Peckris

Freeman reference.

Definitely not an 1853 proof set - the bronze coins are the 'bun' designs of post-1860. Curious mix of designs though - not perhaps from a single year?

Whoever designed that was a well known clairvoyant, and knew that one day in the future Birmingham would be the centre of British car production. Hence the 2D hedgehogs...

Yes, there is a special process for producing 'frosted' proofs, though I couldn't quote you chapter and verse. Some seem to occur naturally as part of the process, which can be seen between 1937 and 1953. Maybe the intention was to 'frost' lightly but the effect only lasted for the first strikings? As for decimal-era, the frosted proofs began to appear in - I think - either 1980 or 1981. I imagine that Peck, Freeman and Gouby don't document them because base metal proofs of the 19th Century are rare and tend to be 'bronzed' (or especially silvered / gilt etc) rather than frosted. Those ARE mentioned by Freeman etc.

"Cameo" appears to have replaced the term "frosted", which was always the traditional way to refer to proofs with a matt raised design contrasting greatly with a mirror field.

Hull has a very fine equestrian statue of William III (as depicted), and was one of the first cities to declare for him during the 'Glorious Revolution'. In that sense it's both a trade token and a commemorative - the date relates to when it was struck for use. INDUSTRY HAS IT'S SURE REWARD Either a forgery or else the grammatically confused existed as much in the 18C as now.

British Silver Coins by Peter J Davies, 1982, the 'bible' of silver varieties from 1816 (now out of print, but I believe there are copies available?). He lists £3500 for a genuine example back then - anyone's guess now.

That's a really weird one. The obverse is not a sixpence. Sleepy has it I think - it's the half sovereign obverse, gold proof error. Davies 1141 indeed.

Thank you Dave.

Thanks for the welcome back. I'm not sure I'll be a regular like before, but will certainly drop in every now and then to share in the madness...

My guess is that it's a metal prototype for the cardboard-and-foil advertising coins, as the obverse in the eBay listing is very similar to the one in Sword's link. The portrait is far too big, and so is the date, where the 1 touches the truncation. Compare both with a genuine 1878 obverse:

Just passing by and saw this topic. Thought my 1964 6d might be relevant. The clog is obvious, but there are no signs that the "I" has been filed away, so I think it's a genuine die clog, and a 'ghost' of the I remains. (Would be fascinated to know if there are any more out there?)

Possibly it was something either rude, satirical or even vaguely insurgent? In which case, the soldier may have had second thoughts and removed the offending bits. But that's just one theory - the grieving relative is another just as good.

To be fair, I've attributed ghosting to the depth of the obverse profile all the way through the articles. WW1 had nothing to do with that particular problem, but with die overuse and wear leading to poor definition on both faces.

Hi Prepare for disappointment, Richard. I do owe you for use of your pictures of the 1926 ME penny with 1927 - many thanks. However, I didn't feel sufficiently convinced by the "3rd rogue penny" to include it, not at this stage anyway. Possibly it might merit an article of its own sometime? The part you may be interested in, is the theory behind those two pennies, but even more, the radical speculation behind the ENTIRE 1926 issue, all 4 million of them. Hopefully Coin News is out now, or very soon?

I haven't been / am not around much these days, but if you want my opinion : it looks good - I think the appearance is better I'm seriously bothered by what people say about not being taken to the latest unread POST within a topic. Is there an equivalent of the former 'View New Content', which unlike 'Unread Content', was to do with unread POSTS not merely unread TOPICS? What happened to the old link that took us to the main predecimal site?? Once in the Forums, there's no way out! 'Home' only keeps you in the Forums. I haven't tried uploading any pictures within a topic - are thumbnails now a useful size instead of the tiny little useless things they were before? That's it for now, If I see anything else I'll let you know!

Thanks to Michael Roo for drawing my attention to this topic, one of the most interesting in relation to 20th Century coins. I have a slight disagreement with Michael Freeman about the date of the '1922 Modified Effigy' penny, but I'm partway through a series of articles that are on Mark's (Sound) website, also to be published by Coin News, so I'm afarid you will have to wait to read my own theory on it. However, it's a fascinating subject and I've enjoyed reading all your comments about it.

I didn't read it like that at all. To me, it seemed that at that point he was just giving an overview, and rather than precisely grade a particular example used to illustrate, he was just saying that that coin was a typical average specimen of that grade spectrum. This is reinforced after 20 minutes, when he then goes on to illustrate every MS coin from 60 to 68, and then every shade of circulated grade. I thought it was quite enlightening.

Mostly due to poor design, I'd say - the halfcrowns especially have a very shallow design that started to wear the minute they were issued; the florins are a bit more of a mystery, being even harder to find (certain dates) yet not quite such a shallow design. Mind you, the florins did stay in circulation for 20 years longer than the halfcrowns. It's also true that the 'new' Cupro-nickel coins were less popular anyway, so there may be something in them not being put by.

Welcome Kev - you certainly made the right choice of forum! If someone here can't answer a question or "knows a man who can.." then no-one can! On your reading list: Spink - a general catalogue and price guide brought out annually. You can find every coin and MAJOR varieties in there, but not a lot of further information. Rayner - long out of print but still an invaluable reference for early milled (i.e. pre-1816) Davies - covers most varieties and micro-varieties from 1816, invaluable if that's your "bag" Groom - does for 20th Century silver what Davies does for 1816 onwards, but unearths more micro-varieties than Davies Coincraft - again, out of date, but its strength is the introduction to each type which contains a lot of useful extra information including minimum grades to collect CCGB - a price guide like Spink, published annually, but much better value for money, and covers a lot of varieties too

That's nice! Very nice. Beautiful design.

In all probability, I'd grade that as some as struck modern tat. And in 99% of cases, of course, it is! Glad I don't collect post 1946 That opens a veritable can of worms! Anyone with a Liz II 50s halfcrown or florin that's given the CGS highest grade really has got something saleable - most of them are at best AUNC, and EF examples look as though they've just been to an all-night party, hit the ale hard, crawled into bed at 5AM and react very grumpily to having the curtains pulled back before midday. In fact, I would go so far as to say that finding absolutely 'as struck BU' examples are almost as difficult as finding UNC Edward VII silver.

A kind of generic LOL remark that could cover replies to many posts on many forums. Possibly comes unstuck however, when spammily attached to posts offering hammered coin books for sale. Possibly it might work - at a generous stretch - to "Very good condition with no tears" or even "have a couple of spares" (hmm, no; perhaps not), but I wish you well with your pressed and reconstituted pork products, wherever you lay them gently and unthinkingly to rest...

There's a giant flaw I've just noticed in the CGS scale. From VG to VF the score doubles for each grade - 10, 20, 40. The problem then is, it is only another 20 from VF to EF and again from EF to 'Choice UNC'. If they'd started at 5 for VG they could have avoided that. I.e., VG5 F10 VF20 EF40 UNC80.