Rob

There is plenty of evidence for both methods if you look around. Mint products look in the main to be filled.

It;s damage, so worth less than it would be without, but more than melt looking at the detail remaining.

Ah, thanks. Not a member - never bothered slabbing anything.

My thinking is that the punches were held by the RM, so they probably produced the dies and shipped them to Birmingham. As the two sub-contractors would have had a contract to produce a certain amount of coin, once the contract was filled the dies would be returned as there is no way the RM would want them to be kept where someone could produce coins illegally.

This ties in with a question I posed a few years ago which asked if the H & KN dies were recycled by the mint (can't remember the thread title to link the two). I personally think they were. For anyone with the technical ability it should be possible to overlay this onto known H/KN reverse dies.

What do Spink mean when they say 2 reverse varieties? You have the upright/inverted edge for normal and proofs, matt proof, VIP proof, error edges (2?), but I wasn't aware of 2 reverse types. Clues anyone?

I think the values listed are safe in the hands of the electorate as most people would subscribe fully to them. What you will always struggle to get is a political party willing to put the ideas into practice as there are far too many political debts to be paid. I am not hopeful that this will be solved by a political party and think it can only work by returning to a situation whereby the community organises at a local level - as it used to. A fundamental problem with party politics is that it is completely intolerant and adversarial, with decisions being made amid a chorus of cries of anguish or derision from the people who are trotted out in opposition or defence of proposed changes to the status quo. Any change is viewed by the left as oppression of the downtrodden when proposed by the right, and conversely as kow-towing to the unions or unemployed when seen from the other direction. As a demonstrably bad case of Pavlov's politicians, don't hold your breath for a desirable outcome.

You've got Britannia above and the date below the exergue line. There is potential detail all over the area concerned. It could be a pythonesque foot for example.

The reverse is double struck. 2 arms to Britannia and a couple of exergue lines. It could be malformed because of this as the B is just about on the rotated exergue line. There's too much going on in a critical area to convince me it is an unambiguous R.

No he didn't, but there are so many errors in this reign that any collection is likely to be missing more than just a handful.

I thought I had a spare catalogue, but it appears not. If I come across one I'll let you know. In the meantime, I can fill you in on any details you want to know and provide images for a few dozen which I have, or have had at some time in the past. I can certainly point you in the direction of others giving maybe 25-30% of the collection images.

They get through because the pyx is nothing to do with quality control at the time of manufacture. The pyx is a check that the output was in accordance with the standards laid down, performed after a given period of time.Isn't it all a bit pointless nowadays in the absence of bullion value?Yes

Hooray!! A true numismatist and a follower of cricket to boot.

They get through because the pyx is nothing to do with quality control at the time of manufacture. The pyx is a check that the output was in accordance with the standards laid down, performed after a given period of time.

No incentive, but they are obliged to exchange faulty goods just like everyone else. It's just their faulty goods enhance value, whereas everyone else's dimishes it.

I think your posts are more designed to provide a link to your shop than make a meaningful contribution to numismatics given their lack of useful content. I find it rather pointed that your shop has 50 categories listed for silver and silverware, yet not one is for coins. Maybe you have a connection to the person who came on here trying to get people believe that it was worth buying a £10 piece of silver for a £100 because of the investment potential?

I don't like either due to the obverse digs on both coins. The 1824 in particular seems to have taken a battering, whereas the 1817 is considerably more common and so you have a greater choice of nicer pieces.

As it wasn't intended as an issue there is little chance it would be singled out for mintage figures. Given the error output relative to the total output for the year would be negligible, the sample taken for the trial is unlikely to have included an example. There might be a mention that the error was allowed to be returned in exchange for a regulation currency piece, but only as a footnote IMO.

Rob won't be there. I've been told I'm having a short break. Didn't see that coming.

Of course it is possible. Every TPG has got some wrong. Cleaned, repaired, mis-attributed and anything else I've forgotten.

I think restrictive legislation is inevitable given the equally inevitable lack of responsibility exhibited by mankind. If people could relate landing it by smacking it into their own face compared to flying it into someone or something else (such as a plane) there would be no need to pass laws. Sadly, this is just wishful thinking. Without people having to pass a 'driving test', or better still for some, having a lobotomy, it will only take one or possibly two accidents at the most to spoil the fun.

Somewhat contradictory and confusing here. You don't want to pay dealer prices (implying you want them at melt or so), yet are looking at slabbed coins, which, with the right label for the right person will sell for a premium to the rest of the market which will itself be above melt? As you don't want to pay dealer's mark up, who is going to supply them? Our man in Beirut? A nice Nigerian fellow?

Maybe, though my assumption would be no as the Sydney Mint opened in 1855 with the purpose of producing sovereigns and half sovereigns. Presumably any 1854 half sovereigns would have been made late in the year and with a three month trip to Australia at worst they would have arrived a few months before the Sydney Mint started production. Still, New Zealand or South Africa might have had use for them, and I think British gold circulated in India too, so there are a lot possibilities. India was a bit unstable in the 1850s which along with the Crimean War could have resulted in a need for good international specie (i.e. gold) to pay for goods locally.

Happy birthday

I don't know what the mint records say for the years 1853 and 1854, but as a rule 1853 is a common date for just about every denomination whereas 1854 was less so, particularly for silver. A common feature with coinage is when you have a year with very large production figures, coins dated the following year tend to be quite scarce. This begs the question as to whether the mint was producing coins and storing them. Given the mint's remit to supply sufficient coin to keep the economy liquid, are the mintage figures the number struck or the amount of coin put into circulation? I don't know the answer to this. What is certain is that a very large output requires a large number of dies, so the likelihood of there being sufficient stocks of the previous year's dies is a distinct possibility. You are also coming off the back of a period at the end of the 1840s (1846-9) where die longevity was a serious problem. Did the mint solve its recent problems and make hay while the sun was shining? Was there a similar situation to the 1838 sovereigns where a large number were shipped off to another part of the world and subsequently melted? Although the sovereign was the standard as opposed to the half, this cannot be discounted. Crimean War? Lots of questions to which we do not have a definitive answer. Were any shipped to Australia?