Rob

Dream on. Although I knew there was an example in Murdoch and Nobleman because they are illustrated, the full detail required a combination of Manville and Robertson and the Spink 1994, Montagu x2, Murdoch, Nobleman, Hopkins & Glens '72 catalogues. Something anyone else could do if they wanted to. I don't have a copy of the Sainthill sale (1870) at my disposal, so had to quote without cross-referencing. Fingers crossed.

I've got a copy too, just no spare. Dolphin catalogues are bought as soon as you list them.

It ought not to be the W & R coin as that was ex Capt. V Hewitt, collection bought by Spink in 1967 and it was sold through Spink in 1994, not 1974 and also in London, not LA - all assuming the poster has the details right, of course. We haven't actually seen the obverse yet to confirm it has the adopted design as opposed to one of the other two. However, assuming it is the adopted obverse... It is believed the 1994 sale coin was one of 2 known. The provenances of two known examples are as follows: The first - A E Copp, portion of collection sold to R J Hopkins from 1887 R J Hopkins, Sotheby 15 Feb 1892, lot 116. Bt by Spink for £1/6/- J G Murdoch, Sotheby 18 March 1904, lot 525. Weight 350 grains (22.665g). Bt by Spink £10/-/- Baron P de Ferrari la Renotiere ('Nobleman'), Sotheby 29 March 1922, lot 331. Probably bt by Spink who were acting for Brand in this sale - V M Brand (d.1926), collection split between brothers and dispersed from 1930s onwards. Glendining 13 April 1972, lot 403. Graded strictly very fine. It was badly hairlined by this point based on the image and sold for £1150. I don't know who it sold to. The second - R Sainthill, Sotheby 27 April 1870, lot 352 S Addington, most of the collection purchased by Montagu in 1883 H Montagu, later milled coins purchased by Spink in 1890 and dispersed. This was coin no. 1595 in the catalogue. As the weight is not that of the Murdoch coin, it is possible the 1994 coin was ex Montagu, but without documented records cannot be proven. Thankfully Montagu only had one example of an adopted design gold florin as there was no example in his duplicates sale in 1888. If only two exist, that leaves the new arrival as the impaired ex-Murdoch piece, the weights in the Murdoch and 1972 catalogues being identical.

http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&auc=146&searchlot=2526&searchtype=2 An example of both types in this lot

It looks as if it has been put together in a fairly short period of time by someone who has decided to buy fame. It has certainly been added to recently as I came second on the Henry VII 1/2 angel with im. Pheon half a year ago. I thought I had a chance going a couple times book, but suspect that I would have still been outbid if I had gone higher. Slabbed AU58, which isn't particularly high, but it is ex Shepherd and Montagu (II) lot 669 where it is a plate coin.

It was the appearance and attribution of the Plymouth sale patterns that influenced my decision to stop collecting halfpennies and shillings to some extent. 20 out of 31 gold lots would have fitted into the two denominations, adding a minimum of a quarter of a million to the cost of completion at the time, with this now unquestionably upped by a factor of 3 at least.

Freeman describes the second (rarer) reverse as having misaligned St. Andrew's cross arms on the shield relative to each other, widely spaced double raised lines and a slightly recessed shield rim. It is considerably rarer than a 7+G combination. I haven't found a mint state piece yet to tick the reverse I box.

Gold is always a problem with marks, and in the case of patterns where only a handful are known at most you have to take what's available. Some are perfect, but they are very much in a minority. The absolutely gorgeous double reverse 1790/1791 halfpenny that went through DNW in 2006 was one in question, whereas most of the gold patterns sold at Plymouth were definitely not FDC. But when every one is unique, you still buy them if you want an example irrespective of grade. The florin in question might have been cleaned a little looking at the surfaces, but at least it isn't holed, unlike a pair of unique Anne farthings made into ear-rings, or so I have been told.

Is that Peck's 6+J i.e. Freeman's 7+I?

Forget eBay for shifting things on at a sensible price as you are dealing with morons more often than not. The wife has just received a neutral for a fully described and illustrated item when the buyer said she thought she would be getting a reproduction, i.e the item wasn't 'not as described'!!! How the **** are you supposed to deal with people like that. You can't leave feedback identifying the idiot behind the id, but you as a seller are portrayed as a person shipping iffy items long after the 3 month period when things are still illustrated. eBay really do hate sellers and pander to the moronic majority.

Get a couple of cabinets. You can fit anything up to 1500 coins in a 26-27 tray cabinet if you optimise the trays.

If the starting price was a bit more realistic it would easily sell. It's only a laminated flan due to rolling the sheet too cold and trapping air as an inclusion in the metal, but a perfectly good example of the fault. e.g. here's a threepence. The dark area was the inclusion, but with this obviously taking up most of the flan rendered the remaining intact area insufficient to hold the blank together.

Has anyone had any joy with them today? From my perspective the whole setup is shambolic. It took an hour of phone calls and emails to get connected because they said I hadn't registered but their site said registration pending and I can bid when it has been accepted. Consequently missed out on the first 120 odd lots, some of which I had bids for. Tried to bid on the 1859 pattern decimal halfpenny and got to £950 with the next bid set at £980, but the auctioneer was asking for £1K which I would have bid, but the 980 was rejected and the coin knocked down, only for 1000 to flash up and equally fast disappear as the next lot was put up. Tried to bid on one of the farthing lots which was at 100, next bid was 110 but the screen was only asking for £10, so couldn't bid, then it went to 20, then it said next lot. Same thing happened on a couple of others. Consequently I have wasted a whole day getting nothing I needed or had commission bids forbecause they are completely inept. Someone had better put Stanley Gibbons into administration and let St. James's go back to as they were, because at least the auctions worked. Pissed off.......you bet.

The 1826 was in a NGC 63 slab

So by making the coin blue, you improve the coin to a state of perfection? Shurely shome mishtake.

I presume the blue colour below is what you are referring to. 1826 halfpenny slabbed MS63 with unbelievable toning, that, not in the sense of the spectacular. It has to be due to either their 'conservation' service, or some proprietary toning agent

If you don't get too hung up on resale value, then buy what you like. If you want to maximise resale value, desist from buying coins until you have read a lot of books and searched through past sales results. There are many ways to collect, all equally valid and sensible.

The first question is 'What is the subject?' I recommend you sort that one out first.

Ah. MDM - the European equivalent of the LMO. I can see a turf war starting up here with reductions in the multiples of true worth. Maybe we will have things for sale at only 2 or 3 times what they should be.

It's all they need to do. There are sufficient nerds around to ensure that is unlikely to slip under the radar.

He has more than 10 available of these rare pieces. I wonder who has the other 180 million?

Maurice Bull's Charles I Half Crowns vols. 3, 4 & 5 covers that denomination. Morrieson's articles in the BNJ cover the various mints, Lyall's Chester in the SNC, Allen's W/SA in the BNJ, Hird's work on Newark, specialist denomination volumes will have the appropriate coins. Then there is private research.

Maybe he isn't supplying the CGS coin you refer to, so can't provide good images. Just a thought. With the historical baggage, anything is possible.

Most of the 1915 and 1916 pennies I see appear to have had said tool applied. Most unappealing.

I don't bother. I check for open 3s, 1908 1*, narrow date 1877 and 1879, halfpenny numeral 1862s and die numbers. O/w, they are given a cursory glance to see if anything is abnormal. If not, the grade determines whether they are worth putting in the trays or the scrap pile.