1949threepence

Absolutely. There are some appallingly poor strikes - for example many of the WW1 George V pennies. An UNC example, can still justly be referred to as UNC, or "practically as struck". But in such cases an EF (or even GVF) coin with a good strike (ie complete breast plate and decent hair detail), is going to be far more desirable than an UNC coin with 100% lustre, but no sign of a breastplate, and a slaphead King (for want of a better expression).

Absolutely - it is totally scientific in its approach. It's also great for pennies as it concentrates on them. I do agree that sometimes an EF coin with residual lustre, no marks and even toning, can look better than a nominally UNC example with uneven toning and marks. But that is actually separate from degrees of actual wear, which is what grading is all about. Derek is a member on here @Red Riley, but hasn't posted for some time.

Yes, it's a great book.

Gouby does have his own way of grading coins, which doesn't fundamentally alter normal grading principles, but adds to it in terms of splitting grades, especially at the UNC level. Fred, do you own a copy of Gouby's book, 'The British Bronze Penny"? He explains the distinctions very well in there, at pages 105 to 107 .

I'm not sure there's any dispute between Freeman and Gouby when it comes to grading. Freeman doesn't talk much about coin grades. There may be some slight disparity when it comes to rarity.

Especially at the James Watt factory. They were way behind contract and the RM was forced to sub contract some limited work to the Heaton mint. Maybe they should have used them from the start as they were much more efficient.

What's the most popular Christmas wine? 'But I don't like Brussels sprouts!' What's green, covered in tinsel and goes ribbet ribbet? A mistle-toad! Why did Santa's helper see the doctor? Because he had a low "elf" esteem! Who hides in the bakery at Christmas? A mince spy! When is a boat just like snow? When it’s adrift! Who delivers presents to cats? Santa Paws! Why did the turkey cross the road? Because it was the chicken’s day off! What do you get if you cross Santa with a detective? Santa Clues!

There's a road here called "Anker Street " - you can imagine the number of times over the years that various bods have written a W in front. They've now installed the street name with absolutely no space in front of the W 😉

Plus it's got "photobucket" scrawled across often meaningful parts of the photo.

NGC reckon this:- Might be a slight underestimate.

Indeed. Many are wealthier than us.

Tough call Blake. I sincerely hope you can find a way through it all. We have advanced so much, technologically. But still we can't find a cure for some of these dreadful illnesses.

Indeed. Although of course, we don't know exactly what happened on the day. It could have fallen on the floor and he picked it up and put it in his pocket intending to throw it in with the melt, forgot about it. Then decided to keep it for posterity. Maybe later gave it to a young relative as an example of a silver threepence. Of course, in 1945, he'd have had no idea of its future worth. I bet it will fetch many orders of magnitude more than £4k this time.

Blake, you could always get a mifi. They are a secure network you can use anywhere, without having to try and use the often weak and insecure local wifi's. Sorry to hear your sister is unwell.

Ah, that might explain a lot.

Deal !

Then we must agree to disagree, Chris. Trouble is these political threads are started, and people inevitably post their opinions on them, which they are free to do. We all think differently. Maybe we should make a joint agreement between the two of us to avoid them in future - what say you? I mean, I can't say I'd be especially bothered about avoiding politics on here.

Somebody will take an early bath.....

Bit of a put down for those of us who contribute a lot, day in and day out, to this forum, Michael. Sorry you feel that way.

Really interesting article about your Dad, Jerry, and I will try and catch that programme when broadcast. Wildlife and animal welfare are also of great concern to me as well.

That's the one, Chris.

That's what I do - then save them in my pics, and upload to this site on a post.

Paddy's above is uncirculated. Ozjohn's is about GEF. But with the coin in question, I can't see any hair detail at all. Also there's some flattening of the lions - especially the rampant lion's mane. No evidence of even residual lustre. Sorry, but it's not even VF for me. Maybe it might look different out of the slab, but on current evidence......

Ah yes, I see. Thanks.

The way it looks through the slab is no more than F/GF, rather than UNC. Maybe the grader was very inexperienced.