Rob

Probably die damage. When a letter/number is punched in you have small outlying areas of metal level with the field alongside a significant depression. This would be a preferred place to have bits of metal breaking off. notice that the blocked letter retains its external profile.

Not only the name, but possibly more important was the fact that the material had been off the market for over half a century. There can be very few collectors who were actively collecting at the top end in both 1945 and 2015, so all of this was a refreshing change from the material that goes round on a regular cyclical basis. An 'old' collection almost invariably does well. Look at Chesser, 18 months ago, or the William Boyd sale at Baldwins in 2005. Also the Neville-Rolfe sale went well. The gold patterns at Plymouth in 2008 got the market talking, though the venue probably restricted the final outcome. Wow that's over 70 years of collecting. He has put some serious effort into his collection and it showed yesterday how appreciative the collectors were of his efforts It wasn't one person collecting over 70 years. Looking at the acquisition dates, a bit of digging has showed that it was assembled three generations ago with the collection being passed down to the grandchildren.

I picked up a load of 500 silver sixpences for the pot today. As they were pulled from circulation by a market stall holder at around the time of decimalisation I thought there may be some value in counting the populations before going for melt. The total no of coins is 400. Results as follows 1920 4 1921 11 1922 5 1923 - 1924 3 1925 5 1926 6 1927 6 1928 19 1929 21 1930 18 1931 11 1932 5 1933 15 1934 5 1935 10 1936 27 1937 15 1938 9 1939 20 1940 19 1941 10 1942 36 1943 34 1944 34 1945 27 1946 25 The 925 was nowhere to be found, so figures are unavailable before 1920. The highest grade was a bit better than VF.

Generally speaking it isn't worth keeping 500 in less than EF for the smaller pieces or VF for the larger ones. Even the so called rare dates in low grade need to be melted to get a sensible return, witness the 4000+ 1925 halfcrowns in Noble's sale a few years ago that were bulked up into 10 lots, with only one single coin lot. 500 doesn't easily sell on ebay unless it is labelled unc, so the best way to realise any value is to scrap it, given the hefty chunk that disappears in eBay fees.

looks like it - the hair turns up at the ends.

It's drowning in a sea of blue and too small. Bigger image please.

Which is why it was a no-brainer. £1K for 100k of pennies, weighed in is about £2K profit from the scrapper even after the cost of picking it up. No need to list them, just bin them and cash in. £2K daily income on an annualised basis will buy me that Henry VII sovereign, even after tax.

Got a link? Did it sell?

Buying that would have been a no-brainer

I wouldn't bet on it, 400kg is only just over 40,000 in total.

Oh, ok. I got it the wrong way round. I thought the one you highlighted was the ja.

Ta. I think the back of the helmet is the most obvious. It just wasn't called ja in 1986.

Thanks chaps. My Gouby penny book is by appointment to Queen Victoria - 1st ed. (1986). Interesting point though, is that what you now call ja is in fact illustrated opposite reverse j to demonstrate the bulky drapery attributed to die fill. The convex/concave helmet and the straight/wavy hair are both blindingly obvious when blown up.

That's a lot of pennies. I weighed in over 60kgs last year and sold about the same again.

Give us a clue. What's special about it?

I concur with Paulus. I never take up second chance offers because I don't like being taken for a ride.

More likely a better luck next time given the amount ebay/paypal will receive

Presumably the description Nicely toned and with a superb portrait this 1562 Milled Sixpence weighs 2.85 grams, measures approx. 27 mm and has Mintmark Star. Super coin and scarce in such nice condition. was a direct copy from an auction/website listing?

Oh dear. Do you have the original listing link? Who is the seller?

If in doubt as in cases such as this, just remember that a few million people play the lottery, but rarely more than one person wins it. People with relatively little knowledge on the subject have a great tendency to be the proud owner of a numismatic rarity, usually after studiously ignoring any one of many pointers to more likely (i.e.common) candidates.

The problem for dealers with decimals is the volume of sales required to make a living. 20 Saxon, medieval or early milled coins on a tray might have a retail value of 5-10K. With few exceptions, a decimal coin will retail under a tenner, with the vast majority selling for a couple of quid at the most. Even at the heady heights of a tenner each you would still need 25 trays of coins to match £5K retail value. Little wonder then that most dealers don't carry this huge mass of coins around to fairs. Logistically, the only way to make a sensible living and not get a hernia is to leave the lowest value items out.

It's always a difficult thing to speculate on future values. The 20p mule had a mintage which put it in the same ballpark as 1950 or 1951 pennies, the early euphoria rapidly died down to produce a similarly priced coin - a not unreasonable outcome. Crucial to the observed pricing data was the availability of examples to the public, which immediately resulted in a speculative bubble before settling back once common sense gained the upper hand. The 20p error coins found their way into circulation, whereas I'm not sure the aquatics 50p did. All the examples known to this forum came from the early packaged sets, so there is no easy way for the public to gain exposure except for those sets that have been spent. This is not going to be a very large number for the forseeable future given the £60-70 loss an original owner would incur. Maybe future generations will spend them, assuming they are still circulating, but I don't think this would happen for a few years. That would support the price at the current level because there is no evidence to support a large population - people are too greedy to pass that one up. Therefore I'm not so sure that prices will drop so low as £300 if only a few hundred examples come to light. I have to confess that I have tended to look a little dismissively on decimal coins, but given decimal coins are approaching their 50th anniversary, then it is clear that many people know of nothing else. This was forcibly demonstrated at the Midland yesterday. Along with at least two other dealers in the immediate vicinity, I didn't sell a single discrete predecimal coin. What I did sell was hundreds of pounds worth of decimal sets, 50p's, £2s, modern silver proofs etc. Everybody wanted modern stuff, with 50p and £2 coins the most popular. I didn't see that coming and was fortunate to have bought a full run of sets only a week before, but had I not done so might have taken less than £20. The demand isn't restricted to UK 50p's either, as I am regularly asked for Channel Islands, IOM and Gibraltar 50p's too. The market for decimals is much healthier than many might imagine.

Somewhat appropriately, when I clicked on the link, a pop-up appeared advertising an update to CCleaner. Computers are more intelligent than I imagined.

Fair value never willingly or knowingly paid.

It isn't worth grading a £30 coin. There is at least 100,000 of the buggers out there. Just get a capsule and that will readily identify it as the one not to be spent.