Rob

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.

Adjustment marks, flan flaws and die fill.

That isn't a proof. The rims are too narrow and it's been polished to ********

No idea what they are doing. Didn't get a catalogue, so didn't waste a day looking at the lots one by one. i.e didn't bother bidding. Plenty of other auctioneers that do send out catalogues.

I think it might also be due to wear in the fixing point for the die. If the die isn't firmly clamped in place then the die will wobble in the locating hole which would open out the hole long term. 5 degrees would be easily achieved and presumably more in the longer term. I think this is why you often see the early Soho pieces with very weak legend suggesting the die has been filled. Highly likely given that swarf would be produced where the die cuts the blank, and if combined with rotational displacement you would rapidly fill the incuse areas of the die i.e the legend and the design. This would be exacerbated the further you are from the centre of the die face because the angular movement is proportionally greater the closer you get to the rim.

Not my experience. I have quite often been below my max in the past several years. I concur.

Correct. But it didn't stop them printing some and sending them out FOC anyway. Allegedly they were given to customers without the internet, but then that doesn't make sense for an internet only sale. A few people I know got one, but they want to keep them.

Does anyone have printed versions of the sale last December that they don't want - the first of their non-saleroom catalogues. I'll buy or exchange if anyone wants. They didn't send me one, which was a pain. And they haven't sent me the one for next week.

not the same coin

No idea, some sort of token or jetton possibly?

I'm surprised they didn't say consult your union rep.

I wonder how the mint workers enjoyed themselves.

I suspect they are trying to bracket them as 'investment coins' given the way Stanley Gibbons are developing their rare coin indices and pushing coins as an alternative investment. Keeping the prices high would be an integral part of this strategy.

You can only do this once or twice because the large libraries will inevitably focus on the same important sales. As a one off event though it is a very sensible way to form the basis of a decent library because adding catalogues piecemeal is quite frankly a pain in the a**e, and relatively very expensive.

The easiest and most cost effective way is to buy a complete library (obviously after checking the contents, of course). Doing that enabled me to expand it by about 1500 catalogues, with only 200 duplicates left over. That's cost effective. Still need hundreds of important ones though, and thousands if you include the minor sales,

It may predate it. If the wax was left there in 1919 then the cast would show the line. Key will be confirming that the wax is definitely not present in 1916. As the cast is taken from the wax impression, it would be in the Bliss catalogue if deposited at that time. Looking a bit harder, I am inclined to believe that it was deposited in 1919 as I can't see anything on the reverse either by the P or on the leg of the N in Bliss. The obverse wax is in the Hamilton Smith catalogue fortuitously as these images are unusually crisp.

Find them and buy them. Sorry, don't have any spares of these.

Not the first time coins have been listed without. Seen it on dealer sites too. Personally I like to know as much as possible about a coin's 'collectable' history and I can't see it would do any harm. Perhaps it's just more work than they think it's worth putting in? But it feels like they're missing a trick there. The only people that benefit would appear to be the buyers who end up with a more interesting coin than the competition realised. Most unbusinesslike! . Don't whinge. You might be on the receiving end of some nice info one day.

Jon Mann spent some time looking up provenances, but he only had so much time to do it. 300 lots can't be researched thoroughly in a few months.

Attached images as follows. The obverse is from Hamilton Smith 1919 where you can see the thin line of wax above the horse's head. This catalogue didn't show the reverses. The reverse is the Wheeler catalogue where you can see the blob by the P at the bottom. I can't show the obverse as it is too close to the spine - i.e the catalogue would disintegrate. I can't see any wax on the Bliss images, but they aren't the best.

I haven't got any evidence for the use of wax impressions post-WW2. There were few things illustrated during the war making an end date difficult to define. It is likely that the wax is restricted to the period 1890-1945 for sales, but I think it was used in the immediate post-war period for BNJ illustrations. My Ed.IV heavy halfpenny has a lot of wax on it and the only place I am aware it is illustrated is in Blunt and Whitton's article in vol.25 (1945-8). Not everything with wax was illustrated in a catalogue. The Edward the Elder penny I posted on p.359 of this thread has a small spot of wax on the reverse which it transpires was from when the BM took a cast for their records. Lockett bought the coin at the Vatican Hoard sale in 1929, but as it is unique, the BM didn't have an example hence the cast. You can narrow the potential sales from the colour of the wax too.

Actually, the wax could be either from the above or also Hamilton Smith (1919) or Wheeler (1930), both of which were given in the Slaney catalogue