Peckris

A coin graded MS-63 has mint luster that may be slightly impaired. Numerous small contact marks and a few scattered heavy marks may be seen. Small hairlines maybe visible without magnification. Several detracting scuff marks or defects may be present throughout the design or in the fields. The general quality is about average, but overall the coin is rather attractive. Copper pieces may be darkened or dull. Color should be designated. Obviously, to NGC way of thinking, "mark" = "scratch", and as verdigris isn't even mentioned in the definition, we won't either!

It's subtle - but look at the rim, perfect and even, and the teeth and linear circle, ditto. It also has that 'chocolate brown' appearance that bronzed proofs so often have (and will have been there from the start, i.e. never lustred). The detail is crisp, though some currency UNCs will also be. I agree entirely with Peck's assessment. It's very similar to my own 1868 proof, which is in copper. I'd like the bronze one too, but the asking price is a bit steep... more like the price for something slabbed at PF65! Here's mine: Beautiful.

Yes. And how are the mighty fallen : sold for well over £9k by Colin Cooke in 2008, and only £4k in the London auction..

I hope CGS set a precedent for that, but I doubt if the American TPGs will take a blind bit of notice

That's why I moved quickly The seller deals more in antiques than coins, so quite conservative prices (just need to wait for it to arrive and look like its picture )

It's subtle - but look at the rim, perfect and even, and the teeth and linear circle, ditto. It also has that 'chocolate brown' appearance that bronzed proofs so often have (and will have been there from the start, i.e. never lustred). The detail is crisp, though some currency UNCs will also be.

I agree. While I don't have that date I would not be interested given the lack of quality. Which is why I was amazed at the price, a low-mid grade AND unattractive ... but as people have said, it only takes 2 keen bidders! - and having just checked, there were only 2 bidders from £60 up It's an ill wind... a link from that one led to someone selling a 1707 sixpence, all but VF, for a mere £78 and free postage - so I snapped it up

"You have the right to remain badly corroded, but any value you may have once had will be taken right down and used against you, as from earth you came and unto earth you shall return - rust to rust, gashes to gashes..."

Sounds lovely! I've had coins that are artificially bright and may well have been cleaned at some point, and banged them into my mahogany medals cabinet (like for coins but with no cut outs) - they can tone back quite quickly in there. For example my GEF 1844 halfcrown had some lovely gold toning on the reverse, but the obverse - especially the bust - looked unnaturally bright. Putting it in that cabinet has imparted some nice red toning to the obverse. AT? Not sure really, but I don't regret what I did.

More to the point, is the obverse / reverse die combination correct for London?

Or, when you get two determined bidders, they will hit a crazy price that won't be repeated for a long time...

You mean like the photo below. I'm honestly not sure of the reason, but it only seems to affect the proofs. The top grade currency strikes all seem to have good lustre. It could be that because many 1950 pennies circulated in the Caribbean for a while, the sea air got to them and gave them a tone quite quickly?

Only a small proportion of 1935s seem to have been treated but virtually the whole of 1934. 1934s are notoriously difficult to find in high grade, I suspect because the people who used to put a nice shiny penny away every year, just couldn't find one for 1934 and gave up in despair. The tone of these pennies is usually somewhat lighter and, in my opinion, not quite as attractive as the 1944-46 batch. The alternative explanation as to why the coins were mint toned was simply to prevent hoarding i.e. stopping the likes of you and me collecting the things. Don't forget this was in the middle of the great depression and any wastage of the circulating currency was a drain on the state, which it could ill afford. Judging by the dearth of high grade 1934s, it probably achieved its objective. But why only these two years? Why no halfpennies? Farthings? But why pennies? Surely that argument would apply more to small silver like silver threepences and sixpences? It also seems odd that they would seek to prevent hoarding of a low-mintage year like 1934 and then more or less give up during a high-mintage year like 1935. I wonder if it may be more to do with general experimentation on the bronze coinage, and pennies seemed to be the natural target for this - after all, there were the Lavrillier patterns of 1933, only the year before. It certainly warrants more research, that's for sure. Here's a 1934 on which the toning is even more obvious.

Indeed!

I do remember clear that I purchased the Prussian 20 Mark piece (the German equivalent to the Sovereign) for 75 Euro. And I clearly remember the price drop in the early 80ties. There is no free market, the Hunt brothers manipulated the prices for Bullion in the late 70ties/early 80ties. And the prices for bullion were manipulated afterwards as well (in the other direction as well). I am 40 years old now and I am sure that you are older and more experienced than I am. But still I believe that you can beat inflation by purchasing bullion. You have to continously buy that stuff for years/decades in order to equalise peaks and troughs (in that particular case most of them are market manipulations anyway)... Yes - it's possible to come out ahead of inflation if you invest FOR THE LONG TERM. That's with shares, anyway. Coins have been undervalued in relation to their 70s values if you take inflation into account, so maybe the market still has some room to grow. Eventually it will slow and maybe even stop, as it always seems to have in the past.

If the size requirements for posting pictures 'direct' to the forum wasn't so stringent, it wouldn't be necessary to use an external host. That, and the fact that the photos appear only as thumbnails which then need to be opened, rather than directly in the post. This makes reading of threads far less comfortable. Ideally, the forum software would 'grab' any images from external sources and save them locally. This would prevent them disappearing in future should they be removed, or their source site disappear. 1. If people would actually follow my advice, or Chris would listen to my plea to post it as a 'Sticky', then the size limit wouldn't seem half so restrictive. 2. I find that far preferable to being directed to an external site, as this forum for some reason insists on using THIS tab when you click, instead of opening the link in a new tab. Showing the external picture directly in the post, as most people do, is the best solution, but the poster has to be a registered member of the other site with all the hassle that involves, plus having to go off there to fetch the link each time. I have no problems with clicking on a thumbnail, then Esc when I've done. With a DSLR camera in A mode, shutter speed will depend on how much light you have. You can also increase the ISO to get a faster shutter speed and a lens/camera that has Vibration Reduction will help as well. Bad wording on my part - what I meant to say is that in A mode, if you choose a small aperture, the CAMERA will select a slow shutter speed.

You're photographing through a slab or a capsule. You need to take the coin out where possible, to get a decent photo (not possible with slabs unfortunately, unless you 'crack it out'). The camera's autofocus will 'see' any mark on the slab/capsule and zero in on that (though the 1903 reverse the camera got it right). The only way around that is to use Aperture Priority (A mode) and choose the largest number you can to get good depth of field (f5.6 - f8 on a compact or superzoom, f11 - f16 on a DSLR). You'll need a tripod as this method will necessitate a slow shutter speed.

You have a short memory. In the late 90s and for a few years after, gold prices collapsed and you could pick up sovereigns for around £50 each. Now it's recovered again, but there will be another cycle. Please, believe me, there is no such thing as a continuously expanding market (meaning - "you can't stay ahead of inflation, without peaks and troughs"). Currently it's the worst time to buy, the market is soaring, people panic that they have to buy NOW or they will get left behind. Classic recipe for financial doom, whatever the commodity.

Yes, I'm assuming someone with a military connection brought it back from India. We Brits were the people that put the Princes in power, so presumably had a fair amount of contact. Although it's not terribly clear, the coin even says XXV (25) CAH (in blundered script) on it so the English could see what it is. Or a civil servant, or an engineer, or a transport expert, or a missionary, or a teacher, or a scientist, etc etc. We really had a finger in every pie!

And going to that external site was a complete waste of fecking time . Your picture was much much smaller than you would even get here if you followed the advice I gave above. What's worse, I had to use the Goback button about 12 times before I could get back to here. What you need is advice on how to post the image to Photobucket with a link so it appears HERE without our having to leave this site. That's what Dave does, maybe he will explain how to do it? That's what I do too, simply click on the 'IMG code' entry the CTRL + 'v' or right-click paste in here, eh viola! [Mr Punch voice] : "That's the way to do it!"

Agree on the cleaning. On further thought, that probably brings the value down and makes it overpriced. I bought mine (Elizabeth I - Milled coinage; large bust, cross fourchèe, small rose, mm.star) at auction (many years ago) and it was graded at VF+then. While it is always hard to tell from a photo, I thought mine was just a bit better than the ebay one hence why I felt that one might be a VF. Maybe mine is conservatively graded. What do others think? Should it be graded under hammered standards, or early milled, or somewhere in between?! Could we see a pic of your Jaggy? I'm no fan of hammered (post-Saxon) but that one is gorgeous - like an early milled coin and beautifully toned. In fact, if you hadn't referred to it as hammered I would have sworn it was milled. (Oh wait - I just read the description - it IS milled ).

And going to that external site was a complete waste of fecking time . Your picture was much much smaller than you would even get here if you followed the advice I gave above. What's worse, I had to use the Goback button about 12 times before I could get back to here. What you need is advice on how to post the image to Photobucket with a link so it appears HERE without our having to leave this site. That's what Dave does, maybe he will explain how to do it?

That's certainly true of scarce quality items, such as early milled or earlier. Unfortunately, modern coinage is subject to the whims of a capricious market which the guides simply mirror. As for Spink, their catalogue has gone up continuously, but when it was produced by Seaby, it had flatlined for years. They were far too conservative and slow to react while Spink are the opposite. Both unreliable in their own way. Take it from me, there's no such thing as a "continuously increasing market". Just ask Goldman Sachs, Northern Rock, Lehmanns, Lloyds TSB, HBOS, and all the other scoundrels who couldn't believe their luck from 1997 to 2008. ALL bubbles burst.

OMG - I opened up and read your post, had a look at the time on my computer, and it said !8:26:48 !!! (Good job I am not interested in Lizzy 1 coins )

Probably not unique - here's one on eBay with a BIN of £25.