1949threepence

I may be wrong, but I'm sure I once saw a "check your change" small paperback booklet from about 1968, at one of the the Midland Coin fairs, and it referred to "Modified Head". Although I suppose that was designed for the wider public.

Yes, I wish I'd been born 25 or 30 years before 1978. I would have been regularly visiting banks and exchanging pound notes for 240 pennies to sort through. What a dream People who were around as youngsters in that era, are so lucky to have been part of it. Incidentally, I have read other coin articles from the time, and have noticed the way they say 1926 modified head, not modified effigy, which is the way they are referred to now. Modified head actually sounds less pretentious. Presumably that was how they were generally referred to when articles such as that were written.

Not often you get anything quite as good as this on e bay, but I really am impressed by this coin, with a starting bid (quite reasonably) of a grand. link here

You do get 4 pieces in there, so it isn't as bad as might first appear. Does anyone know how many were made and who the designer was? Well I've tried to find out, but drawn a total blank. There is one report from the Royal Mint itself, which refers to the initial test design in 1994, but gives no designer name. The only names we are given are those of Rushin & Maklouf for the reverse and obverse of the eventual circulation issues in 1997, and Rank-Broadley for the 1998 obverse. The link is here Unfortunately all the other links on the issue, appear to have cloned the Royal Mint report to some degree or other, so the name of the trial coins designer is unknown. Maybe a Royal Mint employee. Hopefully somebody will have access to this obscure information. Can't find my set at the moment but I have an image of the four stages Well I tell you what, put "TWO POUNDS" in place of "ROYAL MINT TRIAL", and that wouldn't have been a bad design for the coin. Looks concise, neat and attractive.

Hi Palves, You can find a list of national UK dealers here Unfortunately, I can't find anything for Sheffield or Bristol. It's often the case that coin shops are in the smaller towns, or seaside resorts, rather than the big cities ~ the exceptions being London, Birmingham,Manchester & Glasgow.

You do get 4 pieces in there, so it isn't as bad as might first appear. Does anyone know how many were made and who the designer was? Well I've tried to find out, but drawn a total blank. There is one report from the Royal Mint itself, which refers to the initial test design in 1994, but gives no designer name. The only names we are given are those of Rushin & Maklouf for the reverse and obverse of the eventual circulation issues in 1997, and Rank-Broadley for the 1998 obverse. The link is here Unfortunately all the other links on the issue, appear to have cloned the Royal Mint report to some degree or other, so the name of the trial coins designer is unknown. Maybe a Royal Mint employee. Hopefully somebody will have access to this obscure information.

There was a set issued by the Royal Mint when the bi metal £2 first came about,showing stages of the minting process, the final coin has 'Trial' on it, they were originally made to test vending machines, probably a set been broken apart to be sold, the set usually sells at around £20/30, where as the blanks fetch more as an 'error' Quite right. I've got a set and it has a sailing ship on the reverse and the queen's head on the obverse. It was dated 1994 and showed four stages of the production process for the £2 coin. interesting! never heard of these, but quick ebay search found this £2 trial piece , I'd quite like one, but not at that price Thanks for the info, chaps. I'd never heard of this before.

Agreed. Although £1000 would have been a reasonable starting point, it isn't going to attract too many bidders, who would normally get on the bandwagon in the hope of netting a bargain. Maybe he should have started at £100 ~ £0.99 would surely have been ridiculous in this case.

Anybody ever come across anything like this :before. A blank disc, apparently a £2 coin

Ah, I get you now. I wasn't quite sure what you meant at first. I didn't think you could have meant the simple descriptions supplied by coin dealers with the coins they sell (eg: "1951 penny in EF, very rare", type of thing) Here is a good idea of the type of things that you can get. The ludicrously large (~48mm dia.) ticket on the left is for the smallest hammered halfpenny ever produced and is with a ticket from the Marshall collection. The smaller round one is by R C Lockett and has details on the reverse referencing the source of the coin which was the Longbottom sale in 1934; whilst the third is a hand made ticket by H Webb whose collection was mostly sold in 1894-5, though a few pieces were retained by the family and eventually dispersed around WW2. This was one of the latter and was acquired by Lockett, but subsequently added to by the purchaser who noted the Lockett lot number on the reverse. Tracing the history of individual coins is fascinating. Absolutely couldn't agree more, Rob. Looking at those glimpses into coin collecting history was totally fascinating. The addition of such a ticket with a coin purchase would be a major added bonus for me ~ the older the better. I can see exactly where Tom is coming from on this subject.

Went for £1120 in the end.

Ah, I get you now. I wasn't quite sure what you meant at first. I didn't think you could have meant the simple descriptions supplied by coin dealers with the coins they sell (eg: "1951 penny in EF, very rare", type of thing)

Yeah, welcome Bob. I'd be interested to know about your pre decimal silver collection. Have you done a collection of shillings at any point ?

Hmmm, exceptionally rare, but with a starting bid of only £99.00 this time. Nice coin, nevertheless. Starting at £99 it's a bargain, but as an example you could do a lot better. As the halfpennies were never issued for circulation you should always look for one in top grade. This one isn't. The reverse looks particularly abused and the obverse verdigris spot doesn't help. P1157 isn't the commonest variety, though certainly obtainable with patience. It obviously hasn't been kept with any degree of care, that much is clear.

The 3/2 overdate is very obvious, downward loop of the upper part of the three alomost joins with the central protrusion, the diagonal is faint protruding as a point at the base of the lower loop. Cant seem to attach the image, but will try again tomorrow John Thanks John ~ now that you've pointed that out, it is obvious. The art of recognising overstrikes, it seems to me, is knowing exactly what to look for in order to distinguish from the others. I have attached a closeup of a 53/2 Classic example of overdates being difficult to see! That looks like a normal 1853 to my eye. We could do with a book (or section of a book) devoted to all the known overstrikes, with close up comparison pics between the overstruck date, and what to look for, together with a non overstruck date for the same year. Thanks for the extra scans anyway, John. Difficult area, IMO.

A lot, probably. You've got to zoom in to see it, especially as there is a hint of green ambience elsewhere on the coin, that causes it to be slightly camouflaged. In the hand it would be positively minute, and barely visible to the naked eye. Fantastically well struck coin though. So well spotted, azda

to Offa's standard? 240 pence to 1lb Sterling silver at £12 per oz, 1d would be approx 80p That's an interesting thought, David. I must admit I've often pondered what would happen if we did revise the pound's value ~ perhaps so that a current £10 became the new £1 ~ that would take us back to about 1972 in terms of inflation. Or roughly to when the "new penny" started.

The 3/2 overdate is very obvious, downward loop of the upper part of the three alomost joins with the central protrusion, the diagonal is faint protruding as a point at the base of the lower loop. Cant seem to attach the image, but will try again tomorrow John Thanks John ~ now that you've pointed that out, it is obvious. The art of recognising overstrikes, it seems to me, is knowing exactly what to look for in order to distinguish from the others.

You would think there was a sufficient number already in circulation to justify at least a much lower mintage some years, or for none at all to be minted. After all, no old style pennies were minted between 1954 and 1960 inc. You can effectively count 1950 to 1953 in that as well. So I'm sure we could get away without 1p's for a few years. Conversely we need ATM's that dispense nice new fiver pound notes. Along with the £2 coin, probably the most useful currency available, and not enough of them. That's not a good thought ~ we'll be bloody traceable wherever we go, and there'll be nothing to collect

I think overstrikes can be very difficult to see in some cases. The coin posted by palves may be one of them. Often when I see a coin touted as an overstrike, I think "Is it ? I'll have to take your word on that one"

ask, and ye shall be given Hopefully the link should work this time.

Well that didn't work did it? I tried to use multi-quote but without success so for my last post, see green box above. Can somebody tell this technophobe how to use it? I'm much more comfortable with a torque wrench and a pair of stilsons... The multi quote doesn't work on here, Red. I've tried it a few times. I do "multi quote" effect posts sometimes, but am only able to do it via copying and pasting.

£2.50 for a Freeman. That's what good days are all about Actually your stroke of good fortune prompted me to look on Amazon, just on the off chance, and I found one, apparently "like new", for just £19.95, from a UK based source. So I've ordered it. Bit more expensive than yours, but still pretty good value. here it is Received today, and apart from slight dulling and fingerprinting of the dust jacket, I'd agree with "like new". Considering how much they go for now, it was a surprise to see the original purchase price printed as £13.95. Even allowing for inflation it would be nowhere near as high as the prices now asked, and secind hand books normally depreciate in value.

I think his both grading and price structure are rather subjective. Many of his coins are good, but somewhat overpriced IMO. At the end of the day though, he has to make a living, same as the rest of us.

I don't like the description "ABU" What's that all about anyway ? Does it mean "about brilliant uncirculated" or "about uncirculated" ? The seller could easily argue the latter if taken to task over his description. Anyway, "About brilliant uncirculated" is a misnomer if ever there was one. A coin is either BU or it aint, there's no "about".