Rob

If you still have the link, that would be useful. Was it a modern Spink box or could it possibly have been made prior to 1875? As mentioned earlier, that is the earliest reference I have to a 17 coin set. In 1839 the fractional farthings were not current in this country, only being proclaimed in 1842 or 1843(?). However, once they were legally able to circulate, it is possible that the mint would have added examples to the set in order to provide an example of each of the circulating denominations.

clean here.

Not really. That doesn't work for me. Neither alt and prtscn together or alt then prtscn seem to do anything. Going to the pictures folder where all the jpags are kept doesn't result in an image of the screen appearing either when I do a ctl-V. Never mind, I'll just stick with writing it out manually. Pressing PrtScn on its own doesn't seem to do anything either. Peter, you are right. Maybe the computer/operator is too old - or broken.

How did you do that? I wanted to copy the pop-up to save typing, but haven't a clue how to do it. Why are computers so difficult?

I got Exploit Blackhole Exploit Kit (type 2704) on 3 links with AVG Free and Firefox. Assume that makes sense to you.

Now that the catalogue is up on-line, am I the only one who thinks that the coins are nothing to write home about? Sure there are Henry VII sovereigns which are desirable in any condition as a collectable item, but the rest of the gold is of dubious quality. Certainly no must bid items with the majority worn and/or scratched.

Is it possible that the seller had simply bunged the fractionals into the box to make the set 'complete'? I guess you'd have to see whether there are recesses specially made for them, or whether they just 'float free'. Quite possible that they were added later, or alternatively were in a custom built box. But in the context of these sets, nothing can be taken for granted given the length of time over which they were produced.

At least one of them went through London Coins, so the grading will be interesting

I've just found a reference in an 1875 catalogue to a 17 coin boxed set of Victoria proofs. Usually these are 15 coins for the 1839 - £5 to farthing and the Maundy Set, so the note that it was 17 coins implies either a misprint or a set with the half and quarter farthing notwithstanding the description says Penny to Farthing in copper. The sale reference is J E M Rishton 183, Sotheby 13-14th July 1875. It would have to be a 39 set because a £5 is included. I have always assumed that the 1839 sets didn't contain the fractionals because they were for colonial use, but if the 17 coins noted was correct, this would suggest that later sets may contain the fractional proofs as these were made to order, and there would be dies available for the two 39 fractionals. It should be noted that the 1853 sets (16 coins) had denominations down to the half farthing as these were proclaimed current for Britain. Has anyone ever seen a boxed 17 coin set? Ta.

Nor me.

The email address of the seller says it all. willwriting.biz would suggest a lawyer or solicitor. Take a reasonable £9.99 selling price and add on your minimum hourly rate of £140.

Usually the coin is milled out inside the rim and the second obverse dropped into place. Without a picture though, we still don't know if the obverses are from currency coins though as you haven't said. You will ahve to either reduce the image size to under 150kB or alternatively use a hosting site such as Photobucket. If the size is under 150kB, it is likely that you have selected the file, but not attached it. It will tell you when it has been uploaded.

No picture has appeared, so ... If the dies used are official ones it will be somebody playing about with a lathe, milling out one reverse and reducing the thickness of the second by removing the reverse before neatly fitting one inside the other. This is the normal way to produce double headed coins. If cleaned, the only way the grade is going is down because grade is a measure of physical abrasion to the surfaces of the coin. Cleaning removes metal and doesn't deposit it, which would be required to show apparently less wear than before.

Somebody needs to disable the C, H, U and N keys on his keyboard. A special license to only allow restricted use of the X key wouldn't go amiss either. Some of those prices are multiples of what they should be, or in the case of the 1963 penny, 1000x. This is worse than our friend in Dundee.

Depends on the quantity, quality (fineness) and where you are. If in a town or city with a few jewellers/scrap bullion dealers then you might get a decent price close to bullion but would have to shop around for the best deal. If you have to post it then that will reduce the amount people are willing to pay. If you are near a coin fair it would be possible to sell it to a dealer there. Next one coming up is at the Motorcycle Museum a week this coming Sunday, just off the M42 (A45 jcn). Most dealers will take scrap silver and gold if it isn't necessary to travel far. It all depends on what you have.

I've often wondered about when the bank manager is on holiday. He must have a b****y good collection from all eras.

The penny is back on ebay so not all is lost. Thanks, but it wasn't for my benefit - I don't want one.

I see my penny on ebay thread has disappeared. Was that the reason for the screwed up posts? I can now see Chris's testing thread that was previously impossible because there was a conflict deciding which one I was trying to read. Could it be that things have settled down now?

Just a die flaw. It looks like the edge of the incuse detail on the die has come adrift and left a larger depression.

Yes, I bought the Durham House groat. Still waiting for it to arrive though. It isn't the best one available assuming that Carlyon-Britton 198 (1921) is still doing the rounds, but I don't know where that is. As they go quite acceptable with just about every example showing weakness somewhere and quite collectable for the reverse legend variety which only occurs on this groat and its rather rare companion halfgroat. The BM has a superb example. here . One word of warning, the reference numbers and the attributions are all hopelessly screwed up in this section at least and probably elsewhere. Many Edward VI groats are in fact facing bust Edward IVs, and the museumm accession numbers are all to cock too. The coin given as 1896,0609.208 for example should be ex Montagu 827, but is in fact Huth 324 as it is plated in the 1927 catalogue. This was acquired by Clarke-Thornhill and passed to the BM in his bequest. The reference number for the coin illustrated should therefore be 1935,0401.1758. The former Montagu coin is under the reference 1935,0401.1759, which is allegedly one of those from Clarke Thornhill. The coin actually gifted by C-T is that listed as BM214, which entered the collection prior to the systematic cataloguing used from about 1830. All the others of this type appear to be wrong too. Another good waste of public funds.

I think you'll have to wait until the site is working properly again for a reply. Most people can't log in or at least haven't been able to do so for few days.

Mixed bag. The better pieces flew, but anything with problems or of indifferent quality struggled. I had a good day.

Good to see that Spink have abandoned their in house bidding system in favour of The Saleroom. Took a punt today that it would work - and it did!! So well in fact that the internet frequently got ahead of the room, so that Richard would be taking room bids at 500 say, when the internet was already up to 700. But that's infinitely preferable to the inability to bid at all in the case of Spink, or the funereal pace of the last DNW sale where the parting words heard over the internet before the link was closed at well gone 7pm were - "Christ, that was...".

Looks cleaned. It is too shiny with a flat tone. In the hand it will probably look bright. In answer to your other points, pre 1816 milled shouldn't be any different to later coinage in the way you grade it. Just because it is older doesn't mean that it has to be assigned a higher grade for the same level of wear. The main reason for grade inflation is probably the price paid for high grade pieces, but that is just a reflection of their absolute rarity. The key to storing coins is not to rub the surfaces. i.e. Obviously slabs fulfil this, as do capsules if they have a sprung retainer inside to impede movement. Sat in the bottom of a cabinet will do the same thing if you are careful. Obviously with capsules you will need a deeper tray than without.

I couldn't agree more Stuart, I really don't believe that those that collect (especially) US slabs and grades 67-70 have the same collecting urge as we do ... which is fine, each to their own investing/collecting criteria, but right now we are increasingly (if only gradually when it comes to British / hammered) chasing after the same coins. If it was a totally separate sphere of collecting we wouldn't give a damn, would we?? The elimination of choice pieces from your average collector's reach has always been an ongoing problem. As a prelude to this week's Spink sale, I've been doing a bit of research on the Edward VI profile groats. They aren't particularly rare as touted as I've found about a dozen decent collectable examples from different dies, but always in demand because the catalogue usually states they are rare. Montagu 826 (1896) was a nice one for example. ex Cuff (1854), Dymock, Murchison & Addington before Montagu. At the latter sale, J S Henderson paid £21 for it, which was a huge amount of money in 1896. He later bequeathed his entire collection (which was full of top grade pieces such as this) to the Fitzwilliam . As a result, collector expectations have to reduce, because the pot is smaller and of lower quality. He wasn't alone. Weightman supplied the BM with many of their copper/bronze/tin examples - see the appendix in Peck. Clarke-Thornhill allowed the BM to take what ever dies were missing from their collection before the residue was sold in 1937, also many noted in Peck but including others outside the scope of the book. It is an onging reducing supply, which is why the top pieces are flying whilst the me-toos are relatively static.