Rob

This will kill a few birds with one stone. Below is my 'Hartlebury'. By the OL of CAROLVS you can see a lion. This only appears on York coinage. To the left of it on the inner circle is the remains of the sword and another example shows the flaw between Charles' foot and the 3rd leg to be a foot and spurs. Clearly this is a York die, and appears to be the 1A die pair, but I can't confirm yet. This creates a problem for Besly's article on the York coinage in the 1984 BNJ where he states that the equipment used at York involved the use of a cylinder press with the dies engraved on the cylinder. The evidence for the shillings is quite compelling with 5 discrete die pairs and 5 pairs which appear to be rotated by one die. The same cannot be said for halfcrowns as my 2F is clearly a re-engraved die (details to follow), coupled with the fact that some die pairs are common whilst others are out and out rare. I suspect the rare ones are recut dies, such as the 2F. There is also evidence that some of the W/SA dies are ex- York dies. Clearly you cannot take a bit of the cylinder, so the assumption must be that the equipment either had some sort of clamping arrangement to hold a number of dies, or they were used as individual pairs. This also throws a spanner in the works regarding the attribution of Hartlebury which is considered to be struck in 1646 as there is no way the dies would havve been removed from York by July 1644 and lain unused for nearly 2 years. Also, the siege at Hartlebury only lasted a day, and Worcester wasn't cut off at this point which isn't favourable for a siege coinage. A somewhat larger spanner is the fact that the 'Hartlebury' dies are recut to form the CHST below the horse Chester issue, whose obverse was recut to form the Chester declaration obverse which is dated 1644. 1646 it ain't. 'Hartlebury' it ain't either. The pear/3 pears marks are I believe, gerbs. The obverse has only one stalk, but the reverse 'pears' have 3 stalks. The pears are lion paw/claw punches as seen at York. I think the HC coins are probably Hawarden Castle, and were struck to pay the troops returning from Ireland in Dec. 1643 because there is documentary evidence that Byron arranged for all these troops to be paid 2/6d for each common soldier (they hadn't been paid for 2 years previously). Hawarden is 4 or 5 miles to the west of Chester on the road from the landing points at Mostyn etc. Anyway, enough spanners for the time being - to the 2F next

I suspect we both had grief from the same place, albeit with me as a buyer when I bought a bulk lot of hammered described as VF-EF, but only one coin had a portrait! So much for the cataloguer's credentials. And another occasion where the error was meticulously described with a 2 line write up, but non-existent!!

Depends on the material. I have used St. James's, Baldwin, Spink, DNW and LC. Lower to mid grade/value items will not suit the first. Baldwins seem to have quite a few unsolds from their general sales, so maybe push the estimates a bit high. They can also drag identical things to those you want to sell out of their basement at the drop of a hat giving unwelcome competition. I've not really had any grief with any of the above, so would only suggest that the items are placed where the best prices are obtained for each category.

I'll sort something out later when I've time.

By definition this must be mutually exclusive. If there are say for example 1% of coins extant that are uncirculated (this is over-optimistic)then any online coin auction could only hope to get the same small percentage of people to use it because most things out there are crap and will always be so, but everyone wants to maximise their return and if this means calling something unc just to get eyeballs, then this is what will be done. It's a free country and not criminal to overgrade in the literal sense, but a combination of ignorance and a moral compass pointing south will ensure that an honest description will never be popular with the masses. I just wish a few more people would open an account with a scrap metal merchant.

So that explains old catalogues with no price for uncirculated. Old Seaby lists and Spink Circulars used FDC for an as struck, well struck currency coin for many years. UNC is a relatively recent description

Hammered coin dies were just a piece of diestock with the design engraved on the end. When a new design was required, all they did was rub down the old one and re-engrave with the new. A die could therefore have many re-incarnations. Sometimes there was sufficient detail remaining from the previous die(s) to work out what it was before, so the Chester declaration reverse die was previously Oxford halfcrown 1643 rev. 23 for example. It also appears to have been one of the small date 1644 dies too, but I'm still working on that one. The obverse die with which the declaration reverse is paired was recut from the CHST below the horse die, but the re-engraving was rotated and displaced from the original, so we can be certain that the die was of a greater diameter than that of a halfcrown because they wouldn't have engraved only half the design with the remainder off the side of the die! Next coin up would be a crown, but equally could have been big enough to accommodate a triple unite or a pound/half-pound. It also explains why some dies are far too big for the denomination on which they are found. A Shrewsbury shilling reverse and Oxford halfcrown 1645 rev.7 immediately spring to mind.

Die cracks can also indicate other possible reasons concerned with the equipment used or the state of the dies. One thing I stumbled across is that the Chester halfcrown with the declaration reverse is only known with a large flaw on the left hand side of the declaration. I suspect that this was due to a mismatch in the size of the dies. The obverse die was definitely big enough to accommodate a crown design even though it was used for striking halfcrowns, whereas the reverse die may have been smaller as it was previously used for halfcrown reverse dies which were not engraved on diestock identifiably larger than halfcrown size. The shear forces associated with a rocker press which has a crown size die overshooting the edge of a smaller die with which it was paired would account for the edge of the reverse die partially breaking. With no collar to restrain the edges, the trailing edge of the smaller die would have the vertical force used for impressing the design translated into a sideways force as it left the contact position which could fracture along any lines of weakness.

Double post again.

A cracked die would just be incuse detail of the raised detail seen on the coin. Cracked dies are very useful for chronology, as you can then sort out the order in which different coins were struck if they use a common die. So for example, the 1824 halfcrowns had a number of different strikes which probably ended with those struck in Barton's Metal, as this coin has a large number of flaws not seen on any of the other varieties.

Pretty cool, though I'm not sure how comfortable that sofa would be! I just hope they went through all the coins first to pick out any rarities before they trashed them. I somehow think the world will not run dry of washers to utilise. The results are not unattractive. I must admit to only giving the scrap pile a cursory check, mainly for the odd better quality coin. I'm certainly not going to check every washer for rare dates or varieties before they get consigned to the pot, and past experiences on ebay suggest people are reluctant to even pay a quid for 100 meaning they can't be bothered to search either. Saving the planet from un-necessary mining activity is the next best thing. You do make me smile, Rob! I'm just so, so, glad you don't take this whole thing too seriously! I couldn't take you seriously otherwise! :-) As I approach my fourth birthday, I'm thinking of settling down a bit and becoming more responsible. But I will draw the line at checking washers.

Pretty cool, though I'm not sure how comfortable that sofa would be! I just hope they went through all the coins first to pick out any rarities before they trashed them. I somehow think the world will not run dry of washers to utilise. The results are not unattractive. I must admit to only giving the scrap pile a cursory check, mainly for the odd better quality coin. I'm certainly not going to check every washer for rare dates or varieties before they get consigned to the pot, and past experiences on ebay suggest people are reluctant to even pay a quid for 100 meaning they can't be bothered to search either. Saving the planet from un-necessary mining activity is the next best thing.

Did you make a note of any prices? I had bids on a few things, mostly farthings. There were some nice ones in the sale.

As you are obviously monitoring this seller, could we arrange a pinned thread somewhere to list the items regularly offered together with a few pictures, or links? This can only be beneficial.

It was, limited to 10m, and that's not the Isle of Man.

It would have helped if the RM hadn't changed the crown from a 5 shilling/25p denomination to £5. The listing says a £5 coin. Whether they realise or not, I don't know, but they are clearly expecting the buyer to think it's a £5 coin.

Don't know why it does this. repeat post.

Relax, chill out and assess coins for yourself using your standards. Nobody is forced to buy a coin just because it has a number on the label. Frequently the number assigned will be at odds with your assessment. For a better chance of satisfaction, go with your own feelings about the coin that you will have to live with until disposal. I have a 61 that is better than a 65 of the same type, both in the collection. The real bonus is the strict pricing applied in the US where a 61 is a non-coin and hence can be purchased cheaply. Number collectors will turn their noses up at excellent examples of coins simply on the grounds that another example has been graded higher. Make the most of the situation on the ground and fill your boots.

I agree with Peck, in these very low grades even rare coins aren't worth much. For a 1903 HC in a low grade, there is probably a range of £30-£150 from Good - Fine. Beware of edge knocks, dinks, scratches and graffiti too. If you are anything like me, you will get far more pleasure from owning an attractive coin, compared to a low grade rare date for the same price Yeeees, sort of agree. But collectors like to put together date runs and any run of 20th century halfcrowns is going to be limited by what grade of 1905 and to a lesser extent 1903 they can afford. When I was collecting I used to have mental limits below which I would not go; good honest wear was okay but blatant cleaning, damage or graffiti was definitely beyond the pale. It may not be a popular view but within those limits I would much rather have had a coin 'in the hole' rather than a glaring gap. It is always possible to upgrade and I used to find this one of the most satisfying aspects of collecting. Anyway, it would be nice to see a picture of spw's halfcrown. 'NVG' can cover a multitude of sins! .........starting with not very good.

White balance raises its ugly head whatever the background. I also use backgrounds that give the lowest failure rates which, for me, involves 2 background colours, dependent on whether the coin is silver, bright bronze, or lustred, etc. I started using that old text background because it was the most effective, colour wise, but it made it difficult to cut the coins out with software afterwards, which I decided to start doing for tonal consistency of backgrounds across the website, recent additions list, etc. So I now use matt black and white for photography. As an indicator, the white background can be anything from blue, green, right through to pink, by the time I've played with the image in a photo suite! I then cut it out in Serif Plus and, hey presto, the background is brilliant white for all my images. That sounds like too much time required if all you want to do is load up a few images of coins for sale. As nice as perfection is, time has a cost. It already takes a few hours to add half a dozen coin images to the site given the vagaries of auto-defocus, flash working or not depending on the levels of light available, camera shake. Needless to say, it acts as a drag on the enthusiasm for listing things. I have to confess that I thought it would be much easier and take less time to take decent pics and upload them than it does in reality. It would be better if these clever cameras (which do everything except make a cup of tea), could adjust the image to give a standard colour. i.e. they know what 6000K white or whatever looks like, and every picture taken should be corrected, or at least correctable to this or these pre-set standards. I can see that you would need more than one reference point to cover absent reference colours. They must have some digital value corresponding to a particular shade of a colour which can have a specific number of bits added to or subtracted from it, or is that an unreasonable presumption?

What happens to white balance when you typically don't use any white in the pictures. I know someone (TG?) said they didn't like my green background, but I use it because it gives the lowest failure rate to my eyes. If I use a white background, it was problematic before and so presumably would be again

Pictures speak a thousand words! Bring it on Peter....... I've got a major task it setting up a system for good photography (better than ebay quality) I have bought cameras and LED lights...now practice In my experience, you'll want to keep LED lights as far away from coins as you can manage. Most decent cameras will make use of even a small amount of light, as long as it exceeds the minimum required - the only issue is white-balance. In this respect, I have found that low-power Compact Fluorescent bulbs make an almost ideal light source. Can anything beat natural daylight? When I use natural light, coins look horribly contrasted. The colour is cold and nothing like reality.

Doubt it. The whole early small change field is littered with unrecorded overdates/legend errors etc. It is highly likely that the die in use at the end of the calendar year was overcut and continued being used the following year. The chance of a die becoming unserviceable on New Year's Eve is low, but not impossible. The only reason they are unrecorded is because no one has bothered to do the research. There's a task for someone, including those with shallow pockets given most years struck can be obtained in UNC for less than £100.

Is the weight right? Does the detail match an example of the same type if you have one? If you have sovereigns in the plural, there should be a few pointers from these to say if it's dodgy.

Can't be much more than 2 hours drive from your place. Straight up the A1 to the 614 roundabout, cut across to the M1 at jcn 31 and you are nearly there.