Rob

I know, that's where I bought it. I was also going to buy it in St.James's 3 where it was lot 253 (with cabinet story), but the estimate of 2500-3000 was easily surpassed by Mark Teller who paid about £4K all in. I then put a bid in at Goldbergs at the same level I was willing to pay 3 years previously and on the day of the sale came second, but 2 weeks later an invoice appeared at my max, so presumably the vendor decided to cut his losses. I would have had to pay nearly $8K for the seller to recover his/her outlay. Now for the difficult bit. Where did the wax come from? You can see on collotype images where the depression is resulting from wax which remained stuck to the coin, so it will be obvious once the image is located.

The name given to them is bezants, but don't ask me where the name originates. The various marks in the forks are a recurring feature of coinage from H8 through to the end of hammered coinage. They have to mean something, and that something is likely to be an identifier for an engraver or period for example. If you compare the provincial mint coins, you see that certain punches occur in groups and this association carries through different issues in the same place or issues from different places. i.e. the basic punch set must stay with the engraver rather than the mint location.

Well I can't see my warning points anywhere - not that I particularly care. What do they mean, as a matter of interest?

I haven't asked anyone yet, though I'm sure someone will be able to shed some light on it. The flan is slightly uneven, but not as bad as you may think given we are talking about a coin that is struck from a rough piece of diestock. The previous incarnation of the obverse die was a halfcrown, so you get a few inconsistencies in any case on the die depending on how well it was polished down and how good the fabric of the die was.

Not sure I understand you Rob? The presence of new posts is - as it has always been - indicated by a dark coloured folder against the forum name, instead of a pale colour. Once in a new post, I notice (YAY) that there is now a "Next unread topic" button adjacent to the "Back to ......" button, so there's no need to clear darker coloured topics, it can all be done from within each topic without having to go back out to the topic list. YAY. This has been discussed before - a couple months ago. Some use the icons to tell them what status the posts are, others don't know, or can't be bothered to find out what they mean and just go on the date and time of the last post. I obviously fall in the latter group, as once a post is read, you know what it says.

The 1705 came from London Coins in 2004 when graded aEF/EF. I had that marked down a bit though on account of the obvious wear to the plumes. Fully struck plumes come up to a sharp point, though I suspect that not many have seen coins in that condition, CGS included. Don't know if the previous record had any bearing on the assigned grade? The gVF for the 1707 is far too generous. Also did they record the M over inverted M in MAG as a variety? The 1709 I acquired from a serious shilling collector on ebay a long time ago. It was covered in grease and crud, which dissolved off to produce quite a pleasingly toned coin underneath. Probably due to the previously attached crud given the variance in toning between the two sides! The 1700 is where I had it, though needless to say acquired as an ebay unc from a dealer who should know better. Thanks for that Rob, I think you either have a photographic memory or very good records to recall these 4 coins I bought from you last year, all of which I remain very pleased with! They are not finalised yet, but I did point out the M over inverted M on the 1707 to them, so hopefully that will be recorded in their database and on the slab. The 1700 and 1705 are 2 of my very favourite coins ... I don't believe the 1705 was previously slabbed by CGS as this is the first of the type on their records, so I suspect they have no idea it was previously sold by their main shareholder London Coins - and I didn't know about that 'provenance' so I didn't tell them! The 1705 was lot 745 in sale 104 on 29/2/2004. I still expect them to have compared any past examples in their photo database and obviously would have found this one. I usually remember who from and when I bought coins, but the info is also recorded should I have a mental block.

The 1705 came from London Coins in 2004 when graded aEF/EF. I had that marked down a bit though on account of the obvious wear to the plumes. Fully struck plumes come up to a sharp point, though I suspect that not many have seen coins in that condition, CGS included. Don't know if the previous record had any bearing on the assigned grade? The gVF for the 1707 is far too generous. Also did they record the M over inverted M in MAG as a variety? The 1709 I acquired from a serious shilling collector on ebay a long time ago. It was covered in grease and crud, which dissolved off to produce quite a pleasingly toned coin underneath. Probably due to the previously attached crud given the variance in toning between the two sides! The 1700 is where I had it, though needless to say acquired as an ebay unc from a dealer who should know better.

An interesting article on p.46 of this month's Coin News talking about a York shilling, which, as it is mine, offers scope for some discussion on the questions raised. This is the same coin below, and no, I didn't write or provide any input for the article. This was reputedly found in a Jacobean chest of drawers, though I have my doubts about the full story behind it. As is obvious from the image, the coin has a flaw through the crown band which is filled with wax. According to the article, the wax was used to 'mark' the flaw, though from experience I would say that the wax is usually left from an impression taken in order to illustrate the coin in an auction catalogue or other journal in the first half of the last century. I am not convinced that the wax 'may have been placed there by the original finder in the early 1980s' as stated in the article - does anyone know a person who has done this? The question therefore is whether the coin was 'lost' in the chest of drawers for reasons we can only speculate on, or whether it was genuinely lost down the back of it centuries ago. Unsurprisingly given the presence of the wax, a lot of midnight oil has been burnt trying to find an illustration of the coin which would clearly tick enough boxes to warrant illustrating, but sadly to no avail.I am still confident the coin will appear in a catalogue from pre-WW2 days. The colour of the wax is quite a vivid red, similar to that seen on coins illustrated in Sotheby sales from the turn of the century onwards and also in Glendining sales towards the end of the 1930s.By the 1930s, the wax used at Sothebys was considerably darker in colour. The possibility also exists that the coin was illustrated in a foreign sale [catalogue]. Likely candidates identified from old catalogues in my possession have been a bit thin on the ground. i.e. none. Thoughts ladies and gentlemen please.

Although the date of the last post shows, is there any way of including the time as well? o/w you have to open it up to see if it is a new post or not whereas previously you only had to look at the time of the last one which you would obviously remember.

I usually go, but this year my daughter bought us a pair of tickets to the Proms on Friday night. What an excellent venue and concert.

Keep your eyes open as I don't have a spare. It only covers copper, bronzed and gilt pieces because Mick doesn't collect Silver or Gold Soho or restrikes, so does have its inherent limitations. Having said that, the latter are so rare that there must by definition be few collectors of them in these metals. I can probably help here if you need any info. Sorry, I lied. Didn't realise I had one spare. PM sent.

Rule of thumb. PU/EXR say R7 & R6 with ER being R5. When you get to R4 and more common, it is fair to say that virtually all would fall into a category that covered double figures though it is quite likely there are more than 100 of the commonest types. All of which assumes of course that the Peck rarity assigned is correct. More important than absolute numbers is the number of freely circulating and therefore available pieces. There are a handful of pieces where there are probably only the four recorded known, but only a single piece is available. Some Taylor restrikes are much more common than Peck suggests.

Keep your eyes open as I don't have a spare. It only covers copper, bronzed and gilt pieces because Mick doesn't collect Silver or Gold Soho or restrikes, so does have its inherent limitations. Having said that, the latter are so rare that there must by definition be few collectors of them in these metals. I can probably help here if you need any info.

Just to add - there are coins rated as common as VS by Peck where no examples have come to market since 1970. Mick concluded that they were virtually unobtainable and I concur. Conversely there are coins rated R which are always available. That's usually called common. Half are probably about right, with the rest requiring some adjustment in both directions.

All are somewhere between 1 and lots For a somewhat more useful indicator, see Mick Martin's survey of Soho patterns in the July 2009 Circular where he tabulated the number of times a particular reference coin has appeared in UK sales and lists since 1971 and gives a comparison between Peck rarity and availability. Interesting reading.

Mmmm .. chocolate! And .. how the heck does anything confectionary related last from Christmas Rob? There must be something wrong with you. In my house it's an hour from gift unwrapping, tops! Simple. The hammered gold isn't melting here, though it is hot. All the chocolate however, is.

I can confirm the only ones melting at the moment are the christmas tree decoration gold coins.

The waters are further muddied by the orders and proclamations of 1838. An order dated June 8th directed the coinage of a £5 piece, sovereign and half, all of the same type with royal arms surrounded by a wreath,save the half on space considerations. Ruding, where I have taken this from then goes on to say that the £5 piece should have DECUS ET TUTAMEN on the edge, whilst the double-sovereign and half-sovereign will be grained. No mention in the last sentence of a full sovereign which possibly is a mistake, but also see below. July 5th. Proclamation for the £5 down to the farthing together with the Maundy issue made. July 18th. Proclamation dictates that the double-sovereign, sovereign and half-sovereign shall be received and pass as current money, with the respective weights listed. So we have a double-sovereign mentioned in orders and proclaimed, but none exist for this reign as currency pieces. There are two uniface reverse £2 coins in the RM museum; one undated, but intended for 1838 as per the proclamation and listed as Hocking 1969, and one dated 1841 with a trident and two dolphins (Hocking 1968). These are W&R288 & 289 respectively.

We appear to have quite a few points to debate here. I thought the UNA & the Lion is proof only and wasn't issued as a currency piece, or was it?. Surely not given the numbers seen together with the early auction references which often mention 10 struck etc of the variety listed. Why include a 1/4 farthing but not the three halfpence given both were initially struck for colonial use? And similarly, why do you have a 15 coin set normally, with a farthing as the smallest denomination when we know there are 1839 half farthing bronzed proofs? Were these issued much later? That there is no reference for an 1839 1/4 does not exclude a limited number of them existing if required for sets because we don't know everything. eg. Colin Cooke had a proof 1847 farthing which is even more difficult to explain than the 1839 1/4 and not listed anywhere. If the RM didn't issue sets until 1843, they were certainly churning out proofs before this given the examples in the Bolland sale in 1841. He died in 1840.

So was the 1839 1/4 farthing in the 17 coin set a currency piece only and described as such?

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. Pressing PRTSC just appears to hold the image Rob. Like doing Copy, nothing else happens until you are in a document or whatever and tell it to Paste. I need an open image based window - I use Paint as it came with the computer, but I guess anything you can draw in as, although you can do it in say, Word, I have no idea how you'd save that as an image file! - then with that visible press Ctrl+V. The whole screen then appears as the Paint image. I still have to save that (usually to my desktop) to use it. That help? I think so, thanks. It copied and saved it onto a word page which is an improvement on my pictures which didn't save previously. And doing a manual save I could now get it into the pictures folder, so I may have an image but it thinks it is a word document.

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. The box is definitely contemporary (I would guess mid to late 19thC) with the gold braid edge tooling and blue velvet roundels for all coins, no ribbon lifters - a single push button but with no swing hooks (as also used on the "standard" spade shaped case) - the coins were unfortunately mixed in quality but I did not see them in the hand relying on my agents description. Thanks. It certainly looks 19th century. The fact that they were differing in grade is not necessarily surprising. Within a few years of 1839 the auction catalogues are describing some of the £5 coins as impaired e.g Thomas Thomas 1034, Soth 23/2/1844 - and there are other references noted as such. However, if the fractionals were notably different from the rest, then surely that would have to imply the set wasn't original? IMHO the use of a Spink labelled box would imply not as issued by the mint unless there are other boxes so labelled and preferably with 15 coins inside. Unfortunately that still wouldn't clarify whether the 17 hole boxes were made for the mint as a one-off or commissioned privately. If as issued this would potentially help clarifying the order in which the dies were used. Fortunately the early catalogues go to great lengths describing the £5 pieces, which helps. Finding complete matched sets in original boxes would help too as it is unlikely many would have been reconstituted if matched.

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.