Rob

Can anyone tie this bust to a known piece? Presumably a medal. A similar style of bust with differences to the drapery was used on a medal of Charles II and Catherine ref. M.I.540/192 of which an example was sold in the Archbishop Sharp sale (Glens 5/10/1977 lot 305) where it was attributed to Philip Roettier ca.1667. Thanks.

Shurely shome mishtake. It should be in Hungarian.

£300pm is more than enough to get the small denominations, though if you want the larger pieces it will cost more. It all depends on what grade is acceptable to you. Small hammered pieces are notoriously difficult to pick up in high grade (for this and other periods) because they were used for everyday transactions, whereas the larger pieces did not circulate so freely and so are easier to find in higher grades, but with a price tag to match because of the demand from collectors. As a rule, the larger pieces have a greater number of people collecting. Shillings, half crowns and crowns are all quite popular and gold is always in demand. Shillings and half crowns to a lesser degree would be well within the budget, but you would be unlikely to get a good crown for £300. On denominations of 6d and below it will be easy to acquire examples up to good fine. Very fine or better and you will have to look a bit harder and pay a bit more. If you are new to collecting I would avoid ebay except for small value items. Instead I would seek out dealers who offer a good selection of hammered coins in your chosen area and have a chat with them. As you are interested in Stuart coinage, a good book to acquire would be the Brooker sylloge which can be picked up for £25 or less. He had the best collection ever of Charles I and it covered all denominations, so you would be able to see what looks attractive to you. There is no real comparable collection of James I and hammered coinage production ceased in 1662 after the first three issues of Charles II coins. Also get a copy of the annual Spink tome - Coins of England and the United Kingsom. 42nd edition, the current one, costs £25. This would give an indication of prices, but bear in mind that these are fairly volatile depending on the piece offered. I don't know how active the Nottingham area numismatic society is, but details on the BANS website are given as follows. Nottingham Society. As you are going to collect hammered and if you become a serious collector, then a wooden cabinet would eventually appeal. Otherwise you may wish to consider stackable trays, available in various sizes. Albums, coin envelopes or plastic holders are also possibilities. The beauty of hammered is that you can handle them and so storage is not such a serious issue as with proofs or copper.

I suppose his apparently excessive spending in the Slaney sale can be seen as not so excessive with hindsight. He's been the bane of my life on ebay too on more than the odd occasion.

David Mason used to operate as World Coins from 35 Broad St, Canterbury and also lists on Online Coins site as MEGANH, but looking at this site it appears he has moved to Spain as this appears in brackets after his name. That's the only one I am aware of, so probably there aren't any.

It's getting depressingly worse. Having returned after a week away over Christmas, 46 of the 121 emails in my inbox were for Viagra and that is the number that got past the spam filter.

When I spoke to Alex Anderson (who is behind this) about it at the London Coins sale, he said they were getting a couple of people in Utah(?) to do the grading. The question I have is why they need to ask Americans to grade English coins. Personally I would have thought it better that if you are intent on setting up a slabbing business you would use people who are familiar with our coins rather than US ones. The question of costs also arises. How much time can be spent assessing a coin if you are charging less than £10 which has to cover the cost of the slab, shipping x2 and other overheads? Although this is the lowest charge band it still seems cheap for a business service. I haven't tried laying out a business plan for this, but I think there is going to be a problem making a living for the owner of the business.

I've liberated a handful.

If this person is an honest seller - as I'm sure he is; I feel compelled to offer a degree of sympathy for someone who is clearly sitting on a not inconsiderable capital loss having spent just under $1250 on it. I will send the men in white coats round as soon as possible

cdesteve probably has the 4 billion lower grade pieces, leaving only 3/4 billion high grade in other hands.

I'll scan the pages in later.

I suppose the next question is -"Does anyone have one of these with the E the correct way round?" I do now. It appears that the E used is a closed one and before my latest acquisition, all the pieces I have seen physically or pictured had been struck from dies with the back of the E merged with the inner circle giving the appearance of a reversed E as the bar across the ends of the E is significantly thicker than any of the rest of the letter leading me to assume it was the back of the E. Faulty diagnosis -mea culpa.

I remember Colin Cooke saying he had an example with the plug on one side only. He also had one with 2 plugs. Just thinking off the top of my head, it is possible that counterfeits could be made a lot more efficiently by making a small depression as part of the casting mould and hammering in a small piece of copper. I don't know if they were made in this way, but it would be easy. I have a counterfeit tin halfpenny where there is the shape of the plug in the detail, but no actual plug in place and of course the edge doesn't have an inscription. It is also obviously cast.

No, it's got a single stop between ON & CA, that's why I suggested 4a.

Not my strongest subject given the absence of halfpennies. I make this Richard 1st class 4a based on the pellet beard. Does that sound about right? Moneyer is GOLDWINE ON CA which would tie in with known strikings. Thanks.

Brooker didn't have one and Michael Sharp didn't record it in his article, so it's probably like a lot of other things which are recorded in individual auction catalogues or on dealer's lists. Until someone incorporates them into a major new reference similar to Withers small change series which gains rapid acceptance, all these items remain "unrecorded". It is quite a logical variety given that there couldn't have been too much time between the end of the anchor mark and the use of the G1 bust, and two appearing at the same sale in different lots suggests commoner than you may think.

EXCELLENT NEWS. These CGS slabs are much easier to break into. Just run a pair of pincers around the edge rim and prise the two halves apart with your thumbnail. There is much less chance of damaging the coin than with NCG or PCGS slabs.

I couldn't agree more.

Why does it always happen that when you find one rarity another appears almost immediately. Here's another one for the list. G1/1 with triangle/triangle over anchor. A die pairing that wasn't in Brooker or Michael Sharp's article. Lot 656 at London Coins this weekend was incorrectly described as a Briot reverse, but was in any case a die pairing I haven't seen before with this not particularly aesthetically pleasing example. Obviously having been dug it was pitted and clipped, but as far as I am aware still unrecorded with the G1 bust linked to an earlier reverse which Michael Sharp only records as being paired with busts F3-6. 13 lots later there was a second example except for this time it was triangle over triangle over anchor on the reverse. This piece is a bit ragged and in lower grade but visually much nicer and only slightly underweight at 5.95g.

I hope you told him so! Certainly did

Apparently the person behind it is Alex Anderson, obviously in association with London Coins. Had a good chat with him about it today at the auction and bought a few pieces. Although I hate the idea of slabs, the assigned grades for what was on offer today was more accurate than the usual fare. I'll still break them out though.

If slabbing existing coins doesn't take off, what's the betting we see attempts to create an artificial market (in that one doesn't exist in the UK, unlike in the US) for 'perfect' modern coins? If they can create a demand for something only they can provide maybe they might just make money after all!. You can already make money with the perfect coin as the "best known piece" market bears out. It has always been the case. The only difference is that you can personally verify it is the perfect coin when it isn't encased in plastic, because there ain't no way I'm going to trust any grading company which by default has a vested interest in keeping it's customers happy. These by definition are the people supplying the coins for slabbing and not the buyers of slabbed coins.

I think the seal is supposed to be Canada

A pattern penny attributed to Adolf Weyl at the end of the 1800's. Struck in Tin, this metal wasn't recorded by either Peck or Freeman. Ex-Adams lot 192 with a milled edge, this was described as being in aluminium but the weight being over x3 too heavy for this metal led me to analyse the content. Interestingly, there is no added zinc to act as a scavenger thus preventing oxidation as s normally the case with tin. These pieces were made in sets of three; penny, halfpenny and farthing and the other two piece I can confirm exist because I have them. This piece illustrated was pictured, erroneously stated in Wilson & Rasmussen to be aluminium and is illustrated there on page 445. The only known P2141 is in the BM and confirmed from the same dies. The following lot in the Adams sale (193) was the plain edge version also in tin and confirmed by analysis. The 1887 dated pieces by Weyl also exist in tin in both milled and plain edge varieties. The two Nicholson "aluminium" examples (lots 388 & 389) are the halfpennies from these sets. The Colin Cooke sale lot 173 was the milled edge 1860 farthing. Thus there are a total of 15 confirmed new varieties including the 3 date 1887 pieces struck in lead. The other 6 pieces not confirmed by me and making up the corresponding sets can be presumed to exist. The obverse: And reverse:

But I've just listed over 200 items you could buy