not Worcester. They were listed in the October 1927 circular item nos. 72071 (boar's head) @ £6 and 72072 (tower) @ £5/10/-. Both were graded VF with the boar's head noted as having a fine tone. I want to know if they sold, or remained in stock for a while as they would most likely be listed again in the Circular within a year or so if not sold. Thanks.

wow. not exactly common here, but to take a local issue token abroad and lose it............. you will either find a lot in the same place, or never find similar again

It's a 1927 box. Note the single shilling space.

The actual wear on the penny is not that great with hair detail remaining and the crosses detail on the shield meeting at the intersection, but the corrosion means I would stick it in the rummage box and get what I could for it.

Both nearly VF for wear, but the penny's surfaces are dire. The two pence is ten leaves and that's normal.

It is yet another case of a worn die being repaired, something that happened a lot in the Victorian era. Dies get blocked with use by dirt being compacted into the recesses, so the offending letter/digit is repunched to extend the life of the die. It becomes a variety for the collector who is doing a die study, but isn't an error as such and is unlikely to be worth a premium. Varieties are traditionally a case of a change to the intended design, which this isn't - pennies seemingly the exception to the rule as a result of their popularity and the desire of collectors to extend their essentially complete collections as seen in the several related threads on this forum. Grade is about the VF mark with the reverse slightly better, but the surfaces aren't very nice.

I've got the catalogue, but no spare. It's 100 pages and 1003 lots, so not really practical to scan. Spink sale 153, 11th July 2001 refers. Unfortunately, Spink's on-line sales archive only goes back to Slaney 1 (2003). There is also the International Currency Bureau sale of similar foreign items at Glens in 1999. They give mintages too. Some are rather rare. I do have a spare of the latter.

You can have cheap infrastructure charges if you have full employment or close to, contributing to the state coffers via taxation through which they were subsidised. Now we don't make very much and the potential workforce is partly idle. But that is the quid pro quo for cheap foreign goods being available to all and which buyers seem to lap up insatiably. Government funding is now directed to education, benefits and healthcare. Everyone wants that too, with a major disconnect in the way much of the population perceives the relationship between taxation and spending priorities. The pot is only so big. Maybe we should spend less on education, benefits and healthcare so that once again we can have cheap rail travel and postal services. Whichever way the pie is divided, someone will be unhappy.

Nor should you be. eBay - the place to go for disposing of problem coins. Use a dealer. If you aren't happy you can always return it, plus you have a choice of grades from fine to unc unlike ebay where the options are 'unc' or I don't grade my coins because opinions differ, for which read I can't / you wouldn't look if I gave less than unc.

Pay 100 more and you are spoilt for choice with better than EFs. If you want a genuine unc, keep searching. I've been looking for the past 7 years.

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but it sure is helpful. http://augustusmath.hypermart.net/fakesellers.html

You gave the answer. There is damage around where the 7 should be. Any coin struck from a die with only 18 8 would have perfectly smooth fields at that point because the number wouldn't have been punched in. It is also highly unlikely that such a coin would have entered circulation, not impossible, but very unlikely. You would expect it to be EF or better, or alternatively lower grade in appearance on account of having been lightly struck, not from wear.

yep

Spink doesn't think so. F-2750, VF-9500, EF 47500. Significantly, even the Parsons piece, lot 568 and graded good with holes in the flan merited a picture ahead of many other pieces that one might consider worthy of illustration. It is a seriously rare thing. ESC rated it R3, which has to be an underestimation of rarity. Alan Barr's coin was listed at £1750 in Fine - VF, which with hindsight was an absolute bargain for someone.

Oh. Thank you. I spend an uneconomical length of time trying to get it right. Takes the fun out somehow.

Matt was first, but alas too late. A nice scrap man bought a load of them just over a month ago.

Yes, but which one is right? Chances are, neither.

In view of which, I have a Victorian, no date penny for a tenner if anyone is interested. Rare, none in the Alderley, Crocker, Workman, Copthorne collections.

I must admit that this in part is why I set my criteria for the coins to be as eclectic as possible, avoiding design duplication unless you have more than one Hobson's Choice pieces required to tick a different set of criteria, e.g. PAXS pennies or Aethelred II LSC where several mints only strike in their respective type, but this can sometimes be overcome by varieties within the type such as bust styles or bust facing left or right. Date runs, or following the tick list obtained from a standard reference are the default completionist ideal at a basic level. All the work has been done by someone else and you just have to mark them off as you get them, but references are logical lists and by definition group things by type. i.e. your rows of things all looking the same are pre-determined. It was the lines of things looking the same that weaned me off date runs. Obviously there is no right or wrong whatever or which ever way you collect.

Just buy what you like. If it appeals, that should be your primary reason for purchasing it. If you are buying because a list says you must get an example, I suspect the enthusiasm will disappear relatively quickly.

I'm not saying you should be doing one to the exclusion of the other, rather that I'm surprised you don't do both. A completionist I would expect to want both currency and proofs. A proof for any year is normally of a single type, which is more than can be said for the number of currency varieties covering the same period. You don't have a proof for every year and it isn't a case of excessive cost either as many years have currency varieties that cost more than the relevant proof. Take 1863. If you had all half a dozen types for that year, the cost of the proof would pale into insignificance compared to all those die number washers. I believe you would try to get all possible varieties, which really negates the old argument that they are too expensive to collect, because the money thrown at minor currency varieties far outweighs that spent on proofs. Cost is a red herring. Most proof pennies are also struck in copper or bronze. Sure there are other metals used, but these are very much in the minority. As one who struggles to relate to this reluctance, I often wonder if it more a case of familiarity and a reluctance to stray into the unknown.

I have to confess I find the general obsession with avoiding proofs and patterns bizarre to say the least, especially when people are prepared to pay hundreds or even thousands of pounds depending on whether a colon points to a dot or a space, or a digit is half a millimetre left or right. You cut out so many potentially aesthetically appealing things by doing this, after all, a proof version of a currency coin is usually the same as you have already, but with steroids. If the currency pleases you, then the proof should give even more pleasure.

And it's much easier to accumulate than to cull.

I concur. Leaving aside the thickness of the rims, proof pennies usually have sharp rims/edges. This doesn't.

The limit for most collections is determined by one of three things - funds, telomeres or patience. Prolong all of these limiting factors and who knows how good the collection would become. Far better to take the view that if you like it, so will someone else, so you'd better buy it. There's nothing wrong with having gaps in a collection as it always gives you something to go for. Spread the net wide enough and you will always be able to find something. I've been stuck at around 50% complete for a while now as I discover more criteria that I can fill. These are usually the result of me looking for an excuse to squeeze another too nice to sell coin into the collection, even though it didn't tick any existing criteria on the list.