Peckris

Magnificent, and at £725, a mere snip here is the page it's on Needless to say, I can't afford it !! And he has (HAD) a 1933 penny !!!! Well, the Lavrillier pattern, but hey, it's still a 1933... wonder how much it sold for? That 1918KN is beautifully struck, but the colour looks faded (it's the picture I think). He also has some rather nice 1912H but the prices for those are somewhat overrated for a coin with a mintage of 16,000,000. But I suppose the demand for them is high just so that people can say "I've got a BU H penny!" I always found that GVF KNs were the hardest to come by. They were the highest grade I could afford but do you think I could ever find one??

Not quite. Before 1947 they are silver (50%). So both yours should be silver. There was no other metal used except silver alloy, even during the war. You may have a fake, but the best thing is if you could scan it and upload pictures of it for us to see? (To be half the thickness but the same weight, it would have to be lead I would have thought!)

The fact is, I've never seen a 1912/18/19H that wasn't nearly black, and I've never seen a KN that wasn't red/brown. And, I've never seen an Unc KN in the flesh, but the few pictures I've seen show a very flattened portrait, i.e. not well struck up. Much like my 1919H, which if you look at the legend, shield, etc, appears to have no wear at all, but has the hair detail you would expect on a coin that is about Fine. (And the coin is already a dark colour - almost like a Mint darkened penny but without that gorgeous purple sheen you see on the farthings.)

Would you buy ANY coin from someone who tells you that the "portrait of Queen Elizabeth" is "on the back" ?? As for the date - pffft - it's so obviously nineteen fifty squiggle. Doesn't everyone see that?

All interesting stuff. I think dies were used to death virtually everywhere in the period 1915-20 and the quality of the end product can be dreadful, and you may be right that the two private mints tried to eke every bit of use out of their dies, just to make that tiny bit of extra profit. I also have a theory though that the alloys scarcely differed throughout the entire period of production (apart from those notified by the mint), and it is the source of the copper and possibly where it was smelted that creates the different colour - i.e. the level and chemical composition of impurities and the proportion of these removed during smelting. It's all a bit complicated but I might post a thread about it one day. King's Norton clearly used a very consistent source of supply, possibly with some ferrous contamination in the copper. "Not a lot of people know this" ... but, have you noticed there are sometimes ordinary pennies from 1912 to 1919 with the same reddish/brown colour as the KN pennies? Apparently, Kings Norton supplied blanks to the Mint throughout that period. So I treasure my 1912KN penny !

It looks like WHAT? Actually, the picture you supplied looks like nothing so much as a dustbin lid visited by several cats and a huge drunk man during the night... (Oh wait, the reverse is a lot clearer) The Richard Ingrams coin shows a George III guinea, so yours is either a silver copy or a token or a model. It would need very careful cleaning by someone with expertise in restoring coins - have you thought about consulting your local museum?

This Freeman variety - Obverse 2, LC Wyon below bust - is being offered on eBay and ends in 7 hours time. I've been following its progress (with detached interest!) and it has now passed its reserve and is up to £1200. It's probably the rarest penny I've seen on eBay.

That's a shame. The seller may have been in complete ignorance about this. It's the coin that should have been reported.

Happy days indeed! I did wait ages before my first 1926 penny, and then it was another year into collecting before I discovered (a moment of dawning bliss) that it was a Modified Effigy. I have another theory about the H and KN pennies. I have a 1919H penny that has virtually no wear on it, but virtually no hair either! I think that the two assistant mints used their dies for longer than the Royal Mint did, and the portrait - being so deeply cut that it caused the infamous reverse 'ghosting' - took the brunt of the strike and wore fastest. So the H and KN pennies often got struck up on worn dies leaving fewer specimens well struck up (or maybe even, the Royal Mint passed already wearing obverse dies to Heaton and Kings Norton to save money). Another factor may also be the different alloy used by the two mints : you'll have noticed I'm sure, that H pennies are usually darker and blacker in colour than usual, while the KN pennies are virtually always a reddish/brown colour. Maybe if the alloys were slightly harder, it wore the dies out faster.

I don't know what period you're talking about Red? I can tell you that from 1968 to 1970, when I used to take my pocket money into the banks and get bags of pennies to look through - these were by no means scarce in my experience. I used to save them, plus 1926, and 1922, plus genuine rarities if I was lucky enough to find them (a fair few 19H, a tub of 12H, one 18KN, one 1953 - interestingly no 02LT or 18H, and though every dealer was selling 50 and 51 they NEVER turned up in change!) . It's just embarrassing how many of them all I ended up with, all filed away for future "investment" (hah!). I'm betting so many other schoolkids and collectors were doing the same, they are now no scarcer in lower grades than some of the commoner dates. And as for BU, well all I can say is, I've seen a few, but rarely a BU 1930 (in fact, I'm not sure I ever have). Bottom line, 8 million does not a scarce penny make! To me, and this is my own personal opinion only, the 1932 penny 'mystique' is just a joke. If I were nominating rare BU pennies I would say 1915 and 1916, 1926, 1930.

ok Thank you. How do I go about getting it listed?? I have been in touch with coin news and Spink and am awaiting a reply (though I wont hold my breath with Spink). These coins are my fathers and he wants them selling which is why I asked. I always look at the coins carefully - just incase. I listed a 1926 penny for a BIN price of £1.00 - I realised my mistake and took off the BIN and got £30.00 for it...Thanks to your site. I am very grateful for all the help I get in here! You're doing the right stuff so far. And if there is to be a revision to Peck done by Rotographic, then you're in the right place here to get it recorded in the "bible" of copper coins! When you get it back from Spink (with or without their helpful comments) you could ask ChrisP if he'd like to see it? Gouby is another guy though this might be outside his specialist area. Did you get any response from Coin News?

That's a nice example, not quite as good as the BU I got from a coin fair about 9 years ago for £30 (book price at the time). 1932 mythology : rated since the late 60s as a 'scarce' penny, which only makes sense if you compare it to the vast minting of the 1936. 8 million is NOT scarce! Priced at £50 in the Coins and Medals 1970 Annual - which also lists a BU 1926ME at £150 (!), a BU 1864 at £125 (!!), and a BU 1797 twopence at £35 (!!!!!!!) Since the great meltdown, they are actually common in lower grades as everyone saved them including me. As for finding them in BU, I've certainly seen a few at fairs (ok not that many to be honest), but in my opinion they are easier to find than BU 1930 and 1931 which I think are the scarcest two dates. 1934 is an interesting date, because of the toning to some of them - again, scarce but not impossible. Chris, don't rush to increase CCGB values - even the latest Spink price of £100 is over-optimistic I feel and simply panders to the myth that this is a scarce penny. £200 is just the height of absurdity for one of these. You might as well ask the same price for a 1940 "single exergue line" BU, which is hardly ever seen.

The first coin is a Charles II 1672 farthing (or halfpenny). Can't tell from the size, but odds are its a farthing. The second is a late William III halfpenny, 1699-1701 - can't make out the date. The third is a counterfeit George III halfcrown, made in brass and then silver washed. Hope this helps. Thanks for your help. Any value whatsoever they are at least old coins? Well, only a little. The Charles farthing would raise £3 - £4 - although it's in poor condition, it at least has the date readable and more or less readable legend. It's barely possible to make out the details on the William III - your only hope would be if it turned out to be an extremely rare variety (usually a lettering error - but as I can make out "GVLIELMVS TERTIVS" that's very unlikely). A pound or two to a collector, no more. The George III has only interest value. Worth keeping for interest I'd say - my own numismatic career was sparked by a similar Charles farthing I got from a junk shop when I was still at school !

Oops, it would help to have the link! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...bayphotohosting (I got interrupted, and so missed the absurdly short time we are allowed to edit our posts )

As it started as a 99p auction, my bet is "yes, they are". Otherwise we'd have seen a Buy It Now somewhere up near the £1000 mark, is my hunch.

There's a 1921 shilling advertised on eBay - it's described as Unc (which actually it isn't, which is surprising because this seller is normally pretty good on grading). http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1921-UNC-Shilling_W0...0#ht_500wt_1023 I remember the discussion recently about how difficult these are to find, and it's definitely EF minimum. The auction ends tomorrow at 18:57 BST if anyone is interested in having a go for it. But it looks like there may be a war - it's already over £50 while a stunning 1923 shilling which ends the same time, is £1.25 and a 1920 (ditto) is less than £10.

Ha ha, very probably true. Mind you, I think "our Ron" might have begun his career in Coin Monthly when I was a geeky schoolboy coin collector - at any rate, someone did an exhaustive study of 1907 pennies and came up with 5 or 6 varieties, all dependant on how long the downstroke of the 7 was, how stubby the end was, and precisely how far to the left of a tooth. Even my geeky younger self baulked at that. In the end, it was decided these 'varieties' were simply due to different stages of wear, and nothing was ever heard of it again!

Nice! That 1871 jumped straight from £71 to £112 in the last few seconds. Barmy. Well that's way overpriced in my opinion. On the other hand, here's a choice mediocre example with a Buy It Now of £40... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Very-Rare-Key-Date-1...#ht_1428wt_1008 Not to mention a selected average mediocre 1875H that's on offer for £30... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Very-Rare-1875-H-Pen...#ht_1512wt_1008

There's a couple of nice rare date bun pennies on eBay right now. This VF 1871 : http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...#ht_3594wt_1008 (which may have finished by the time you see this). It's nearly a whole grade better than my existing one, albeit with some die damage especially on the obverse. And this 1875H : http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...37#ht_500wt_797 (Buy it Now £500 !!) It looks clearly EF with lustre, but the hair detail doesn't look quite crisp to me - it could be a case of the Heaton Mint overusing dies, as they so clearly did with the 1918/1919 pennies. What do you guys think?

Nice! That 1871 jumped straight from £71 to £112 in the last few seconds. Barmy. Well that's way overpriced in my opinion.

Oh right - Davies. It's interesting, I have Peck, Freeman, Gouby, ESC, Seaby and Rayner, and Sealy - but the one gap in my reference library has always been Davies. But I guess he is long out of print? Ron Stafford! There's a blast from the past!! I remember his detailed surveys and statistical reports and his exhaustive examination of decimal 10 pences etc. For all his amazingly detailed and studious work, I never entirely took him seriously, I'm not sure why? Perhaps I found his focus just a teensy weensy bit anal, or more likely I just couldn't get worked up about the number of beads on a 10p...

Hi Chris I've sent you an IM about one of those sixpences - let me know you got it ok?

Indeed - the secondary market for these items shows just how poor an "investment" they are. There's a glut of commems and the like (or there was, a few years back - I'm sure things haven't changed much?) - and the values in Spink are stagnant. And to make matters worse, the Elizabeth II pages in the Standard Catalogue have become quite ridiculous. I think they should confine them to currency issues only, including proof sets and BU sets, and move everything else out into a separate "Mint Issues & Commemoratives" booklet. Anything not issued for currency could go in there - from the 1972 Silver Wedding "Crown" onwards, i.e. all piedforts, all crown-sized pieces, all gold and silver Britannias, anything issued as a specimen in a folder, Baby Sets, you name it. And also it could then take in all those lovely fantasy pieces too, which don't get featured anywhere, such as the gorgeous pattern 1798 penny, with the Kuchler obverse and reworked Boulton reverse pattern.

The one on the left looks like a typical specimen - these were issued in their millions, often in a plastic holder by banks and numerous other organisations. The one on the right (which you think is different) looks like one of those issued loose by banks and post offices. Those would have toned to look just like yours, and I've seen any number that are 'greyish' and without obvious lustre.

And rather a nice 1864 too : http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/British-1864-Victori...50#ht_500wt_797