Rob

Cool - though I'm surprised at you not spotting mine was a twopence! But your picture is much better. I really must photograph even a few of my best coins. Have to confess I didn't check and just assumed with the penny being the commoner of the two that's what it was, but knew it wouldn't be a halfpenny. On another point though, I'd like to know why some of these obverses on KH6 (P1153) have the discoloured ring on the raised rim. I assume it must be something to do with the bronzing process, but can't see how it would come about. Thoughts anyone?

Just for you, here's a close approximation to your penny obverse.

Wot? Please post an unmodified version. Thanks.

I concur that the Victoria young head is well executed.

It's no coincidence that all the 1882 no H pennies offered also appear to be generally devoid of most detail. What price a no obv. portrait 1882?

Yes it is.

Seaby's 19th edition will be from 198? (22nd is 1987) - 10p isn't the end of the world! This is why you desperately need a coin value book as these will list the years in which each denomination was struck. The Seaby you have acquired will give the info you need. There were no 1959 pennies other than maundy, though florins were struck.

A deep portrait such as the Greek or Roman is a good starter. Probably the best of British is something like the Elizabeth I pledge penny or the Charles II petition crown portraits because they are 3/4 facing - so ask petitioncrown to upload some. Cromwell's isn't bad as it has a deep relief which isn't usually seen on coin, nor George V. Most being profiles in low relief means it is lot more difficult to portray the image - good example of which is the early Charles II hammered issues. With a full head of hair, the portraits are very appealing, but usually they are flat and quite feaureless. It is probably no coincidence that three of the above were engraved by Thomas Simon. Even on the shilling below the attention to detail is quite obvious. The stippled detail Simon applied to the drapery and flesh adds to the effect in my opinion. Consistency of strike and the increased force available with milled coinage means it is much easier to produce a good effigy compared to hammered, but even amongst the latter are some good images such as the Charles II mentioned above and the Edward VI portraits are similarly competent. Last issue hammered of Charles II below, again by Simon.

You are in very good company in that case. Petitioncrown on this website also likes coins for their artistry. He also hoards.

Firstly, welcome to the forum. I think you are going to have to post some images related to SN5355/77. My gut instinct was that it would be item 5355 out of the 1977 volume of Spink's Numismatic Circular, but that is a medal - Waterloo 1815 to William Groves 2nd Batt. Coldstream Guards with steel clip and ring suspender, not a coin. If you want to understand coins and their grades, buy this forum member Red Riley's book on grading. As it appears you will be concentrating on 20th century items in all probability, this would be your first appropriate purchase before any coins. Grades will be explained fully and show the points which wear first on a coin so that you don't overgrade potential purchases, nor what you already have. Get yourself a reference book such as CCGB (published by the owner of this forum), Spink's Coins of England (latest edition out this week) or Coin Market Values. All will cover the basic items such as a list of the years in which coins are available for any denomination. Not all coins are produced in all years. As for grading, BU refers to brilliant uncirculated, but you also get grades such as uncirculated, extremely fine, very fine, fine, good, fair and poor. There are also intermediate attributions such as near, almost or good. The first two are lower than a particular grade, the last higher. Without an endless list of images it would be impossible to portray what they mean, which is why you should get Red's book as a priority as different types of coin wear on different high points of the designs. BM refers to the British Museum,and is not a grade.

Once bitten twice shy with me. However I have taken a punt on awful pictures that SOMETIMES have paid off. A few years back I bought "green" coloured coins from a seller for very little...yep it was his photographic skills...the give away and why I had a punt were the farthing specialist envelopes visible stating reasonable grades. Me too. The 1820 I/S shilling a page or two back in the acquisition thread was listed with a fuzzy picture, but the larger blob for the I and the obviously decent grade from the hair detail made it worth bidding Spink book price at the time for an EF or better. The prooflike qualities were icing on the cake converting a conventional and common 1820 listed as high grade into an EF+ rarity with superb toning and a decent 3 figure value.

You mean like this

But herein lies the dilemma for all collectors. Any collection, farthings included, will inevitably result in a range of grades amongst the consitutents. You just have to grin and bear it unless you say I refuse to get an example of xxxx because it doesn't exist in better than fine or whatever. Otherwise you may as well restrict yourself to the packaged rubbish issued by the RM (or equivalent) which is probably as consistent a product as you can get in numismatics.

We do know what happened because the dates for demonetising various denominations wwere set by decree, just as they are today. Consequently it became illegal to use clipped crowns for example after one date and half crowns on another. The hammered coinage could be used for payments to government officials and was collected for recycling in this way. A specific cut off date for use was set for each denomination and a finite period of time allowed for exchanging the old currency by weight. Ruding devotes half a dozen pages to the recoinage and it is difficult without copying the whole text verbatim to get all the info out. There is also a useful 6 page article in the BNJ, vol.3 (1906) by Philip Nelson, who listed figures for the recoinage in terms of the amount of silver coined which he found in a contemporary manuscript and combined them with data extracted about the recoinage from Ruding. There are slight discrepancies, but the data holds up fairly well in Ruding from that written in 1697. But the mechanics of how the coins were destrroyed remains a mystery? Wouldn't it be good to have some historical understanding? Once they had come into the possession of government officials they were withdrawn and melted in a crucible, just as they would silver plate or any other raw material. Then cast into ingots and rolled into plate and finally blanks would be cut out for the new coins. Any pointed tool could be used to make a piercing as long as it was harder than the silver.

We do know what happened because the dates for demonetising various denominations wwere set by decree, just as they are today. Consequently it became illegal to use clipped crowns for example after one date and half crowns on another. The hammered coinage could be used for payments to government officials and was collected for recycling in this way. A specific cut off date for use was set for each denomination and a finite period of time allowed for exchanging the old currency by weight. Ruding devotes half a dozen pages to the recoinage and it is difficult without copying the whole text verbatim to get all the info out. There is also a useful 6 page article in the BNJ, vol.3 (1906) by Philip Nelson, who listed figures for the recoinage in terms of the amount of silver coined which he found in a contemporary manuscript and combined them with data extracted about the recoinage from Ruding. There are slight discrepancies, but the data holds up fairly well in Ruding from that written in 1697.

Yes, all hammered coin was called in during the Great Recoinage, but I very much doubt (willing to be corrected though) that it was 'demonetised' by piercing. I would have thought that what was called in would have been melted down for the silver, to offset the massive cost of the Recoinage. I'm afraid you will have to stand corrected, sort of. The terms of the recoinage concerning pierced pieces reads as follows. Ruding R., Annals of the Coinage (1840), vol.2 p.44. "And in regard that such coins of the realm, formerly made with the hammer, and not by the mill and press, and which at that time remained whole and unclipped, would still be most liable and subject to the pernicious crime of clipping and rounding by wickedpersons, who regarded their own unjust lucre more than the preservation of their native country: for the better prevention thereof it was further enacted, thet every person having such unclipped hammered monies in his possession, should, before the 10th day of February 1695, or before he disposed of the same, cause them to be struck through, about the middle of every piece, with a solid punch that should make a hole without diminishing the silver; and that after the said 10th day of February no unclipped hammered monies, that is, as it is explained in the act, such pieces as had both rings or the greatest part of the letters appearing thereon, should be current, unless they were so struck through; and if any piece struck through should appear afterwards to be clipped, no person should tender or receive the same in payment, under the penalty of forfeiting as much of the clipped monies so punched through should amount to in tale, to be recovered to the use of the poor of the parish where such money should be so tendered or received. Hope this helps.

I'm still trying to understand how you can calculate which is the better coin based on an algorithm. How do you quantify eye appeal? I can see you can allow for a percentage of smooth/flat surface, but all this is negated surely by your opinion of grade which will be subjective depending on eye appeal. And what's wrong with less than fine? Why should this screw things up?

Hi Colin, I am hanging on to the notion that this is demonetised officially because the hole is crudely made. I also think that the coin was folded over in two places at the time it was holed. I could be wrong. At least holing the coin made it more affordable to people like me though. I still get to enjoy aspects of it. cheers. I agree it gives the coin added history and does appear to be a crude hole rather than something which was done with any level of care, but inevitably it detracts from the value. Mind you if it did add to the value imagine how many people on ebay would be knocking holes through their coins It's only a short step away from those who polish them so they can call them BU

It isn't difficult to find much of the info if you spend a bit of money on a few books. No one volume has a comprehensive list of varieties, but half a dozen books would cover those recorded in print to date. Freeman for 1860 onwards bronze, Davies for silver 1816 onwards, ESC for silver from 1649, Peck is still THE book for small denominations from Elizabeth I until the early 1960s, Coincraft, last issued in 2000 has good coverage and Dave Groom's two volumes on 20th century coins. If gold takes your fancy, then Marsh's sovereign and half sovereign books together with Coincraft will cover most varieties. As with all references, each is incomplete in its own way, so you will find yourself recording varieties that aren't listed elsewhere. The various prices guides are unhelpful as a rule because they only cover a few of the more popular varieties, but of these, I would say that Spink's Coins of England is more comprehensive than the rest, covering as it does the whole range of British coinage rather than a restricted date range.

Thanks Rob. Always wanted a good portrait of Charles 1st though. If it doesn't have to be Sottish, you would be better off with a type G Briot bust with the t-in-c mark or similar. They are much more common, and if you found a really good one it would be a lot cheaper than a Scottish to buy. You should be able to get a really good one for £250-350. Or if you don't want a hammered coin, then an English Briot's Milled would come in under £1K for an EF or thereabouts shilling. Much better value for money.

I'd go along with it being a recoinage piercing. As to value, Coin Market Values gives it as £110 fine and £300 VF. That's only fine or good fine and it has a large hole in the middle which detracts. I'd hazard a guess and say £40-50, but it all depends on supply and crucially the demand for defective material. Scottish is less widely collected, but rarer than English or British. There won't be many who could live with a holed coin, so unless ridiculously rare, probably best avoided. Maybe Scottishmoney can make a contribution here.

The loss of colon stops is a common occurence due to die fill. Examples can be found in various states of fill and so nothing exceptional. When you say notching, I'm not sure what you refer to, but if the letters appear slightly fishtailed, this is due either to metal flow or the use of a different font punch. Again, not something to get overly excited about. A better picture would confirm this. The whole series is littered with double cut lettering due to the desire to extract as much life out of the die as possible. Again, nothing to get carried away over, but a leter cut over a different letter would be of interest. There are two types of 3 seen on the halfpenny, a small and a tall one, with a 3rd intermediate type found on the proof. On yours it appears that the 3 has a small upper section.

Steady on, there isn't enough material to go round as it is.

That's because people like us on this forum buy the coins and sit on them. There are far more people acquiring coins for whatever reason today than in the 90s which you can tell from the bidder numbers. The highest Spink customer number I've seen so far is nearly 8000 whereas in the late 90s they were at around the 2000 mark. London Coins are at over 5000 today compared to 1500ish in the same time frame. On the assumption that all numbers are taken and there is little duplication, that's a lot of new entrants to the market copmpeting for not a lot more material. I concur there isn't very much to go for. There's far too many nearly coins - a bit soft here, a bit flat there, a bit double struck somewhere else, which makes one reluctant to push the boat out. Still more than I can afford though.

It is straightforward. All you see is the outline with no internal detail, as the junction between field and design where the angle of incidence changes is responsible for the damage together with the field. The field, which is the higher feature on a die will therefore depress the metal on the softer die where there was physical contact, while not touching the die where the incuse design is. This results in a new raised (incuse on the damaged die) design feature equal to the parts of the impressing die's field. The damage will of course be effected on the softer of the two dies, which could be either one depending on the degree of hardening achieved for each die during manufacture. Dies produced under nominally the same conditions will still have subtle differences in their physical properties arising from localised inhomogeneity in the metal mix, temperature differences within the oven during hardening and by extension an effective difference in conditioning time at a specific temperature. One variation will be hardness.