Rob

A Happy New Year to all.

Graham is a very nice man and extremely helpful, gives a good talk and is willing to share knowledge. He does spend some time at the Mint even though retired as he passed on some information about the Weyl patterns whilst looking through their material doing research. The Mint didn't reply to my initial enquiry, though he did having been the referee for the paper and remembered after the event! That is someone with a consummate interest in all things milled.

It's in the Spink archive section, but the image is only 41K so doesn't tell you much.

I still think Colin's was better. The right breast was better struck up and the fingers crisper. Also this has a couple of small marks. But the other one had a couple of small spots in the obverse legend. Even after nearly 10 years I still regret not carrying on.

Murdoch III, lot 529 partt(2) £7/17/6d Bt Evan Roberts Plymouth Auction Rooms 18/4/2008 lot 35 sold for £16500 St.James's 15, 30/9/2010 lot 554 sold for £114000. All prices are hammer. Hope this helps.

Freeman gives virtually all the G5 & G6 proofs as R18 and all the E2s (bar 1953) as R19, which is patently wrong. As always, it is a case of guesstimating rarities because readers demand a number. Spadework is required to establish the relative rarities and numbers for each year. So where is your more accurate source ? On my computer. Spadework produces information. e.g. Someone on the PCGS forum collected 1958 VIP halfpennies who almost reached R18 on his own. Knowing full well that there were other identifiable sales that were not his, the conclusion is apparent. As always, some rarity numbers are overestimates and others under. Whilst you can never achieve definitive numbers from catalogues, you can make a pretty good stab at relative rarity based on images from sales because most will be identified for what they are. At best, Freeman's estimates are taken from auction catalogues with only some of these illustrated because his work predates the internet making any number more unreliable. Inevitably some rarity estimates will be correct, but only by accident and intuition.

Freeman gives virtually all the G5 & G6 proofs as R18 and all the E2s (bar 1953) as R19, which is patently wrong. As always, it is a case of guesstimating rarities because readers demand a number. Spadework is required to establish the relative rarities and numbers for each year.

It was introduced by the TPGs to suggest the coin has a portrait with greater contrast to the background i.e. it is like a cameo picture. Often frosted as this gives the best contrast, but essentially is another term for people to aspire to or bump up the price. You should still buy the coin and not the label. It is a lottery whether the label is applied or not.

Can rarity be determined from any other source other than experience and present Heritage market prices? Use the first, ignore the second.

Interestingly "no defevcts", unlike the description. There's your added value.

Numbers don't exist and they are omitted on space grounds. You could include proofs of most silver and bronze from Victoria, together with the above period. It was only from 1893-1926 that the year sets were the only ones.

They exist for all years from 1927 up to 1964ish. Some are more common, others are decidedly rare. A few year/denomination combinationss exist in greater numbers than others, the reason given by someone being that a group visiting the mint had a coin struck for each of them.

Indeed. The link works only for those with a Gmail account or the like. You don't need a Google account to view the pictures. You can use your own email address to login in. Doesn't work - my email address isn't a Gmail address. Nor is mine. It's a btopenworld address, not even a btinternet one.

Looks like it. The diameter of 17.5mm is slightly too small though - should be 19. I assume the ruler is nearer the camera than the coin, hence the discrepancy.

I had mentally corrected the list you put up and was looking for images of each obv & rev. Now the errors are put into perspective it is clear that you can refine the pairs to six categories as follows- obverse/reverse obverse/obverse reverse/reverse obverse uniface reverse uniface blank metal disc The last is the commonest variety.

Many thanks for doing the spadework. Our daughter has just informed us that we have two extras for Christmas dinner who are doing the same on-call shifts as she is- one Omani muslim and an Indian vegetarian Double pigs in blankets all round. I've been told my next task is not to do a 'Duke of Edinburgh' Merry Christmas everyone. Hah, send them down to us, I'm making a warm-spiced nut roast, wrapped in plaited puff pastry, even as I write! I take it she's a health professional? They are all doctors. Best call of the season. Resuscitation on tap while we keep on drinking and they can't.

Many thanks for doing the spadework. Our daughter has just informed us that we have two extras for Christmas dinner who are doing the same on-call shifts as she is- one Omani muslim and an Indian vegetarian Double pigs in blankets all round. I've been told my next task is not to do a 'Duke of Edinburgh' Merry Christmas everyone.

The first one is a pair of sixpences 1844 large 44 toned unc and an 1884 EF. Sale A9040? Obviously it is 2009, but isn't one of the four London Coin sales. Was it a foreign sale towards the end of the year? Can these be accessed via the website archive? The 8 refers to 2008 and then the sales are numbered incrementally throughout the year. It is the A prefix that doesn't make sense.

Unquestionably. He has put through a load of hammered forgeries this year. His current James 1st shilling looks suspect too, irrespective of the weight given.

Slightly impaired thus?

BNJ vol. XXVI pt.III (1951) plate XXII no.13 Thanks, Rob! Haven't spoke in a while...Compliments of the season to you! Advert looks good, was there an extra premium for being in the first couple of turns? Thanks Stuart. No premium, just pot luck where it went.

Why don't you take something that has been previously graded by either NGC or PCGS whether cracked out or not? It gives you a ballpark for what it will grade. There is no shortage of overgraded material but a fair smattering of undergraded stuff too. Better still, go for a mis-attribution and crack it out, as the TPG will have virtually guaranteed you the discount to book you need.

BNJ vol. XXVI pt.III (1951) plate XXII no.13

It could all go horribly wrong. Disregarding the shite on the scanner bed, consider the story of the P1235 copper proof halfpenny below. This used to be in my collection and I sold it to Hus six years ago only to buy it back again later. I then sold it to a member of the PCGS forum who was looking for an example. I was confident it would grade well, but it came back as MS62 although it had no wear, digs or hairlines. They couldn't even identify it as a proof despite Peck devoting over a full page to the description in his book. It is as you say a lottery, and certainly doesn't inspire confidence. It's fair to say that I would happily buy this at MS62 prices any day of the week, given the obligatory alignment of number and price when it comes to slabs.

That's silly money. For further reading on this series, read my article in the 2010 BNJ where I demonstrated that most are unique or nearly so. Not to be confused with the Lauer toy money series which are quite plentiful.