1949threepence

I've seen some advance releases of the finished article on e bay, but no more trial pieces. Do you have a link to one of them?

I'll take it - cheers Guy. PM sent. Incorporated in reply to your last one in fact. Been trying to get a decent F79 for ages. Has proved very elusive.

Groannnn - oh well the laughs are going cheep today

I'm calling fowl play

Absolutely, this type of research is very painstaking, not to mention time consuming. Useful for others. Thanks a lot, Ian. Your efforts are appreciated. You're anything but that, Richard, and may I say thanks again for the - was it 7? - e mails you sent containing those penny variant articles. Incredibly valuable stuff. I sent them on to Dec LAN . Hope that's OK. Apologies for the odd spelling. Predictive text prevented the proper construction of the name .

I must say it is a very nice piece.

Yeah, the seller doesn't always realise themselves, but to anyone with an interest in this coinage period, the deviation from the norm is manifestly obvious. The weird looking border teeth, the ususually thick shield rim, Britannia's right arm bulked up, the thick trident arm. It's actually an awful copy. Chalk it up to experience. OK, you've lost £40, but it could have been a lot more. I notice the fake in Bernie's link has gone for £398 to some poor sap. For the rest of us it's a signal to beware as the fakers have obviously now moved into the penny scene, an area which has been relatively unscathed up to now, and predicatably the most obvious target would be the 1869. Why they would want all that wear and polish on it though, I'm not sure - @Bernie - do you think it might be a contemporary forgery?

As fake as a nine bob note. Hits you in the eye as soon as you look at it.

So perhaps LCA are in fact being a tad optimistic with their bid parameters, going purely on what that same specimen fetched last time. Mind, if the vendor is the same individual who bought it (most likely), then what else could they do.

Indeed, that missed my radar - here it is, very, very nice, and better than the one currently on offer.

Anybody going for the Freeman 23 at the next LCA? - can be seen here 11.32g toned UNC. The Freeman 23 is an 1861, 4 + D, on a heavy flan, average weight 11.35g, compared to a general average of 9.45g. Thickness 2mm, compared to a general average of 1.5mm. Just looking in Gouby, it appears that (as of 2009, at any rate) 7 were known. Three of those are in the British Museum, and the remaining four in private hands. Of course, the price has gone up over the years. This time, LCA are looking for bids in the £5k to £6k parameter. The last one they sold in December 2012, went for £5,500 - which see. It'll be very interesting to see what this one fetches. Actually it appears to be the same specimen. Other sales listed by Gouby are as follows:- Christies - 23rd October 1984 (Freeman) EF 11.1g - £237.00 Spink -17th June 1987 (Norweb) pAS 11.3g - £648.00 Spink - 23rd July 2003 (Adams) pAS toned - £1117.00 (weight not given) DNW - 20th June 2006 (Bamford) AU 11.32g - £1941.00 MR - December 2007 list pAS 11.02G - £1850.00 So an increase of 172% between 1987 and 2003, and an increase of approximately 290% between 2006/07 and 2012. Clearly LCA are expecting the same ballpark bids this time as in 2012. We will see. Given their condition, it's pretty obvious that none of these specimens have seen any circulation.

Basically what's everybody else's view. I must admit, I'm still totally undecided. There are obviously a number of factors and variables at play, not to mention stuff we cannot easily foresee as knock on effects either way. Especially as they relate to the strength of the economy, trade agreements, net migration etc. Thoughts?

The thing you have to remember is that parliament was not legally bound by the result of the referendum. At the end of the day, though, they will vote by a substantial majority for Article 50 to be invoked. Probably the SNP element and a few others will vote against, but that will be it. Whatever happens, we will adapt to the new order. Moreover, I don't think our divorce from the EU will be anywhere near as painful as some have predicted.

Yes, a little more background would have been useful.

No worries. Dave (azda) alerted us to this fact, and I then e mailed the RM about the dnw lot. They sent a rather terse reply to me indicating that selling them was not allowed. See first page where I've copied and pasted the e mail, and Dave produced the image of the dnw lot, where dnw had added "illegal to sell it". Obviously the RM had got onto them very promptly indeed, as that appeared the day after they replied to my e mail.

Well indeed, it is 'illegal' to sell them, and the RM have already told e bay they cannot sell them, and DNW had to withdraw one from a recent auction - see upthread for details.

Yes. I've often wondered how various bods have come across these specimens. I'd imagine they picked them up at their place of work, where others had carelessly left them. You were lucky to find one in the street. Hang onto it as it could well prove to be very scarce.

OK cheers

I think I will be attending the July York coin fair. I've already booked the week off and will probably go up on Thursday by train and stop overnight. Can you buy early bird tickets does anybody know?

No it was definitely 1934 and 1935. If you read the 1934 RM annual report extract, that will be obvious.

Pribably been deliberately filed down to produce the evenly circular shape.

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.