Rob

I had a further discussion this morning with a third party and I think I'm happy with tun/crown for the obverse. Despite what the scan suggests, in the hand I simply can not make out any of what would be the top of the bell which in any case would have to be a smaller than normal bell, so the bottom protrusion could just be part of a tun. I'm going to seek a fourth opinion but may be a while getting a reply.

Imaged on the scanner it is over crown and probably over bell too as there appears to be a small ring centre top to complement the bottom of what would be a bell!! This is not obvious using an illuminated x12 in the hand.

This little gem turned up on ebay a couple of weeks ago. This obverse legend with FRA was only present in the Brooker collection for i.m. Harp on one fine work piece and not on any currency pieces. Also came with the added bonus of a Lingford ticket.

Can't post a picture in the unrecorded varieties section either - something wrong here as the file size is the same as normally used. If anyone wants a picture, please PM me. Try again at less dpi. Overall about the same grade as the Burstal piece which is better than either the Brooker or Lockett examples. Weaker on the portrait but stronger legend and fewer flat areas to the reverse. Not clipped and a nice round flan weighing 6.37g. I believe this is a new die pairing for what is already a seriously rare variety.

Can't post a picture in the unrecorded varieties section either - something wrong here as the file size is the same as normally used. If anyone wants a picture, please PM me.

Unrecorded to my knowledge is an E2/3 mm.Tun with apostrophe only stops on the obverse instead of the usual apost. with stop below. Also, the reverse has no stops. All the 3 other examples of this type I could find - Lockett 3424, Burstal 309 and Brooker 508 had apostrophes with a lower stop and reverse stops in the legend. I can't add a picture here because I've reached my limit for this thread, so will put it in the unrecorded varieties section.

I despair. Here we have a very rare French arms at date 1787 shilling. As you can see, the French harp is very clear.

These were discussed and dismissed many times on this forum. Interestingly, the 1936 proof penny is no longer available and has been removed from the website.

Personally I think you can forget FDC as I believe it is a currency piece which is struggling to make UNC. If you compare the Adams 1936 proof penny lot 357 with the one for sale, there is much less hair detail. A matt proof for photographic purposes must have the same sharp detail found on a bog standard proof, otherwise why make it as a currency piece would suffice.

It looks a bit impaired with the bagmarks on the reverse. And the obverse doesn't look like it is either. The post 1926 bronze proofs were normally brilliant (see attached picture of 1935 proof 1/2d) which although it doesn't exclude matt proofs, does raise questions. Aside from the normal proof fields, the lettering is also much sharper. The rims however are not as wide or with such a sharp rim/edge as those of earlier proofs but are better than normal currency pieces. The piece shown does have reasonable rims.

I'm 48 and both of me are normal. I think.

No. Anyone can pay a premium to the going rate for a specific coin, but an experienced collector/dealer will only pay a premium for a much better than normally found example. A person who has not seen any or only few examples of that coin is unlikely to be able to grade it properly and it's not very sensible to buy £10 notes for £20.

There is an approximate price the majority of collectors will pay for a particular variety of coin in a particular grade. This usually applies to the commoner pieces because there are sufficient sales to say this, whereas the scarcity/demand will drive the prices of the rarer pieces. People who regularly follow sales will therefore have a rough idea what the coin should sell for. When a coin is said to be worth a premium it is because that piece is better than typically found for that type. It may be more attractively toned, a sharper strike, better centred etc or a combination of factors or simply that it is the best known example. In the case of milled pieces it usually applies to UNC or nearly so coins, but in the case of hammered would be applicable to lower grade coins if they were fully struck up with no flat areas for example. Better than average features will therefore drive demand and result in a premium to the price tyically paid. An experienced collector will recognise what is a better example having seen sufficient numbers to be able to discriminate - novices, lacking this resource of experience should therefore not buy the first thing they see.

And so the seller and description were as one. 1790 shilling

Does this guy work for a US grading company in his spare time? 1690 4d

No less or more interesting, but I would be wiser. Anyway, why would I charge myself £50?

Josie, the first thing to remember is that we are a collecting fraternity doing this for a hobby. There is not the same need for quality control that you would need as a manufacturer. The publication of a standard reference for new varieties or an overseeing body would need to be funded as an ongoing business as it is clearly a full time job keeping up to date the records of unrecorded pieces. This would only happen if someone could make a living doing so and who would pay the subscription fees to such an organisation? To do this on a commercial basis with just one employee would cost between £50-100K per annum plus the cost of publishing an annually updated list.

Definitely not the grading company. In the case of British coins, their expertise and knowledge is limited to the long established reference books such as Peck and Freeman. It is highly unlikely they will acknowledge a new variety as they are also ensuring they are credible by only using these recognised sources. A long established dealer or experienced collector has far greater clout if they have established credentials in a particular area. There is no one official database, so all information has to be recorded piecemeal, such as in the unrecorded varieties section of this forum. Spink is the closest you will come to a standard reference in the UK and they will record new varieties from time to time based on whether an example has passed through their saleroom or a serious collector has submitted unambiguous varieties for their approval. Whilst not perfect, it does give some recognition whilst allowing the more fanciful wished for errors to be excluded. Too many "error" varieties are based on low grade examples which given the amount of abuse the coin has suffered may or may not be real.

I hope I've interpreted this right. There are people collecting both slabbed and unslabbed coins the world over. The main collectors of slabbed coins are in the US where an investment culture seems to predominate over one of collecting for pleasure. The slabbing companies are virtually all based in the US, and US currency is their main area of expertise. This accounts for their rather haphazard grading attributions where British coins are concerned due to a lack of experience of the older pieces. It is fair to say they only see higher grade coins, but there simply isn't the experience there to grade correctly. A large number of British coins end up being slabbed. Slabbing hammered coins is a relatively recent phenomenon, but one which will only increase in volume now that the genie is out of the bottle.

At least if there has to be slabbed coins, then a UK company with a British bias should be able to get the grade right. The biggest problem emanating from the US is a virtually complete lack of understanding what constitutes VF, EF and UNC for early milled issues and hammered. There are so few mint state pieces extant prior to William and Mary that most people will never physically see one, let alone own one. However, I suspect that the problems with resubmission until the required grade is given will transfer across the pond. It's all down to profit.

* Are you referring to population reports here? If so it's probably worth while me pointing out one small often overlooked point by even more experience collectors. In the US coins are slabbed and given population reports (i.e 12 grade as this 3 higher), however, they quickly become very unaccurate, firstly because coins submitted after that might be the same type and add a few more to the population report. However, simultaneously many coins are cracked out and resubmitted regularly! So How many have been added to that 12 since it was graded and how many lost from that 12 due to resubmissions. Which to me makes the whole pop. report a pretty useless measure. It's simply put there by slabbing companies as a selling gimmick.. kind of "look how rare this is!". ** Another small point which you'll no doubt encounter as you become more experienced, and it's worth holding in mind, "higher grade doesn't always mean better or nicer". Sometimes a coin in EF can look way better than another one in a higher grade. Be it differences in strike, tone, or whatever. Some coins simply have more eye appeal than others, and eye appeal has nothing to do with grading. Let no one try and convince you otherwise. It's an important point that's often overlooked. You will no doubt here colectors and dealers saying that AU58s often look far nicer than MS60s. MS60 might have the higher state of preservation but AU58 whilst a lower grade can often turn out nicer looking specimens. THANK YOU FOR THE INFO, well readers know now that they the collector do resubmit the coin in other grading company so the pop. report is useless at least it is recorded, for the pricise record and for the rare thing, for the company that will going to slab the coin for grading ,the collector own the coin but the service made by the company so in the pop. report if the collector think that there is many or rare type of the coins he have somewhat base his presumption of the price, either the company hype this pop. report or not it is one of the factor affecting the price, is there a policy by the company if the collector break the slab for it bare the name of the company, if he dont reslub it he maybe report to the company that the slub is broken so the company will strip it to there record of pop. report but have a record that they slab it once in the past as for other collector who have many and reslab thier coin what will be the affect on that to the other also for those who break thier slab and dont reslab, AT LEAST YOU SAID THAT THIS THINGS HAPPEN COMPANY AND COLLECTOR NOW ARE UP TO THIER TOES, Also other thing that the collector here in europe is distinct from USA a this forum have been moving into. they dont want slabbing company I will ACCEPT that, in the past watch one of the series of show in BBC a TV presenter said he got to slab the coin to the US for europe as for i observe are also a great collector, At first did the slabbing company got a heavy opposition when they planning to have a company in there, since it was already founded and many more follow maybe at first the company is more precise in their POP. report for it is only ONE,if europe dont what a slabbing I also ACCEPT that but thier are other collector and dealers in thier field base in EUROPE, AMERICA,CANADA, AND AUSTRALIA that don only collect thier coin, but also of the other counrty as well, SLAB OR NOT SLAB, here is the thing thus most of the SLABBING COMPANY EMPLOY A BRITISH EXPERT MAY HE BE A AMERICAN OR EUROPEAN, THUS HE SEE MANY SPICEMEN TO MAKE HIS JUDGEMENT FAIR, IT IS GOOD FOR OTHER COLLETOR TO COLLECT COIN FROM OTHER COUNTRY BUT IT IS BETTER IF HE IS BASE TO WHERE THE COIN SOURCE OR WHERE IT IS MADE, THUS IT IS ALSO THRU THAT US A GOVT. HAVE A BILL OR LAW TO RETURN FOREIGN COINS TO THIER COUNTRY OF ORIGIN THUS THIS MEAN THAT THEY DO COLLECT COIN OF DIFF. TYPE OUTHERE. MOST TIME I SEARCH FOR THE INFO IN THE INTERNET FOR VARIETY IN GB OR IRELAND COINS MOST BRITISH COIN THIER SITE REPLY MORE RESEARCH AND, STUDY THUS ALL THE FORUM FORMAT THE REPORTING OF NEW FIND IS GOOD THING TO HEAR, THUS THIS NEED TO BE PUBLISHED FOR NEXT YEAR BOOK, FOR THAT ONE YEAR THUS ANY OTHER MEDIUM INFORM THE COLLECTOR THEY HAVE NEW FIND OR IT IS BETTER TO HAVE A SLABBING COMPANY TO SLAB IT FOR THEY HAVE ALSO HAVE THE EXPERT WHEATHER OR NOT IN COLLABORATION OF FELLOW EXPERT AGAINST SLABBING, THUS COMPANY CREATE MORE INTEREST IN COIN TO STUDY THEM, SLABBING A COIN A NEW FIND ALL THAT EXIST AND OTHER THAT WILL FOLLOW, MOST OF THE SITE WILL REPLY ASK A BRITISH COIN EXPERT........ ????????? I'm sorry Josie, but I can't understand what you are trying to say. Could you possibly use punctuation and paragraphs and keep the related bits together. Thanks.

You can make a case for slabbing mint state full lustre copper because you can't handle these in a carefree manner as you can do with silver. However, even some silver and proofs in general should only be handled with tweezers to eliminate fingerprints. The problem with slabbed coins is that they may as well be on another planet such is the feeling of detachment. It also makes things difficult when checking for errors, and as for the edge - forget it.

Having deslabbed between 60 & 70 coins to date, I would have to say no based on the amount of wasted time spent doing this.

Tom. I think you should have put in a further option. Most of us are simply indifferent to slabs. If a coin comes in a slab so be it, if it is not then you've saved yourself a job taking it out. I'm not sure members are sufficiently passionately anti or pro slab to say we definitely want or don't want a European slabbing company. After all, everyone has a right to start a legitimate business. It's the irrelevance of slabbing to a collector that is the major point.