Peckris

You've got it wrong (as does most of the country) I'm so glad someone else defends the 'leopard' truth Methinks no-one in England will ever get it right now, after that "Three Lions On My Shirt" nonsense, grrrr. They are three leopards en passant heradically speaking, as opposed to the Scottish Lion rampant (or is it guardant? Does anyone care?) Mind you, if I met a hungry big cat, I wouldn't stop too long to check out if it was a leopard or a lion

It may have been produced from a genuine example, and then the only way to tell is to see two of them side by side and compare for similarities.

A coin album is a good idea for any collector - but do make sure the coins are stored within non-PVC vinyl envelopes inside the album, to be on the safe side. And they are perhaps not the best idea for very valuable coins that are to be stored over a long period of time.

Never lick coins - you don't know where they've been!!

Do be vigilant Rob - most dealers are pretty honest (excluding eBay) but you might find the occasional rogue passing off a coin that's a grade lower than his advertised grade, as a 'weak strike'. Always buy from someone who gives you a no-quibble money-back guarantee if not satisfied, if you can't view the coin 'in hand', that is. Farthings suffer less from the problem IMO. They are small enough that the imbalance between obverse and reverse designs is much less pronounced than with the pennies and halfpennies, and have a proportionately much larger rim protecting the reverse. Having said that, there are some poor portraits, but mostly between 1918 and 1925 in my experience. Generally though, farthings are found much better than their larger bronze siblings.

Probably neither - the entire mintage should fit into just one of those bags!

Yes, proofs are nice - I thought as a schoolboy I would NEVER be able to afford a proof, and I remember some years later buying a 1950S proof shilling and feeling ridiculously pleased with myself! It's really frustrating, but whenever people here post links to a Spink Auctions coin, the link just takes me to their home page, not the coin itself. If it takes you to the Spink home page when you click on the link -- upon returning to the forum post -- try clicking on the link a second time. Oh, that works!! What strange voodoo is this ... ?

My family variation on that was 'enough blue to make a sailor a pair of trousers'. Yes, we were told the sailor variant also - except it was 'mend' in both cases, not 'make' (perhaps it was a smaller patch of blue sky? )

Yes, proofs are nice - I thought as a schoolboy I would NEVER be able to afford a proof, and I remember some years later buying a 1950S proof shilling and feeling ridiculously pleased with myself! It's really frustrating, but whenever people here post links to a Spink Auctions coin, the link just takes me to their home page, not the coin itself.

That's not a subject that's been explored in any great depth, to date - good one, for raising it! There are many causes. • 1953 portraits, for example, are the victim of poor design, which was partly corrected the same year, but fully corrected in 1954. It applied to all denominations. • 1918/1919 H & KN pennies suffered from worn dies continuing in service for far too long : this is noticeable due to the varied 'strike' that you see, ranging from quite well struck up, to very weak. Other denominations the same years weren't affected. • The reverse of Geo V first series pennies and halfpennies suffer, especially Britannia's upper, due to the strength and depth of the obverse portrait taking metal away from the reverse design, which itself was unprotected by almost non-existent rims. This is a peculiarity of that series. • On any coins prior to the machine age (1797), individual coins can be weakly struck due to poor milling/hammering techniques. • The composition of the metal can affect the strike : silver is softer than cupro-nickel for example, copper is softer than bronze, and the silver alloy introduced in 1920 was especially notorious to begin with. This means that defects in the strike can show up more on softer metals, but conversely, harder metals cause faster die wear which would then affect those coins if not spotted. • Sometimes the effect is imbalance between obverse and reverse designs : from 1920 - 1925, circulated halfcrowns are found with the obverse at least a whole grade lower than the reverse. So as you see, there are no factors which would affect ALL denominations, except where there is a weakly struck design as in 1953. And some coins are often found weakly struck with no particular explanation as to why - the reverse of 1907 pennies, for example. I'm sure if you researched it, you could come up with still more causes. One thing's certain - well struck coins will always command a premium over weak ones.

As my grandmother used to say "I'm as old as my tongue, and a little bit older than my teeth" Don't think I can beat 13 David (OAP) The only other time I've seen that phrase was in an Enid Blyton Famous Five book, which I read as a kid. Never heard it said. I'm 32, by the way. Funnily enough, both my granny and my mum used to say that. It made a pair with the rainy day "Look - enough blue [in the sky] to mend a Dutchman's trousers" Which, in itself, dates you.

Well that's a good strategy for a collection. But when you (one day) have enough money for a 1927 proof set, and see one, you might just fall in love with it - I think it's up there with the best 20th Century proof sets, and was the last truly great set.

It was an iMac, but yes. One sad side-effect is they had to load a newer version of the Mac OS and now Photoshop won't work. I decided to buy Photoshop Elements, but the latest version won't run on older Macs, and the last version that does, they won't make available as a paid-for download. Adobe must have the business sense of a hibernating hedgehog. If you know of ANYWHERE where I can get PS Elements 6 for Mac, do let me know! There's none on eBay, just lots of books, videos and training DVDs.

I realised that when I saw the timestamps! It's also where my abbreviations software comes in really handy. I wouldn't be without it now.

I think bronze/copper coins with an even dark patina are criminally neglected and under-appreciated, and I much prefer those to coins with part lustre (e.g. 50%) which is neither fish nor flesh nor fowl in my opinion. BU on the other hand ... As for silver, I do like gorgeous old toning, but I'd prefer a bright untoned example to one with ugly toning.

Very attractive - good choice. And then you might want to move on to the other denominations in that series too? Halfcrowns, florins, shillings. Rounding it all off with a 1927 proof set! (In time....)

Like the 1951 penny?

People such as yourself Beth, often collect what are called "commemoratives" - for example the proof sets and specimen sets produced annually by the Royal Mint. At the moment, such sets would struggle to fetch their issue price when sold later, but over 25 - 30 years, who knows? They are attractively packaged, but are in no sense rare, though they could give interest to grandchildren in time. Certainly, coins from your change are cheaper to put aside, since they only cost their face value. If you're going to do that, make sure you put aside Bright Uncirculated (new, full lustre) coins, as they are more likely to be worth something in due course than more worn / circulated examples. And the higher the denomination (£2 £1 50p) the more likely they are to go up in value over time. Do bear in mind that there was a massive recoinage between 1967 and 1971, and most coins from that period are still worth very little. However, it wouldn't hurt to study trends : for example, our present Queen can't go on forever, so her coins will become gradually more collectable when she's gone. And when Charles comes around, EVERYONE will put aside coins from his first year, but then it will tail off, so collecting from his second year onwards will be more fruitful (that has historically been true, e.g. coins of 1954, 1938/39, 1912/13, 1903/04, are worth quite a lot more than coins from the first year of a reign). Good luck with the endeavour!

Oh to be 13 again! On second thoughts ... [shudders]

CCGB 2009 doesn't mention it, but does list similar for 1845 where the error is given as AANNO.

I have several 1887 JH coins that are very prooflike, in that - like yours - they have mirrored fields. This is a hallmark of an early currency strike, some of which may have used the same dies used for proofs. Three things to say: 1. If the design is not mirrored but the fields are, that's a good sign that the coin has not been cleaned. 2. Early strikes should still command a premium over later ones, but not as much as they would in the USA (hopefully we will catch up on that one). 3. Genuine proofs have a rim whose edges are very sharp - if yours looks UNC but without sharp edges, it's probably not a proof. Hope that helps.

Don't worry. Not everyone collects gold, I don't have any.

The picture you have uploaded is of a perspex case with a card insert. The coins are seated in slots in the card so that you can see both sides. They are about £5 retail without the coins and can be wall mounted with spring holders or desk mounted on a small display stand. Hope that helps. John. Do bear in mind that high grade 1954 "silver" is quite scarce and pricey, so you might want to look out for an 'average condition' set, which should be priced very reasonably.

How many London Mint 1882 pennies would you say have survived (all grades)? Freeman has them as R17 (16 to 50 in existence). That was in 1985. Given their unique status, there's likely still the same number now, but most of those will be in private collections, which will probably not see the light of day for a very long time, if ever. That includes the prime example Bernie showed us a few weeks back. 16 to 50 is a fairly wide estimated range. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say less than 40. I bet there's maybe 10 which will come up for sale in the next 3 years, say ~ and the sales points could be anywhere. Mind, most of them will be flat discs. In that case, I'd venture that high grade examples will certainly be rarer than 1933s!

The £360 coin is no more than a really GF. Not even VF IMO. As for the other coin - now be fair! The seller describes it as F (which is obviously short for F***ing awful ) Blimey £100!! that's worse than mine David And mine :