Rob

Brilliant. What's disconcerting is how any of the images could ever be confused with coins. A single image, ok, but to add 5 wrong images beggars belief.

I'm assuming the coin is quite worn? If it is worn, then unless it is the rare 1* obverse you will not devalue it by cleaning. Just because it is a dark colour doesn't mean it is a good idea to clean it. Coins are valued on the degree of wear, the less there is, the higher the value for that variety. Little or no wear and a dark colour just means you have a toned coin which is quite acceptable. What you cannot do is restore lustre to a toned coin. The best you will get is a cleaned and/or polished surface which will devalue it as collectors would not in general be interested.

This is the page that shows the Ed.II letters and crowns. Fig. 5 is described as angular. The base is round on this one too.

Based on what is written in North, I would say an angular back. Fig.5 on p.35 is referred to on the following page as angular back and it matches the C profile.

I think it's ok. Mark is halved rose and castle at 7pm after SPI

Thanks Colin & Joey.Both the single coin on the database and the one pointed out by Joey have the halved rose and castle mark. The castle is very clear, being in higher relief to the rose sticking out of the left side and is of a consistent size when compared to others with the same degree of clarity. This must suggest a single punch was used for the mark. Compare that with my halved rose mark and you will see that my coin has a very blundered mark which is typical of filled and recut dies. The castle appears to have a rose shape superimposed on the coin, i.e. the castle was punched to a shallower depth compared to the rose. This would be expected if the die had been hardened previously. Surely on a forum where the number of penny collectors is on an industrial scale there must be someone with an example. The silence is deafening.I'll add this Here also Rob Thanks Dave

Welcome. You have joined the inmates at the asylum.

If it is mark free don't dismiss it. Any gold (apart from modern RM output) without blemishes is always going to be worth a premium, and rightly so.

Try a gold quarter stater

The cheapest Ed.VIII is probably the halfpenny reverse uniface. It's currently in a 65(?) slab and last sold for around £3000-3500. You might find another pattern uniface for less than 10K, but after that you are talking £20K and up.

291419056878 291419061211 A long time ago I did overpay (£28) for a 'Montreal' copy of a Pontefract shilling because I wanted an example .. these however .. no idea! . Why pay £25 for a Cromwell shilling copy when you can get the real thing in decent grade for £2500? Resale value of the copy will be about a quid. Resale value of the £2500 coin will be about ........... £2500. In fact you would probably lose more money in total on the copy than the real thing, despite the price difference. Bizarre.

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