Rob

£2,400, right on the estimate. That's what I was willing to go to, i.e. £3K all in with the premium. I didn't buy it though as the price was reached in the room. If it hadn't been a bit pitted it would have gone for more because the grade was there, just not the physical condition.

William III is a full time job with the recoinage. With 5 or 6 coinages in as many years, the period was clearly a transitional one as redesigns don't happen for no reason when the cost of tooling is so high. Although the punches must have taken a hammering (excuse the pun), the variations in bust types across the series are clearly a sign of experimentation to some degree. The dismissal of the Roettiers in favour of Croker also had a large part to play in the designs as I suspect the former may have removed some punches when leaving the Mint.

There was an 1878, but only an 1881H. The halfpennies were essentially a date run with none of the hoped for scarcer dies I was looking for, some of which may not exist in UNC which could have had a bearing on the collection as it was common die pairings in this lot - hence easier to get in UNC.

Leaving aside the shortage of quality material across the board which is affecting everybody, I think a significant part of the problem arises from Paul Dawson's accident. As the main contact point and a name known within the numismatic world, his not being available to either speak to prospective vendors nor to seek out new stock means they are effectively short staffed. They need a GB coins specialist to replace him if the business is to move forward.

I did all right last week. I picked up the either/or coin I wanted in the Eginton trial pattern sixpence (lot 721), so left the second one alone. Plus I acquired a couple of others at reasonable prices. My bids were all in the milled section Rob, oh and a few lots in the literature. I only wanted one lot of books and came second.

I did all right last week. I picked up the either/or coin I wanted in the Eginton trial pattern sixpence (lot 721), so left the second one alone. Plus I acquired a couple of others at reasonable prices.

I'm afraid I suffered from premature salivation. When I saw the fairly lengthy run of bronze halfpennies, I thought I might have filled a gap or two, but the gaps remain. There were a couple of nice W3 farthings in Warwick & Warwick last week around the EF mark. Ex Brooks too. PS. Based on some of your posts, your money should be safe under the mattress. Don't want to go there - God knows what one might find.

I was following, but what I was thinking of buying either reached what I was willing to pay or exceeded it. There was no must have piece in the sale worth writing a blank cheque out for.

So which one didn't you buy?

Most of the time, but there are exceptions, and if a cross must be assumed to be deliberate which would help the accounting theory. My only difficulty with the accounting theory is I can't see what accounting purpose it would serve, unlike the marking of a pile of BoE notes that are bound together! I suppose that if done for accounting purposes you would expect to see multiple crosses too. The earliest I have seen a cross is on Edward VI fine coinage, which immediately post-dates the debased period and could be a hangover from this period. Could it be that crossed coins were those that failed the recoinage test in 1696? I've just made a quick check on those coins with a cross that I have weights for and the closest any came to full weight was a James I 3rd bust shilling at 5.87g with the next at 5.75g. The lightest was 5.39g. I also have an Elizabeth I shilling with a star mark at 5.92g. We also have to bear in mind that some marks could be graffiti and completely unrelated to the underlying reason for the majority of marks. At the recoinage, those coins of full weight were punched through the centre to signify they were of full weight (and therefore value) and could be used for transactions for a limited time. In the event of discovering a pierced coin was underweight, the person who tendered the coin was liable to make up the difference in value. Do we have any other weights for crossed coins which would back up this theory? i.e. does anyone have crossed coins that are full weight and if so how many? Marking the field makes the cross obvious, so one would assume that it was done as a means of identification. Yes, I speculated (above) that it may have been something to do with the Recoinage. I think it is the most convincing explanation. The trouble is that Lloyd Bennett has a pierced Aberystwyth shilling with the hole through the centre as stipulated in the decree which only weighs 5.75g. This was the first coin I looked at. The next four halfcrowns had a maximum weight of 14.71g, so the underwight theory probably doesn't hold much water. I didn't find any full weight centre-holed coins. It is just too easy to find coins that break any postulated theories. We are all p***ing in the wind. One thing that would help a theory re-the recoinage would be the total absence of any crossed coins from contemporary hoards that could be positively dated to before the recoinage. I don't think this is the sort of thing that gets reported though because it would need to encompass all hoards.

Most of the time, but there are exceptions, and if a cross must be assumed to be deliberate which would help the accounting theory. My only difficulty with the accounting theory is I can't see what accounting purpose it would serve, unlike the marking of a pile of BoE notes that are bound together! I suppose that if done for accounting purposes you would expect to see multiple crosses too. The earliest I have seen a cross is on Edward VI fine coinage, which immediately post-dates the debased period and could be a hangover from this period. Could it be that crossed coins were those that failed the recoinage test in 1696? I've just made a quick check on those coins with a cross that I have weights for and the closest any came to full weight was a James I 3rd bust shilling at 5.87g with the next at 5.75g. The lightest was 5.39g. I also have an Elizabeth I shilling with a star mark at 5.92g. We also have to bear in mind that some marks could be graffiti and completely unrelated to the underlying reason for the majority of marks. At the recoinage, those coins of full weight were punched through the centre to signify they were of full weight (and therefore value) and could be used for transactions for a limited time. In the event of discovering a pierced coin was underweight, the person who tendered the coin was liable to make up the difference in value. Do we have any other weights for crossed coins which would back up this theory? i.e. does anyone have crossed coins that are full weight and if so how many? Marking the field makes the cross obvious, so one would assume that it was done as a means of identification.

Most of the time, but there are exceptions, and if a cross must be assumed to be deliberate which would help the accounting theory.

In common with just about all of the people old enough to be in a similar position I started collecting predecimal pennies from circulation, initiated by a pot of them in the house which I was given to keep me quiet on a rainy day. As for a favourite coin, this changes with mood swings.

Yes. He hit an upper case 4 by mistake. The price should be A(stronomical) U(nits) 4179500. Sorry for any confusion.

Probably wrong because you see them on quite a lot of high grade pieces. After over 100 years of use, it is unlikely they would be much more than washers given the lower relief seen on hammered as opposed to milled currency.

Yes, but given that this would have been done to create a 5 from a 3, not the other way around, wouldn't you expect to see a downstroke to connect the top of the 5 to its loop? There doesn't seem any trace of it at all. No downstroke on many Charles II fives. Look at Nicholson 020-024 on Colin Cooke's site.

Many have assumed they were made as a mark of protest against the monarch, but that doesn't explain why the fields are always defaced and not the bust itself. If the bust had been defaced I would say it was on religious grounds as this was the political hot potato of the day - catholicism vs the various forms of the protestant religion that were followed in northern Europe. I don't have a satisfactory answer. I don't have any definitive figures for percentage distribution, but can say that 1B is rare, 3A is quite rare, 3B less so and I don't know anyone who has a 3J. When I was actively seeking a 3A and 3B about 8 years ago, only one or two 3A coins came up on ebay over a 12 month period and probably no more than 5 for both busts, suggesting the bulk of the cross crosslet shillings are 1A and 3C with a guestimiate of say 1:3 or 4. But don't hold me to that.

I think there were a small number of 1675/3 farthings, but nothing like the numbers of halfpennies. Teg and I spent a considerable amount of time corresponding on this matter about 6 years ago, some of which is discussed in the 1675/3 CRAOLVS thread in the unconfirmed varieties section. Taking the mint figures for the value of copper coins struck in Charles II's reign and the number of examples recorded in a not very rigorous survey as there was no checking for double counting of the farthings, but were reasonably close to the theoretical distribution. The halfpennies which were checked for double counting are way off. This appears to be due to a large number of 1673 coins actually being 5/3. In the sample collected, the 5/3 was equal in rarity to the 1675, but the former were virtually all recorded as straight 1673s. The absolute numbers were only slightly greater for these two compared to the acknowledged rare 1672. Given the number of halfpennies dies recut with the overdate, it would be extremely unlikely that any farthing dies good enough for further use were not similarly recycled. I think that is a 5/3. It always feels a little pathetic to produce nothing other than a single line of thanks for such an indepth and time consuming response, but thank-you! In view of what you have said regarding the unidentified 5/3 half pennies, do you think it could be a similar case with the farthings, that a large number are out there, only they just happen to be sat in trays as 73's? I don't think there are huge numbers because of the 1674 dated coins where you would expect any spare 1673 dies to be used, but a couple might have been modified. There were 5 presses, four for farthings and one for halfpennies which explains the relative rarity of halfpennies to farthings. The unscientific survey I carried out was based on a survey of all the sites I could find with coins including ebay together with my own coins as by definition these would be mutually exclusive examples. I then did the same for catalogues around 1970 give or take a couple years using images wherever possible. For the record, the results were as follows. Halfpennies 1672 18 1673 80 1675/3 22 1675 22 Farthings 1672 88 1673 68 1674 64 1675 98 1679 32 Make of the results what you will, but the totals seem to give a reasonable approximation of 1:4 in keeping with the recorded number of presses in use. I don't have any figures for the number of identifiable dies. As for the drawings I made of the different overstrikes, these only applied to the halfpennies. Judging by the size of some 5s where struck over the 3, it would appear that farthing punches were used sometimes. For the real life example of the 5/3/2 refer to that thread in the same section of the forum where you can see that the 3/2 has followed the curve at the top of the 2 before a separate u shaped cut was employed for the bottom loop.

I think there were a small number of 1675/3 farthings, but nothing like the numbers of halfpennies. Teg and I spent a considerable amount of time corresponding on this matter about 6 years ago, some of which is discussed in the 1675/3 CRAOLVS thread in the unconfirmed varieties section. Taking the mint figures for the value of copper coins struck in Charles II's reign and the number of examples recorded in a not very rigorous survey as there was no checking for double counting of the farthings, but were reasonably close to the theoretical distribution. The halfpennies which were checked for double counting are way off. This appears to be due to a large number of 1673 coins actually being 5/3. In the sample collected, the 5/3 was equal in rarity to the 1675, but the former were virtually all recorded as straight 1673s. The absolute numbers were only slightly greater for these two compared to the acknowledged rare 1672. Given the number of halfpennies dies recut with the overdate, it would be extremely unlikely that any farthing dies good enough for further use were not similarly recycled. I think that is a 5/3.

Rob - I'm sorry to say that I don't have an example of the coin(!) I assume that you already have the photo of L-57 from Allen's BNJ paper? Other images of the dies are: Lockett pt IV: Lot 2552 is Allen L-rev unpublished; Lot 2553 is Allen J-57 Rees-Jones (SCA 117) Lot 368 - Allen L-rev unpublished (not the Lockett coin) If you don't have these catalogues please PM me and I'll get them scanned Thanks, I have these catalogues. What I am looking for is an image or images that are bigger than 1:1 as I am trying to match punches. As you wil know from Allen's article, this die combination doesn't use the same punches as the other W/SA coins, so I need to cast the net further afield. Exeter, York and Oxford are possibilities as we know that various engravers were transferred from other mints such as the man who engraved the Oxford 1644 revs 3 & 4 with the billet stops, who then transferred to the Carey commission area where he engraved the pear(?) shilling obverses, shilling rev.5 and the Shrewsbury Briot halfcrown obv.D.

Typical TPG mistake. These crop up quite frequently and often present an opportunity. Don't complain, exploit the situation. Forget bust type, that is unknown territory for them - as is identifying the coin on a consistent basis. You eliminate a lot of buying competition from those who have no interest in personally identifying what they are buying, merely relying on what they are told. Just beware of the instances when a rarity is claimed in error, as this can work both ways. No bargains here, unfortunately, the seller is asking over $1000 for this one, he'll/she'll be waiting a long time I reckon! I guess if it WAS a unique Elizabeth 4p with rose, disguised as a sixpence... That's silly. It's a common £100 or thereabouts coin. Unless, as you say, it is a unique groat with a sixpence design, that weighs the same as a sixpence and uses the same punches as a sixpence.......... hang on, I think someone's dropped a b***ock. I also wish NGC would stop calling them 4p and 6p etc and reserve the p for decimals. Accuracy isn't one of their strong points. An aside I noticed a few years ago is that any misprunt in the labelling is carried through to populations. So 1pSOHO was considered a different coin to 1p SOHO and recorded as two populations, but I think NGC might have corrected that by now.

Typical TPG mistake. These crop up quite frequently and often present an opportunity. Don't complain, exploit the situation. Forget bust type, that is unknown territory for them - as is identifying the coin on a consistent basis. You eliminate a lot of buying competition from those who have no interest in personally identifying what they are buying, merely relying on what they are told. Just beware of the instances when a rarity is claimed in error, as this can work both ways.

Picture wanted of a Worcester halfcrown, Allen dies L-57. Anyone? Any image is acceptable. Thanks.

Don't think that is a recognised Olympic event.

Hand your notice in tomorrow and you are half way there. I'm pretty certain that the YHA require less than 6 months notice. The sooner the better because you will have to devote all your time and more to make a living selling way overpriced bullion silver. As I said before, I wish you well in your investment.