Rob

I would have said William IV

There isn't anything in Davis 19th century token coinage for either Lancashire or Cheshire. I wouldn't know where to start looking either.

Not a clue. Anything on the other side? Date? It would be unusal if there was only one side used for what is essentially a promotional item as well as a means of enabling trade.

Picture?

Are these edge variations really significant enough to warrant requiring an example of each to consider your collection complete? I honestly don't think so. This is a much discussed point. Eventually you will arrive at an example of every die and combination produced. I suspect boredom will set in long before you achieve your aim.

Get yourself a copy of Manville and Robertson. I think it is still £40 new, but invaluable. Actually, all three books complement each other, as one is auction catalogues and the other two , periodicals, circulars and journals. £100 for the lot and you are sorted. Although the auction catalogues stop at the end of 1984, the volume is the most useful of the three because sale dates, provenances where known, types of coins involved, number of plates(if any) are all given. Any later catalogues are easy to get hold of as well. A big plus is the list of locations given for each sale catalogue, so Spink, BM, Ashmolean, Fitz etc are documented where the catalogue is present.

Correct. The same thing happened for me with halfpennies and shillings when the ex-Murdoch and Roberts patterns came up at Plymouth in 2008. Another 19 varieties in gold for the two denominations was never going to be kind on the pocket, even at 2008 prices - but they have since doubled. As the prospective cost of completion had just increased by north of £250K as of the sale date and there wasn't a hope in hell of buying them all on the day, let alone in the after market, completion became an ever more distant prospect and so I decided to refocus and just keep the nicest pieces going forward.

The problem is that a lot of things were bought by Baldwin for stock as opposed to on commission. This means that the link is likely to be lost if it sat in the trays/basement for any length of time. Clarke-Thornhill's 1868 proofs were bought for stock. You can usually tell when the coin went well below estimate. Baldwins hoovered up everything in the first half of the century and would buy the book, i.e. any unsolds went to them.

Right, I've got the catalogue for 20-21/6/1940. Lot 282 was 4 proof pennies, 1860 toothed and dotted borders, 1868 bronzed and plain. The provenance is George Wight. I don't have buyers, nor where it came from originally. If Wight was a Baldwins customer, then a good possibility would be ex Clarke-Thornhill, as his 1868 set (lot 842) was bought by Baldwins for stock. This lot was ex-Nobleman 378. As regards whose handwriting it is, there is nothing conclusive. The bold writing could be Fred Baldwin's based on the tenuous link of a slight upturn at the bottom of the 1, which would possibly make copper? either another Baldwin employee or Wight, or the buyer of lot 282. Depending on who wrote it, the ticket could refer to the first of the 1868s with the copper? written afterwards, but equally could refer to the second with someone questioning the bronzing compared to the first. I think we are looking at the difference between bronzed and bronze though in all probability, with the catalogue reference to plain meaning bronze. Unless a metal analysis was done it would be difficult to predict. Not sure if this takes you any further other than the provenance of Wight.

I hope you weren't doing an ebay search for rusty nails? If you were, I suggest you get a life. Actually, there may be a position vacant for you in the bronze penny washer dept.

That sounds like my approach - you use the "darker coloured folders" method, i.e. the ones that show new content? No, I just look at the dates as I did with this one. I've never stopped to work out what all the various symbols and colours mean.

I just look and see which entries have appeared since I was last on. I just tried view new content for the first time and it included a post of mine - so clearly not that new as it is reasonable to assume I read my post at the time.

Because they are yours?

You could always cut out the middlemen and buy an UNC. It means one thing off the list.

That drew a lot of interest - not. In the post.

Interestingly I just found this on the Coin Community Forum ... it's from a thread about 'crossoever' slabbing (ie getting a coin reslabbed by a different TPGS, a service they are now apparently happy to provide!) Yup. Says it all. If anyone is interested, I have around 100 slab labels including many of the preferable PCGS variety, all 63s-66s and therefore very desirable. Offers please over £10K. The largely irrelevant coins have been removed and discarded into a mahogany box.

A few years ago, a group were talking about the arguments for slabbing. One was that dealers could list coins as UNC or EF, etc but there was no defining difference to permit a significant premium to the price for the grade and so dealers would continue to make a butty, but not a lot of money. Slabbing offered the chance to gear up returns by appealing to those who wanted the 'finest known' for example. This is clearly what has happened in the States where a 67 and upwards will command a seriously inflated price. The same rationale was applied when setting up CGS. As a business model it has credibility, because that involves extracting better returns by adding value than would otherwise be obtained. However, the spanner in the works is that by and large, people collect because they like coins, and not so that they can have bragging rights etc. The premium prices are therefore only likely to be paid by people who think they can get a return on their investment, or who have few funding pressures because the main benefit of attributed grades on slabs is really limited to sorting out the pecking order within the best examples, but it is still only an opinion. The concept of slabbing fits in well with the American psyche. Slabs have absolute numbers with none of this wishy-washy variable grading depending on who you talk to. Unfortunately, it is still an opinion of the grader at the TPG. Whilst it has led to an increase in collectors in the States who believe they are buying a product of fixed quality on account of the number assigned, it has done nothing to expand the numismatic knowledge of the collecting community. So whether the TPG is CGS or an American company, the rationale for slabbing is to produce a visibly premium label that will sell for more bucks than a raw coin - and to a certain extent they have succeeded.

There are other metals as well. Private patterns means you can do what you want - as indeed can the RM. I think I posted an image somewhere. What was the primary purpose of a private pattern? Was it a private submission to a Royal Mint commission for a currency coin? Usually. You have to remember that contracts were given out worldwide for currency, so any coin would show the engraver's/manufacturer's competence. Some were popular despite being rejected by the RM such as Moore's model pennies and halfpennies to the extent that they had to publicly disclaim them.

I can see stops on this no stops variety lol No stop after GEORGIVS applies. See Nicholson 205 & 208

There are other metals as well. Private patterns means you can do what you want - as indeed can the RM. I think I posted an image somewhere.

What planet have you been living on scott? It's been steel since the early 1990s! I didn't know that! Not that I should, of course! Really? Yep, copper plated steel since 1992. Wow, makes me feel sorry for the future generations of collectors! Imagine the questions on post-decimal.com in 50 years time! "How exactly do you store a piece of steel"? "Can I dip it?" "My tuppence has developed a series of nasty orange bubbles, what can I do?" I already have that concern with my Huth double florin.

Nah, it's an illusion created by people who can't count. Don't understand why 1947-92 and 1992-2012 didn't get the same treatment.

If an underlying E is present, I would think it ought to be in this position. The large raised loop on the bottom I think is a repair job. Thoughts please, particularly anyne who has a number of Exeter sixpences so that we can see if the punch is a single one or if the E is made up of 4 straight lines or L plus 2 straight etc. Paul, I will delay getting it back to you in case someone wants an additional image or two.

I'm not convinced either so far. Putting it under the microscope produced this, which can be compared with an outlined B.

Maybe, but not before I had spent a few thousand on coins that would not have been purchased had I known, and the vast majority of things are still in their original slabs.