Rob

You need a copy of Peck. Appendix 9 p.608-12 refers. There was rumoured to be only three in existence in Feb. 1802. Then only 2. They changed hands for £400 and up. One sold for 750 guineas at auction. Finally, in April it was noted there were 11 already advertised for sale at between £100 and £400 each. Someone offered a gilt one for £500. Someone even offered to pay off the national debt in exchange for a patent to make Queen Anne farthings. Mr Average UK was, is, and always will be gullible, ever anxious to chase after that elusive pot of gold without question.

If you consider the die, where the open mouth is requires a raised sharp angled point. This could break off leading to a variety of angles within the mouth, level with the end of the mouth or even impinging on the field, though the latter is less likely because you have a large area of unworked metal. I'm still going for a bit falling off because it would be surrounded by quite a depression making it more susceptible to damage.

The profile of the closed bit looks to be different for the two images you have posted, which would imply by damage rather than design. The one immediately above slopes out towards the bottom of the mouth, but the first one slopes in.

No idea, but maybe they thought the size was large enough. As it was token coinage anyway, there would be no obligation to make them pro-rata. Maybe it was a practical reason from a striking sense. A heavier coin would have to be either larger diameter or thicker, which would put it close to that of the superseded copper pennies in one dimension or the other (haven't done the sums, but it seems close).

Gut feeling is that it is a bit fallen off the die in that year.I don't know how many dies were used or the numbers struck, but would think that survival rates are going to be the same across the board for all dies. A census would be meaningful. What would almost certainly tie it down to a damaged die would be zero examples from other years.

I'm not sure they would be that helpful. Hocking only lists an 1893 crown together with the 1893 matrix, punch and die. Nothing later. Just a thought, but what do you see on the 1902 crown. There must be literally thousands of images of these available to do the same checks, and the horse punch is likely to be the same as used in 1899.

If the gap between the top and bottom lip broke off on the die, it would then look closed. What is the ratio of open to closed? A small number of 'closed' mouths would indicate die damage in all probability. What are the figures for other dates? If you see significant numbers of both types, there may be two horse punches, which would have to go down as a variety.

Get a job with the Daily Mail, then you can write an article on the mega-rare 2009 50p. Sell your 20 coins at the top of the market while the public indulge in their obigatory feeding frenzy and buy up all those mint error £2 coins where the Queen has a necklace, or the 20p where she forgot to blow her nose and start all over again. You can guarantee the British public will have forgotten about the previous hypes and will jump on the bandwagon again. There is probably a full time job to be had for someone servicing this market.

That's so battered it would be difficult to establish what parts were original and which post-mint modified

Very drole

You get something similar with the pyx trial standard plates. The Mint has pieces of gold which were used as the relevant standard for the period marked on the plate. For some it carries the description of the fineness in words, but for others it carries an impression of the coin against which it was tried - angel, crown sovereign etc. This was covered in a useful little book called Ancient trial Plates of the Royal Mint by J H Watson (1962)

What does the rest of the coin look like? You will need better pictures with less saturation than the one above.

They were made by the same people who engraved the dies and made the punches. So you see Charles I weights signed by Briot for example.

No idea. What you think it will grade is not the same as what they think. Looks an ok coin, but the number is a bit of a lottery

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321710254959?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Here is a real bargain...4 1860 YH Half Pennies in the same auction! I have never seen so many fakes show up at once! Jesus, that's not good. The 1860s won't fool many people because they are generally known to be only available in top grade and really rare, but the 1845s will likely generate some illicit returns for someone because they appear in all grades.

Why not get a little coin cabinet with four trays or so? If you are going to collect Ed.2 only, you would struggle to fill even that many holes. An added bonus would be that the wooden cabinet would float if the boat sank.

Some prices have rocketed, but others have not increased a great deal. Sceats have not advanced a great deal since the late 70s due to metal detector finds for example. Prices only recovered very slowly from the early 80s slump until the later 90s, then started to appreciate more quickly. 2009-10 was the period where prices increased their rate of acceleration. Some things have increased 10-fold, others not.

If the top end does come crashing down the lower grades are still likely to see a reduction. When a £150K coin sells for only £100K, everyone will point it out. When a £30 coin routinely sells for £20, it will not be so obvious, but the change is the same.

You also have to bear in mind that the article quotes Gibbons when relating what the market is doing. Gibbons and Baldwins have been pushing coins as investments for a few years now, but that isn't the same as a neutral expressing an opinion. What do they use as the criteria for deciding where prices have gone? If they use their own FPL then prices are doubling with every issue. As with all statistics, it would be good if you knew the conditions under which the data was sampled.

Iconic is generally accepted to represent something that the layman would recognise. Irrespective of the artistic merits of the ornate/draped G4 and W4 reverses or any other design familiar to ourselves, Joe Public wouldn't recognise them. It's likely to boil down to a few popular designs such as the wren reverse on the farthing, the Soho cartwheel or the bronze penny featuring the Britannia reverse, a George and Dragon reverse coin, an Elizabeth 1st obverse, and something like a Cromwell obverse. Basically all something the public could identify with relative ease for many people.

That was putting a limit on it of £1K. I'd lurve to get a British Ed.5 or Ed. 8 for less than £1K. W2s don't come up below £1K either unless seriously impaired.

Strikes me that it would be easier to assemble one of every monarch for yourself, than it would be to agree on the chosen coin as determined by the forum members. If you do it from the Norman Conquest onwards, only W2, Ed5 and Ed8 would cost more than £1K though others would come close.

Looks to me like anything will pass the audition.

Impossible to say with that angle with a small image. You need as big as possible and perpendicular to the coin.

There is no reason why any digit or letter should not be recut. In the Victorian era, dies were regularly reinforced by repunching a letter to 'unblock' letters. A 3 would be no different in this regard. It is important not to get too hung up over repunched letters which are not errors, just a normal feature when taken in context.