Rob

Which one is ......? You haven't finished the sentence.

The whole question of what constitutes a collectable or not variety is entirely down to the whims of collectors, but serious in depth study is inevitably restricted to the anoraks of whatever denomination and so by definition, a relatively restricted group. For me, the concept of varieties varies with time. On older coinage where there were no mechanical reduction methods employed to ensure reproducible designs it is quite useful to record any die variations for research purposes, but to imagine that any premium should be applied to dies which are effectively all individual designs is quite patently silly. When you get to more modern coinage from the 1800's onwards, the increased mechanisation results in a greater consistency of product and so any material changes to the design such as the use of an obviously different bust punch are of an increased significance. So, I can see the wide date/narrow date case as they are clear with only a cursory glance. More important is if a die has been deliberately modified for reuse in subsequent years by a change of date or there has been an easily identifiable correction to an error then again we have a significant variety in my view. Clearly provenance marks such plumes, roses, elephants etc are unquestionable varieties. But I find it difficult to get excited about where the legend is relative to the border teeth and similarly the fact that the last datal figure (or pair of figures) were entered manually means that spacing here is ever so slightly different on each die and again I find it hard to get excited. I also have a problem with recut but unchanged letters, random dots and blocked dies which are a result of die damage or the adhesion of crap to the die. Neither were design features and are about as important as the differences between last night's and today's evening meals. Although generally aligned with 1949, I am not in agreement with his rejection of any variety with limited numbers available as this is clouding the issue between what is not easily visible due to the size of variation and what you are unlikely to see due to the lack of numbers available. A good example was in my image gallery (now apparently defunct) which had a transposed French & Irish shields William III 1697y shilling. The error is obvious to any student of early milled coins because the shields are in the wrong order. In the hand, the error is even more apparent because the die axis is 90 degrees left with only the French shield being in the correct place if you flip the coin over. It is however only the second known example of this type which up to 2003 was represented by a unique coin previously in the Parsons and Jackson-Kent collections. So what do you do - ignore it as being too rare? It is also informative as a piece of historical information as the French arms alignment tells you that the person who put the dies in the mill aligned the top of the obverse with the French arms when setting up.

Looks good to me. There aren't a great number of forgeries of Charles I anchor shilling about and those that are will most likely be contemporary and so collectable.

I'll second that. I see the sales blurb for the London Coins lot mentions that Laurie Bamford's example raised about £3500. I also note that it fails to mention the estimate in advance of the sale which was £50-100, a much saner number. I realise there aren't too many about and can understand the rationale for a price in the hundreds, but several £k is beyond comprehension in this grade when there are an unknown number out there. It would not be unreasonable to expect a VF example or more/better to randomly turn up just as in a recent DNW sale there was a collection with two Chester Civil War shillings which increased the number known by 33%. How would that affect pricing because at this point the grade is starting to become attractive? Granted there are a lot of penny collectors about, but surely it would be better to save their money for a 1933, 1954 or toothed border 1953.

There are various sizes of punch for all characters because of the different sizes of flan for the denominations. For the design to look balanced, you need a proportionally similar ratio between flan diameter and legend height. Without having checked any dimensions because I don't have any examples myself, are the characters on the wide and narrow date varieties from the same punches or are they physically narrower? If the latter, is it possible to identify which other dies the punches were used for? I'm thinking in terms of Channel Islands, IOM, Ireland, or other empire issues. Can the individual punches used be identified from the coins available and do they match any of the punches stored in the Royal Mint? Any items stored there are likely to have some sort of indicator as to their use.

It goes under the general classificiation of Maundy money, but I'm not sure when the 1-4d ceased to be a circulating coin and only produced for the Maundy ceremony (can't find the reference at the moment). Either way, it grades somewhere between Fine and VF which have prices of £7 & £25 in the current Spink edition. They aren't rare and yours seems a reasonably attractive example for the grade. It isn't worth insuring.

If you compare the border teeth with that illustrated in Marsh, there are a couple of differences in the alignment of the colons relative to the teeth. The F and the colon after IND are the most obvious. It might be worth checking with the mint to see how many dies there are for 1937 half sovereigns. Just because the mintage is only 5001 it doesn't necessarily mean that only one die was made.

Why is 1933 a special year for rarities?

On a more practical note, if anyone is interested in hammered shillings or thinking of dabbling, then there are a few listed that are seriously difficult to get hold of. As grotty as the E5/2 looks, you will struggle to find one in any grade and it isn't expensive. I paid well in excess of book for mine a few years ago and have absolutely no regrets. Of the handful of decent examples I know of, none are in danger of being sold in a hurry. You are also unlikely to be over-run with B2/1's or D1/1's either.

Just for you I'll keep an eye on them to make sure they don't sell for a silly low price (to anyone else)

The first one looks fairly grotty where the first stop should be, but it looks like a trace of a stop after GRATIA and on the second one all three obverse stops are there albeit weak. Nothing to worry about as far as I can see. The question of stops always arouses a bit of controversy. The design obviously called for stops, but occasionally they are missed out and so to decide whether a coin genuinely exists in the no stops variety from a particular die I think it is first necessary to find one in mint state or close to so that you can eliminate wear to a stop that may have been very weak in the first place. Most of the claimed no stops coins are usually in fairly dire grade, so it is impossible to say they are genuinely no stops. This problem also exists to my mind for the dump halfpenny which has a die or two which have little more than a pimple in high grade where the mark seen could well be a stop guide, but the stop was never fully punched in. Equally, the absence of a stop could be due to die fill. In this instance, a low grade coin - say VF or below, doesn't show any feature resembling a stop. But that doesn't make it a no stops variety, just an indifferent example of a standard type with weakness.

You're probably paranoid. It's a woman assuming the name is correct. I've bought a few things off her in the past with no indication of any dodgy pieces, though many have been dipped. The one in the link doesn't appear to have been dipped though looking at the toning. And uncs aren't usually.

An automated replica and modern non-RM section might be useful for eBay to introduce so that anything which falls into this category automatically has its tree sorted. Honest people will list there and say it is a replica if they know about it, but some people list for example the modern mint output of ancient kings gold pieces in the hammered section which is unhelpful even if it is described as modern. It won't get rid of the person trying to pass off fakes as the real thing, but that is another issue which ebay has no incentive to address and won't discuss if you approach them as a private individual - presumably on the grounds of inundation. Any reduction in the number of pieces listed in the wrong section will be of value to both ebay and buyer alike.

I would. I think the hype surrounding the 1897 etc is similar to the undated 20p except that in this case it is carried out by relatively informed people. Part of the problem has to be the number of collectors specialising in the field. Pennies have always been popular. They are the largest physical denomination (of any numerical quantity) in the cheapest metal obtainable and will always have a strong following for that reason. Conversely, you don't find the same numbers collecting 5 guineas or crowns for the opposite financial reasons.

Random dots are just that and to most collectors should be irrelevant, stop variations are significant as they are integral to the original design. If a dot in the wrong place appears because a speck of metal fell off the die, then the gradual degradation of the die gives rise to an infinite number of varieties as it gets blocked/worn/damaged. In the context of a study where you are trying to establish the number of dies and their working lives it would be an integral part, so as a specific die within a group of otherwise identical ones it is of academic interest but not worth more than a modest premium at most. That said, if someone wants to pay me a sum of money for a coin that is vastly in excess of my personal valuation then I would have absolutely no qualms about taking the money. Two happy punters are better than one. I suspect that most of the recent interest in micro varieites arises because for many people it offers an extension to the collection which is otherwise nearly complete based on the original objectives. The number of people doing serious die studies is probably limited to little more than a handful. All of which is said without the statistical evidence to back it up, but I would suggest is not wide of the mark.

If I see a coin that has a feature I wish to see represented in the collection then I will get it irrespective of whether it is ancient, modern, cheap or expensive as long as it is affordable. As a result, I have a 2008 penny representing copper plated steel sitting quite happily between a bi-metallic Moore model halfpenny and a Victorian pattern decimal 1/2d as my cupro-nickel example. In the case of the first item the value of the coin ticket is considerably in excess of the value of the coin. Nothing is too mundane to consider.

It wouldn't add to its value. Double cut lettering occurs in virtually every denomination of every reign. It was either the result of a misplaced punch when the die was originally sunk, or due to a subsequent recutting of the die to extend its life when the detail had weakened after a period of use. In my opinion it isn't really an error in the conventional sense because there is no deviation from the required legend form. If the wrong letter had been punched in and whether corrected or not then this would be an error, but the slight misalignment is just that. The smaller the die, the worse the alignment as a rule of thumb with small silver and fractional farthings accentuating the problem.

5.37g.

Here's a picture of the reverse. There is a tiny point in the centre where the copper is showing through. In the hand it doesn't look or feel right either, though it is a decent copy as the fields have some reflectivity.

Here's one with the silvering intact

Full credit to the person who was able to establish they were halfcrowns.

Hi, Is anybody out there computer literate enough to explain why messages in my inbox appear with content readable for the most part, but when I receive notifications from Spink and a couple of others there is always a blank screen with the AVG message at the bottom. The size of file doesn't appear to be the reason as a 5k or 5M file both come up yet a recent Spink notice didn't but was only 224k. Any ideas?

Weight, surface detail, multiple examples with identical marks, incorrect die axis, edge quality, counterfeit references (of which there are many but people can't be bothered to read), quality of strike, sharpness of detail. Where are they ? Chris doesn't have this book, so here is a link to my site. This is an invaluable reference which covers counterfeits from all eras. It can never hope to cover every article written, but it's a very good start.

Weight, surface detail, multiple examples with identical marks, incorrect die axis, edge quality, counterfeit references (of which there are many but people can't be bothered to read), quality of strike, sharpness of detail.

Hi. In that condition it is only worth a pound or two. The best indication of the value obtainable would be to check ebay for a similar item.