1949threepence

Hence the reason you can easily locate examples direct from circulation, of 1 & 2p's dated as long ago as 1990, still with mint lustre on them.

No worries, Pete. Who would have imagined that would be the reason for the 1934 toning ?!

Pete - curiosity got the better of me with this issue, and I e mailed the Royal Mint with a FOI request. Today I got a reply, and here a copy and paste of it:- Accompanying the above were two pdf attachments, and one other attachment which is reproduced above. One of the two pdf attachments was an extract from The Royal Mint Annual report 1934 - unfortunately the copy quality is appalling, and I shall request another. But basically, as far as I can tell, what is said above about 1934, echoes what is in that annual report. The second attachment is an extract from Freeman's "The Bronze Coinage of Great Britain". I think we already knew about that anyway. 1934 report 1 1934 report 2 1934 report 3 .

It is smaller looking. Although I take Colin's point, and Matt's.

Yep, Y over Y - absolutely no doubt at all.

I bet Victoria would have loved that profile

Nice coin - beautiful reverse, almost proof like.

The only drawback being, they weren't pictured. You'd have to rely on the dealer's description and hopefully get the coin on approval if you sent for it by post.

Thanks Matt. That was a very interesting article.

Better than present day money.

Thing of beauty.

You should be able to see it in this link Richard. The link to the actual site page is here Scroll down a short way and you'll see the 1937.

No you're not paranoid. It's understandable to be worried, but coins have been faked for a very long time. What's different now, as you rightly allude to, is that the quality of the fakes makes them difficult to spot. There's some coins which have been faked for a long time, such as the 1905 shilling and halfcrown, some of which are tooled versions of other legit coins from different years. As far as I can tell there hasn't yet been a significant effect on values. As to how the future will pan out in this regard, I don't know, and if they're being honest, nor does anyone else. But let's not forget the scope of coins across the board, is huge, and the Chinese haven't a hope of tracking the lot, or even any more than a minority, and faking them. To do an effective job, they have to specialise, and the very fact that a fake Kew Gardens 50p has come to light, means they will be found out, however good they think they are, or seem.

Not bad. An unexpected star maybe.

Also, if I recall correctly from the £2 fake coin thread, the RM have a machine which can precisely calibrate the metal mix in any given item, to see whether it matches exact specifications from the time of minting, or whether there is a significant variance. Chinese forgers may not give as much thought to that, as they do to the exactitude of design copy - don't know, just a thought. Purely academic as the OP's issue is clearly resolved in his favour.

Interesting. Thanks for the info. Neil Paisley shaking things up a bit?

OK, thanks Pete. I'll pass then, but the offer is very much appreciated I am always really interested in provenance, and the older the better. When looking at a coin, I often wonder what its history is, and when exactly it was plucked out of circulation. Of course in the vast majority of cases we'll never know.

Thanks Richard, much appreciated. Yes indeed - is the photo I've provided OK?

Cheers chaps. Pete, does that Spink ticket give some pre Scott provenance?

My first acquisition of 2017 - and probably my last for a few months as it's cleaned me out post Christmas - is an 1862 F41, from halfpenny dies. Bought Colin Cooke, ex Andy Scott. Straight fine with all major details intact. Been trying to a reasonable specimen for years. Finally succeeded. Most of the others I've seen on offer have been washers or not much better.

I've kept all my receipts for coin purchases made since 2011. They are nearly all hard copy. I've printed out the e copies and keep them all tagged together in date order. Still got many coins without a receipt though. Just thinking back to that fantastic 1922 penny with 1927 reverse that Steve sold for - was £7k ish last year? - he actually got that in his change when he was a young guy, so there's no way that could ever have a receipt.

One could argue that in terms of difference from the otherwise accepted norm, we are down to the most exquisite minutiae, such as one extra border bead, or some such. Is the mainstream collector really that interested in those kind of variances? Where does coin "type" end and coin "curio" begin? Moreover, the big money rarities are those which are immediately obvious to the naked eye. For example if you have a Freeman 27 and a Freeman 90, both in say, VF, on offer, it's manifestly obvious which is going to net the greater spoils for the vendor. Despite the fact that technically, the F27 is rarer than the F90, the F90 will always go for more money. Witness the Bamford sale where his F27 went for £540, and his F90 for £3,100. Both not dissimilar condition. I don't really know to be honest. The above is just a few musings from my perspective.

I don't think there's anything before a Freeman 1, but if there was, and it is theoretically possible, they could always have 0, -1, -2 etc, marked in bold, to indicate a discovery pre-dating what was previously thought to be the first example. But in any case, it is not vital to the integrity of the numbering system/die pairings, that they be in exact chronological order, in terms of which type is produced first and subsequently, within each year. In some cases it's not even going to be possible to determine where any given type or variant fits in chronologically.

If only Freeman had left a gap in his numbers between each year, the spare numbers could have been utilised for new finds in later years.

100% agree with that.