Peckris

Obverse Fair, Reverse Fine (ish). For assessing regal portraits, always look for hair detail (which all grades down to Fine must show). Yours has none. You're a bit over-optimistic about value. The value of the silver in a 50% silver 3d would struggle to even approach 50p. The old 3d is just over one new penny in face value, so even at 20 times face, it would be only be worth 25p! When you reply to a post here, there's a 'link' symbol (to the right of the smiley). Just paste and select your URL, then click the symbol and that will turn it into a link for you.

In my varieties book, I identify varieties in 1953, 1955, 1964 and 1965, plus some proofs. If you have found some others I would be interested to know about them. I think you've got the 1964 "I in GRATIA missing" Dave? On the subject of your book - I think it's a great read, and very very thorough. Just one thing though, I struggled to find much in the way of rarity assessment. I'm used to books like Freeman and Gouby and ESC where every single listed variety has a rarity rating. Any thoughts on producing one, and making it available as a supplement to existing readers? For me, it's a 'must have'. Well done! That's one I didn't come across - better keep it for a re-issue sometime in the future. On the thorny issue of rarity assessment, I did consider what I could provide for this, but the problem was always one of identifying a scale (as Freeman does) and then assessing the numbers available against that scale. None of the sources I used have done anything like this and I could foresee major timescale problems if I attempted to do so, as well as a huge piece of work contacting/visiting dealers, going through their stock and then categorising the coins. I judged it to be a very long involved task equally as involved as the work done on silver edge nicks in the 1960s and 70s, and for this reason I decided against doing it. What I have done is comment generally about rarity where there is some published view available - a bit lazy I know, but I wanted to get the book written for people to use, rather than as a piece of historical research. Ok, bearing in mind that rarity is a 'must have' for some people (e.g., I'm not interested in any minor variety where there's no scarcity between them - such as the 1928/29 large silver, and 1937, but I'd go out of my way to track down a scarce item) - how about : instead of a thorough Freeman-style scale, then how about a five-level guesstimate scale? For example, Common - Normal - Scarce - Very scarce - Rare? And no rarity listed would simply mean that of the two varieties (or more) neither is scarce relative to the other. But where you have several varieties, such as the 1921 shilling, it really is (IMO) necessary to know the comparative rarity. Those are my thoughts anyway.

There's a quicker way than olive oil for verdigris, but it will make the coin paler (not polished-looking, just paler) : immerse overnight in a good quality vinegar (yes yes, I know it's a weak acid, but believe me I wouldn't suggest it if I hadn't tried it myself) then remove and wash off thoroughly. What is most likely to happen is that the coin has gone a paler brown, with the verdigris as darker patches but no longer green. You may not want to risk it, but that's your call. If it was a higher grade cartwheel I'd say "don't", but that one's rather 'edgy'. Thanks for that, I'll give it a go. It's not as if I paid a fortune for it. @400, I'm starting to get the whole condition thing. With swords, you expect a few edge knocks, bent guards, patina and pitting etc. Coins seem to be a totally different kettle of fish with only the very highest quality commanding the best prices. Oh well, I've got my foot on the learning curve ladder There's a great aid for you, if you're serious : Predecimal (whose forum this is) publish the Grading Guide to British Coins, fully ilustrated with each major obverse and reverse type since 1797, in 4 grades. It really would be a boon for you, as you would have a picture reference to all the main grades of condition. (There's an advert to click at the top of each forum - the row of books** - and apparently I'm not on commission ) **having said that, I don't see that advert anymore ... if you click on the website address or the logo (above) you'll get to the home page and you should find it from there ok Thanks, I've got that book as well as Spink and the download version of Collectors' Coins GB. I've also found the Tony Clayton website, is the coin valuation section kept up-to-date or is it best to use Spink for assessing values? The vinegar trick worked a treat - it lifted all of the green in a few hours and has just left a darker staining as you said. Thanks for the tip! You're very welcome! I would use Spink for up-to-date values, bearing in mind that coin valuations are something of a dark art. If you don't fancy laying out £25 for a copy, take a tip from this penny-pincher : your nearest decent library should have a copy in their Reference section. I've spent many a happy hour annually, transcribing values

maybe it's because the eye assumes that light comes from above (the sun). The reflections on the lower edge of the numerals must then be below the surface of the coin. If you look at it assuming the light source is from below, it suddenly makes sense. Perception is a funny thing! Looked fine on my desktop machine, but now relooking at it on my laptop, I get the incuse effect, however it goes normal if i turn the laptop upside down! so I buy your sunshine explanation Fascinating Jim! I tried everything - and even tried squinting. After that it went 'relief' for about one second, then almost immediately reverted to incuse again. Now, however much I try, it refuses to change. Oddly enough, I can get the bottom of the '1' to be in relief, but then as soon as I glance at the '8', it's all incuse again. Remember those 3D pictures in the 1990s, the ones you had to really stare at to get them to go 3D? I always had a big problem seeing those, so perhaps it's my eyesight.

I was (naively perhaps) hoping that it would automatically resize the pics to fit the screen. And only when you zoom would it enlarge the overall pic to whatever size (definition) your original image happened to be. It would be very time consuming if I had to resize every image to optimise it! Not being a Touch owner, it might well do what you're asking! Why not look up your nearest Apple store and give them a ring? Tell them you want to load pictures and will they scale on a Touch to fit the screen, from whatever size you upload. From my experience on an iMac, a non-Apple program like Photoshop will scale to fit imperfectly on my display - for example showing the picture at 25% but only filling 2/3 of the screen, while an Apple program like Preview scales it to fit the display exactly.

??? How did you get a coin with the design incuse instead of in relief?

What are you saying Badger? 'Different die' usually refers to a change (however minor) of design. However, the position of the last date numeral - while varying greatly between different actual physical dies due to manual punching - may be variations of the same design. It's usually accepted that these minor variations of numeral are very common indeed, especially in 1862 for some reason. They are no more significant than different die numbers used on some Vicky silver.

In my varieties book, I identify varieties in 1953, 1955, 1964 and 1965, plus some proofs. If you have found some others I would be interested to know about them. I think you've got the 1964 "I in GRATIA missing" Dave? On the subject of your book - I think it's a great read, and very very thorough. Just one thing though, I struggled to find much in the way of rarity assessment. I'm used to books like Freeman and Gouby and ESC where every single listed variety has a rarity rating. Any thoughts on producing one, and making it available as a supplement to existing readers? For me, it's a 'must have'.

Everything looks normal, and fine, to me. But then I use a Mac

I can't answer all of these but ... 1. You would organise your pictures in a folder (or "playlist") and could therefore scroll through them easily 2. Pictures should behave like music files so the name would be in the list view (probably in picture view too) 3. Zooming with the Touch is certainly possible using touch controls 4. I'm not a Touch owner but I'm guessing the image should turn using the magnetometer? (that's what it was designed for) 5. I'm guessing too, that pictures are like music files - they are the quality that you load. But you won't get anything like those pixel ratings! - the screen size on the Touch is pretty small, you'd have to scroll the picture to see it all, or else load thumbnails that match the screen size of the device.

There's a quicker way than olive oil for verdigris, but it will make the coin paler (not polished-looking, just paler) : immerse overnight in a good quality vinegar (yes yes, I know it's a weak acid, but believe me I wouldn't suggest it if I hadn't tried it myself) then remove and wash off thoroughly. What is most likely to happen is that the coin has gone a paler brown, with the verdigris as darker patches but no longer green. You may not want to risk it, but that's your call. If it was a higher grade cartwheel I'd say "don't", but that one's rather 'edgy'. Thanks for that, I'll give it a go. It's not as if I paid a fortune for it. @400, I'm starting to get the whole condition thing. With swords, you expect a few edge knocks, bent guards, patina and pitting etc. Coins seem to be a totally different kettle of fish with only the very highest quality commanding the best prices. Oh well, I've got my foot on the learning curve ladder There's a great aid for you, if you're serious : Predecimal (whose forum this is) publish the Grading Guide to British Coins, fully ilustrated with each major obverse and reverse type since 1797, in 4 grades. It really would be a boon for you, as you would have a picture reference to all the main grades of condition. (There's an advert to click at the top of each forum - the row of books** - and apparently I'm not on commission ) **having said that, I don't see that advert anymore ... if you click on the website address or the logo (above) you'll get to the home page and you should find it from there ok

If that's an advert, then the advertiser is being disingenuous I'm afraid. Victorian pennies are the same size and weight as later pre-decimal pennies. Their scrap value is exactly the same as 1967 pennies. So if someone is paying twice as much for Vic pennies, then they are not for scrap.

I'd not disagree with that! We've had multiple editions of Peck, Freeman, Gouby, Satins, and STILL new varieties are being discovered.

There's a quicker way than olive oil for verdigris, but it will make the coin paler (not polished-looking, just paler) : immerse overnight in a good quality vinegar (yes yes, I know it's a weak acid, but believe me I wouldn't suggest it if I hadn't tried it myself) then remove and wash off thoroughly. What is most likely to happen is that the coin has gone a paler brown, with the verdigris as darker patches but no longer green. You may not want to risk it, but that's your call. If it was a higher grade cartwheel I'd say "don't", but that one's rather 'edgy'.

I'm happy to help out too Chris, but if you've got enough unpaid slaves volunteers already, I understand.

Oh! I took the spelling at face value and assumed the poster was talking about the masts!! Hahaha. (And let's face it, a mast is just a bloody big bough cut to size )

♫ ♫ I second that opinion ♫ ♫ (as Smokey Robinson almost sang )

That's the error. It's actually not an inverted 1 - it's a filling die which happens kind of gradually so there are stages of it. This one looks like a partway stage.

I think it's called Modern Art. Aka Crap. (actually it looks no worse than any commemorative 50 pence or crown-sized reverse of the last 30 years ... though that's not saying much )

What does that say about the quoted Spink value, I wonder? Exactly. Prices hiked up for the sake of insurance ... surely not!!

Well, if she did happen to be browsing the boards wondering whether to post, we could assure her of a friendly welcome Whilst on the 1933 penny, I came across this; http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100531081627AAd4cTb Thing with the 1933, is that it has achieved the same status as UFO's, they may well exist, who knows, but absolutely no-one is going to believe it, even if you park one on their lawn. Same with the penny -that there are 7 has become a 'fact' I can only assume it may be another urban myth.... however I might as well tell it as I don’t think many people have heard this one. I cannot remember in full so please take it with a pinch of salt if I get some of it wrong... A firm was producing an advertisement for one of their products. The ad was illustrating something along the lines of, 'you can buy all of this for just 4d' and they pictured four separate pennies with the product. As soon as the ad was published in the newspaper (some time in the late 1930s) thousands if not millions of people phoned the company up asking for the four pennies from the picture as one of them was a 1933 penny. Clever people obviously thought it was a deliberate marketing device, however the company followed up in the paper shortly after that the pennies were genuinely not supposed to be a part of the marketing, apparently one of the guys doing the photo for the ad just pulled four pennies out of his wallet without taking any notice of them and done the picture. Of course by the time it was published and people were phoning in about it he had spent the pennies. Has definite tones of urban myth! Similar to the one that claims The Daily Mail is a newspaper

This is true. The whole collection is a single item in many instances. The important thing is to keep receipts as this is the only evidence you will have that you paid good money to acquire something. It is also worth checking whether the collection is insured on a cost basis or current valuation. If the latter, you will need to have a regular reappraisal of value by a third party in writing. Many non-specialist insurers will pay a % of Spink value (typically 66%) : if you have pictures of anything that has any value (over £10?) that helps enormously.

Doubtful if anyone would try to fake modern bornze, not even in 1971. Sounds like someone just decided to have some destructive fun with it :-)

Ok. If it's lustrous, then it could be perfectly normal. If dull in appearance but clean, then it sounds like classic dipping.

Oh it was in a newspaper as well as in The Daily Mail? Just a library picture Be interesting to know which particular example the photo was of.