Rob

The 1970 was a lithographic reprint of the 1964 2nd edition. However, there is also the addendum published in the 1967 BNJ just before Peck died. As we all know, Peck is also hopelessly out of date by now. There must be several hundred additons if not more to those listed by him, and that doesn't include micro varieties such as whether the letter points to a tooth or space.

Presumably the die sinker started the date too far to the right.

Here are a couple of edges. They are halfpennies, but farthings look the same. The proof is not in a groove.

Quite clear in the hand and unrecorded in any text to my knowledge. The foot is below the 5, the bottom serif of the horizontal to the right above it and the crossbar with angle inside the loop of the 5. The top bar of the 4 is also slightly deformed, but not quite in the right position for the top of the 4 unless the 4 was slightly bigger than the 5. Fresh from Brock's sale this afternoon.

FDC doesn't come with a free fingerprint. They should have been described as aFDC or practically FDC. Assuming they are proofs, rubbing with anything will make it worse because you will put hairlines on the fields from the cloth. The fats in the fingerprint will react with the silver/cupro-nickel and are there to stay unless you dip the coin in which case this will also be obvious when seen in the hand with the added potential to disfigure it..

I noticed that too when I was joining the pictures. It appears that the diameter of the thin C is marginally smaller than the that of the thick C. The thin is 28.46mm diameter whereas the rest are all 28.60-28.70. As the rims appear to be the same width, wherever the rims are added in the manufacturing process the diameter has been set slightly smaller. As I have a sample size of 1, I obviously can't extrapolate this to say this is a definitive point and common to all thin C's.

Of the 5 that I could lay my hands on immediately, 4 are thick C and one thin. That's interesting Rod, any chance an image so that I can see the difference. As I said earlier I dont know which type mine is and I'd like to have one of each. Thick left, thin right. The gap between the jaws is wider on the thin type and cruder in appearance. The H is thinner and appears in higher relief than the thick one.

Of the 5 that I could lay my hands on immediately, 4 are thick C and one thin.

About as struck? How far away is "about" allowed to be and aren't the Spink prices quoted somewhat irrelevant? Chas II Maundy Set. Spink only give prices for F,VF & EF; nothing for dug and cleaned etc.

Enjoy your viewing of a P2171 1887 gold pattern penny. While you are there you might like to ask if you can see the P2371 3d struck in nickel Joking aside, they will weigh yours when you arrive to ensure that you don't swap them over, so get this figure for comparison. Take a good glass with you to compare the dies. A large picture of yours would also be useful, and if you want, they will do a photograph of their coin too for a fee. As for what to see when you get there, you are spoilt for choice. Any examples listed by Peck in the BM will be available.

The 1770 looks more natural on the CoinsGB forum and doesn't look AT here either. The ones that don't look natural are the fractional and to a lesser extent the 1799 1/2d and 1806 1/4d. Both of which look as if the blue filter has been turned up too much. If the red around the edge of the 1/2d is original colour as it appears, then the whole coin is too blue. The 1806 penny looks good.

I go along with that because I don't like AT either. The only coins you would expect to see multicoloured hues such as those on the fractional are on proofs or prooflike coins, and then only in the field when held against the light at the right angle.

That looks close to uncirculated with a better strike on the reverse than normally seen. The first issue shillings are rarely encountered with a fully struck up lion's nose. It isn't perfect, but nearly there.

It would be interesting to know under what circumstances the Mint donated the P2371 to the BM. If it was intentionally struck, then you would expect it to be properly formed, after all the Mint had produced a series of Nickel pieces (1/-, 6d & 3d) in the 1920s which were all finely struck, so in the not very distant past they had experience of working with this metal at this thickness. My nickel 1/- is 1.90mm thick at the rim, though the small denominations will obviously be thinner and within the thickness of your piece. I don't have a book with the details of who was Master of the Mint in 1937, but Johnson arrived in 1922 and so it is quite possible that the first Nickel strikes were initiated by him. If he was still there in 1937, then were would be no excuse for getting it wrong. If it was an unintentional strike that the mint removed from the currency 3d bin during quality control and subsequently gave to the BM, then it would not necessarily be a good strike. However, if the latter applies I would not expect Peck to have included it.

Obviously you would need to compare with a known genuine piece, but I would expect the genuine article to be fully struck ie. with a full rim. Yours is missing part of the rim, so this suggests to me a strike on the wrong type of blank. It isn't struck off centre to the extent that you have a lot of coin outside the rim to compensate for the missing rim which you would expect if the thickness is correct. The deviation of weights around the mean is quite high, so the similarity in weight could be coincidental. There was a thread on here about a Cu-Ni farthing recently. At the time I weighed a couple of dozen bronze pieces and there was a distribution range of about 10% around the mean. On the plus side, very few currency pieces were struck in nickel, so it could be a P2371.

I'm still hoping in my heart of hearts that it can be attributed to be a Peck 2171 and take its rightful place in my 3d collection. I think I need to see the piece listed by Peck, I assume it's in the British Museum. If so how do I get to see it, just walk in or would something like that not be on display. To anyone out there with a copy of Peck, if it's not to cheaky to ask, would it be possible to have a scan of the 3d pages, it can only be 2-3 pages. Thanks Gary Send me your email address & they are on their way. The P2371 in the BM was a gift from the Royal Mint.

You're missing a few. There are VIP proofs for most years other than when sets were produced and there are also edge varieties for 1941 and 1948 where the corners can be either sharp or rounded. There are also a few Edward VIII pieces if you are feeling particularly flush.

Try collecting them 2 at a time. Colin Cooke was doing 2 1689's for the price of 1 when the farthing collection was sold. 2 farthings = one halfpenny and so can be collected as such- see lot 662. I was going to attach an image, but it doesn't seem possible any more? I thought about it! In the end I decided I needed a currency example more - so I bought lot 664. So you got 662! Much cooler than my coin - you have your own Peck footnote. Lucky for both of us - we bought at the lower end of the estimate. Did Colin list who he bought the coin from? A good job you wanted a currency example because I was only interested in it as a halfpenny. Colin bought it from Peter Viola in 2004. The history I have on it so far is Spink 16 lot 824 sold for £410 and SNC 2/92 no.269 listed at £1500 - which I suspect it didn't sell for given it is nearly x4 the price a decade earlier. Nothing after that until PV. I don't know when the 'Bn' reference in Peck was noted. It came with a Spink ticket written by Mark Rasmussen and PV's ticket. Without question it's the most I have paid or am ever likely to pay for a Chas II halfpenny in poor!

Try collecting them 2 at a time. Colin Cooke was doing 2 1689's for the price of 1 when the farthing collection was sold. 2 farthings = one halfpenny and so can be collected as such- see lot 662. I was going to attach an image, but it doesn't seem possible any more?

There's nothing they can do about the originals in private hands and many of them will still be around. My wife is German and her parents had one (passed down from one of their parents) as it was virtually compulsory to have one in the 1930's but not to dispose of them in 1945 and so unless the owner felt particularly nervous about keeping it there was no incentive to throw it away. (How many books do we acquire but never dispose of?). It's quite interesting insofar as the text is gothic, but I never got around to reading the book.

They look alright for design and don't seem to show any signs of plating - picture notwithstanding. The weight is not very helpful because a quick weighing of 50 random KG6 farthings gave a couple of outliers at both extremes weighing 2.64g & 2.66g at the low end and 2.94g & 2.95g at the high end whilst the majority were in the 2.80-2.85 range. The two 1949s in the sample both weighed 2.88g. The variation in weights is therefore greater than the difference in densities between Cu-Ni, Bronze or Ni, so no conclusion can be drawn. You could check to see if they are pure nickel or a plated ferrous base as this would be magnetic, but this property is lost once it is alloyed with a certain %age of other metals. I can't remember what this percentage is, but think it is around the 10% level (?) and so your normal Cu-Ni coinage is not magnetic. Not very helpful I know, but you really need to see them in the hand.

The Norweb piece was lot 1908 and sold for £280 hammer. Whilst it is possible that any number could have been produced, the fact that this person has two makes me suspicious given it should be due to the random accidental inclusion of the wrong blanks. To have two errors like this owned by one person is like winning the lottery - twice.

The higher digits aren't significant varieties although Davies listed the 8 higher in date for 1818 which is probably why it is listed in Spink. In this case the 8 is considerably more misaligned than yours being about a 1/4 to a 1/3 of a character higher. The 2 on the left coin looks bigger(?) in the picture. HI Rob , yes the 2 is slightly bigger which makes it slightly higher i think these are my 1818 coins which i think one of is the higher 8, what do you think The right hand 1818 is a higher 8. Davies 85 if you want to know the variety number. There is an example illustrated in the DNW archive, lot 330 7/10/2003.

The higher digits aren't significant varieties although Davies listed the 8 higher in date for 1818 which is probably why it is listed in Spink. In this case the 8 is considerably more misaligned than yours being about a 1/4 to a 1/3 of a character higher. The 2 on the left coin looks bigger(?) in the picture.

That's the lithographic reprint of the 1964 edition.