Rob

Not to mention the redundancy of the High St bank

It just lists the years associated with each denomination together with an illustration of some types. So wreath crowns get Crown 1928-1936 (Pl. LV, 10) with a note that 1935 is the St. George type (also illustrated)

Yes it is.

The most significant crown collection to come to market after the wreaths were issued was Lingford in 1950. He had 3 years listed as proofs - 1932 (601) said to be one of four struck for special purposes, ex- G C Brooke collection; 1934 (603) listed as only six struck; 1936 (611) proof from polished dies, only two known. That suggests they are available, but not in large numbers. The Brooke coin note is probably significant as his collection was sold in 1935, and Brooke worked in the BM's C&M department where he had access to the relevant information being in receipt of new strikings from the mint. His collection of English crowns ran to 614 lots, with issues collected by die variety. It's likely in my view that they were rare enough for the missing years not to have resurfaced, or if the odd example had done so, he or Baldwin's (his usual supplier of material) had not seen them, given he was probably their biggest customer at the time. Brooke's English Coins reference volume first published in 1932 was also dedicated to L A Lawrence - 'My friend and helper', which again would lead one to assume that there was frequent communication between the two. Lawrence's sale 11/7/1951 had full year sets for 1930-1936, all described as brilliant and very rare (the very rare implying proofs or specimens given it would not be difficult to assemble a complete contemporary collection of top notch current coins, but not noted as such). He also had one lot (879) which was '1929 Crown to Sixpence. Special strikings, like proofs, rare'. So, as Vicky says, maybe Lawrence was unconvinced (or at least the Glendining cataloguer was) as to whether they were proofs or not. I think on balance it is likely they did produce a few proofs of each year given the accepted existence of proof halfcrowns through to farthings, which would make the lack of similar crowns unlikely), but I am also of the opinion that the number of crowns slabbed as proofs seems to be a little generous. This is not without precedence, as I have Freeman's F329A halfpenny, which has been mentioned before on here as being another contentious proof/specimen coin. It was categorised as such by Freeman and slabbed as a proof in the Terner sale, but a number of equally respected views consider it not to be up to proof standard.

It's probably also worth mentioning that if polished, then proprietary cleaner is likely to be used, which will in turn tarnish more readily than leaving it to tone naturally judging by the need to clean the competition cups in our club on an annual basis - which will enhance wear.........

Looks better in the picture than in hand IMO. The close-up is a better approximation to reality.

If it is within reach, there is a coin fair at the Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham tomorrow morning starting at 9:30 and running until 2 o'clock or so depending on how busy it is. Forty-odd dealers with a wide range of material from ancient to modern. I always have foreign on the table, most of which are on the budget end of the price spectrum, so come along if you can and have a browse. We don't bite. It's much better to see things in hand and going to a fair will give you a better appreciation of what is available together with prices. Ebay can be unhelpful when it comes to gaining knowledge about grades and prices, as not all coins for a quid are a bargain and a coin that is highly priced relative to book is not necessarily a rip-off. No two coins are equal.

F321. It's reverse J and the rose isn't sharp as on obv. 13. At £50 hammer, clearly nobody was convinced.

Reinforced at a later date given the different profiles of the top of the 6, or maybe just cut with the 6 rotated at the outset?

Any April 1957 in there?

It isn't dismissive, rather a reflection of how a hobby works. There is no 'official' body responsible for documenting what is a niche interest. Coins might be a relatively major area of research, but the level at which it is possible to attempt anything like a complete study is definitely a niche. You can forget the Royal Mint as any complete documentation of varieties will fall down in the event of errors, which by definition shouldn't exist. They might have an interest in correcting any errors noted, but not in publicising the fact that they made them in the first place. Individual museums could possibly compile such a list from the coins in their collections if they had the manpower (which they certainly haven't), but it would still require them to divert resources to what is only a small area of their overall remit. It would also require all museums to direct their individual lists to a central point (probably the BM) where the lists could be converted into a grand list, but even this would exclude items not present in museum collections. You have to think in terms of the overall picture of life, as a museum led directory could reasonably be expected to be replicated across every aspect of life, every part of which is a specific niche. Just looking at my desk, you would need to do the same for scissors, credit cards, pens, computers, cameras,............There would be no commercial benefit accruing from such a compilation, so it would require a lot of goodwill to put into effect even with a large public funding contribution. Therefore it falls to individuals such as on this forum and elsewhere to compile their own lists, and it's fair to say that on the whole they do a good job, but never a complete one as they cannot see all the material in the market. When I collected shillings and halfpennies as denominations, I also embarked on compiling as complete a list for each as I could. I got to >1500 shillings and >2200 halfpennies at the time, but it was never exhaustive, and I still find things not on the list. I used all the standard references such as ESC, Davies, Coincraft, Peck, Freeman, Withers, etc and then expanded on these by ploughing through the literally thousands of auction catalogues in my possession. It was never enough. Look at Maurice Bull's efforts on the Charles I halfcrowns, which runs to 5 volumes. It covers a single denomination mostly over a period of 7 years in a less than concise 2100+ pages - and still doesn't record all known varieties. Even if you compiled a list of all those documented, you are still left with the task of confirmation.

There are three 1682/1s in the DNW archive, the last sold in 2014, but no 1682s listed. There are 5 1680s listed in the same. One for Jaggy, methinks.

How can anyone obtain a definitive list of varieties when every man and his dog (on this site and others) proclaims unrecorded varieties on a daily basis? I doubt there is a definitive list of varieties for any issue beyond special strikings such as patterns or proofs, and even then it's questionable. Which is precisely why anyone collecting/studying a series in depth needs to acquire all the references available and compile their own list.

Any pricing is of necessity a bit hit and miss as you aren't buying coins with a RRP. As Peck says, the pricing on any occasion should give a rough indication of relative rarity, which is about as much as one could hope for, because you are still going to pay under or over the 'going rate' (whatever that means?). The only relevant bits are whether you like the coin and are happy with the price. The latter applies at the time of purchase and not with hindsight because there's always someone willing to say you overpaid - as they got the same for 99p on ebay.

That's certainly the catalogue of the sale. The last looks like the lot of dies purchased by Taylor. The question is whether there was a second tub of dies which were acquired by Heaton which included the 1806 reverse. We know that Taylor acquired dies of virtually every issue recorded by Peck at Soho, but more important is whether these were the only dies in the sale. I don't have the catalogue.

I've screwed something up somewhere. The top bar with the close cross only appears when the cursor goes off the top of the screen, and the bottom bar is permanently awol. Ideas please. Forget it, seems to have cleared itself by closing the program and restarting.

So two questions for me are: 1. is it a penny (based on the position of the middle prong on the trident and the N)? 2. Is the reverse die a copy of the Soho Britannia , or a modified Soho die sold by Taylor to Heaton. As Taylor acquired the tub of dies at the Soho auction following its closure in 1848, the options are it must have come from him after 1860, or undocumented dies must have left Soho before closure, or a second lot of dies was obtained by Heaton at the auction. Given Taylor was also striking tokens for various people, it would be surprising if he passed work on to a competitor, including the supply of dies. And as an afterthought - is the edge plain?

Is this any different to the number of shops that won't take £50 notes, despite them being regular circulating currency? Sure a £50 note is a bit large relative to the average purse contents even today, just as the case is being made here for the crown to be too large for the masses nearly a century ago, but there will have been a considerable number of people who wouldn't have an issue with them, just as I always have a good number of 50s here because people buying coins for cash at fairs regularly pay with them. I think we ignore the amount of wealth in peoples' pockets in the past at our peril. When some (admittedly rare) coins were changing hands for decent 3 figure sums in the Victorian era, a crown would be a trifling sum for a good number of people - certainly enough for them to be used. On a more mundane level, most lots were selling for at least half a guinea. Even my Philip & Mary portrait penny sold in Cuff (1854) for £6 - which is a lot of crowns. Given numismatics only occupies a niche in society, the population overall must have had ample scope to use them.

I've never clicked on the unread content button, so a new experience and can't comment as I don't have any unread threads at the moment.

If by condensed you mean an unread content marker by the side of the forum section, then this hasn't changed for me. Click on the forum section and it expands to give the list of threads within that section with the unread ones highlighted.

And you too. Less than 24 hours to yet more alcoholic consumption

Judging by the spelling, you drank at least all four, and probably more. Repeat after me - Adnams Broadside, Adnams Broadside.......... Then say it again in the morning.

The sheets are rolled to reduce them to the correct thickness, but whether it is from creating a void through folding material into the sheet, or rolling at the wrong temperature, I'm not certain, but it can lead to layering within the sheet from which the blanks are cut. When the blank is struck it then starts to break apart. e.g. A brass 3d which clearly had a void contained within the blank, which subsequently fell apart because it was only held together at the extremities, as defined by the toning. And the edge of the F689A pattern halfpenny showing lamination along the edge. The same thing is seen on other decimal patterns, but is notably prevalent on flans that were thinner than the old copper ones, which is why the issue may have been with force used to strike the coins and or metal composition. So many variables.

A few years ago a Chinese take-away in Wigston, Leicester, had Shrimp & Mushrooms at 69 on the list.

Lamination of the thinner flans appeared to be an issue with the new bronze coins as many of the decimal patterns struck between 1857 and 1859 suffered from this. Whether it was due to sheet preparation, metal mix, force applied when struck, or something else - I'm not certain, but I'm sure that was one reason for the delay in production. As for the rotation in die axis, this is often seen on all things produced using the Soho apparatus; both at Soho on the George III coppers, and on Tower mint products which used Soho presses from 1816 to 1882. Without knowing the full mechanical operation of the equipment, I can only guess at whether it is due to inadequate clamping of a die, misalignment of the clamped dies, wear to a die locating socket, general slack overall tolerances, or something else.