Peckris

Hahaha - no, it was just the colour that seemed to best show up the detail (when we're limited to a paltry 100 pixels square, what can you do? ) I can tell you - and this is personal experience only, don't try this at home kids! - that I've dipped silver, I've treated verdigris in a weak vinegar solution overnight, I've removed 'film' from bronze with methylated spirits, I've washed silver in warm soapy water. Some of those worked better than others, but I have rarely ever damaged a coin by cleaning. The worst thing that happened was when I dipped a lustrous George III VF halfcrown that had a few black spots in the legend. Turned out the 'spots' were some kind of horrid tar-like substance and the halfcrown went a kind of uniform smeared grey and never recovered. But in general, I've been ok so far. Bottom line : it's up to an individual whether to try any technique or leave well alone. Judging by the number of cleaned coins on eBay, I'd say we are in an epidemic of frantic polishers.

Yes, but their 3 working days start in November I believe ?

Interestingly, when I began collecting from change (as a schoolboy), I waited absolute ages for a 1926 penny of any type to appear, then I was given one in change by a bus conductor. It was another year before I had enough experience to know it was the Modified Effigy ! (A really good F - lots of hair detail - I've still got it ). I got another (F) in change before decimalisation which I sold to an antiques shop a few years later. About 7 years ago I saw a really nice GVF example at an auction (actually veering towards NEF but the strike was weakish). I decided it was well worth more than £100 of my money, and I was wished good luck by a dealer friend who dropped out at the ton mark. Then I had to drop out when it got too high and it finally went for around £375. So I'm hanging on tightly to the VF I bought off Cookie for £39

Nice idea, but if you examine the penny front and back and side on, there is no crack or any sign of anything beginning.

Ok, here's my next curiosity. (No point in showing a picture as will be obvious if you read on). I have a 1967 penny. [Waits for gasps of shock and stunned amazement to die down ] Well, ok, whoopee-doo. It looks exactly like an EF 1967 penny should do - virtually no wear, and with traces of lustre on both sides. So what's the big deal? Well, there is something with this one, but it isn't apparent until you let it drop onto a hard surface. Instead of making a nice healthy bronzy ring, it just goes 'clack', as if it was a heavy plastic counter. Yet there is nothing about the appearance to suggest that it isn't normal bronze - the colour is just exactly what you would expect. Unfortunately, I don't have a set of coin weighing scales so I can't tell you if it deviates from the norm, but it feels right. Any comments or thoughts welcome.

Tell that to the collector trying to get an uncirculated 1926 modified head penny Seriously though, I know what you mean. As you say there are a number of "common" dates which are actually harder to find in BU than apparently "scarce" or at any rate "scarcer" dates, in the same condition. For me the classic example has to be the 1953 penny ~ obviously collected and stored extensively at the time, being the Queen's coronation year, and all that ~ but woth just £4.00 book value in uncirculated, notwithstanding the low 1,308,400 mintage. I think any serious collector is well aware of the difficult years for each denomination, which, whilst including the classic ones, like the 1932 florin, 1905 shilling, 1919kn penny, 1926 ME penny, but also much less obvious ones, like, as we mentioned in a different thread, the 1921 shilling. Hahaha - I should have specifically excluded the 1926 ME penny from my previous point. Oh boy, I would LOVE a BU one - wouldn't we all? For pennies, I would say 1914 - 1916, 1930 and 1931 are seriously underrated in BU. But also - judging purely on list values - the 1946 penny in Unc isn't nearly as easy as the book suggests. I'd also say that Unc 1958 and 1959 halfcrowns are somewhat overrated, especially in comparison to all 1950s florins. Actually, I wasn't really referring to Unc coins as the number of those saved from the Great Smelt Down was probably largely unaffected. And I guess that the 1953 penny was never really intended for circulation anyway, being sold only in those souvenir plastic sets. And a mintage of 1,308,400 for a commemorative is really high and beats the number of coin collectors quite easily. Similarly with the 1951 and 1953 crowns (and as for the Churchill, let's not even go there!). On the other hand, a coin created purely for true collectors, such as the Wreath crowns ...

It might grow in time, as long as you persuade your wife to keep away

Ah - possible wires crossed there? The mintage figure only refers to coins actually struck in a given year, irrespective of the date which they carry. Coins struck but not issued until a later date, are still part of the mintage for the year they were struck, not when they were issued. (My theory about 1923 halfcrowns was only to try to explain why they often show up in good condition - nothing to do with the mintage figure as such).

That's what the forgers rely on - public ignorance. Also, if you fake a coin with the wrong reverse, you could always try and claim that you haven't actually forged a coin of the realm (not sure if it would stand up in court though - the defence that is, not the coin )

I don't understand the logic here at all. If a coin is scarce, it's scarce - doesn't matter whether it comes from circulation or a set. If it mattered that much I could buy a few sets up, extract the 50p's, carry them around in my pocket for a few months, and there's your currency coin. Note that the 1985 50p is only worth £5 in Spink and £2 in CCGB; and that's a scarce coin too. In fact, CCGB lists the 1993 50p at £5, which is long way from £20 (but I suppose there are lots of mugs on eBay).

Yes, that's exactly it, Chris. I've tried both types of edit, equally unsuccessfully. When I click the relevant button to confirm my text amendments, a "loading" symbol briefly appears, then nothing. Yes - that's what happens to me too, so I gave up with it. I'm using Safari 3 by the way, running OS X Tiger. (I'm prepared to make a small wager that your web designers don't bother testing for Safari )

the It LOOKS like the reverse has been planed flat, but one way to be sure would be to weigh it - a planed coin would be underweight, and its width would be narrower too.

Not really a useful assumption - there are so many forgeries around of £1 coins that you can 99% say that a misalignment = a fake.

the dent is located at 5 oclock between FID as you can see the photos didnt bring this raised dent out It looks like a very small edge knock just after FID, but that's not what you meant I think? You mean an actual dent in the flan itself that shows up when you turn the coin and look at it edge-on, or as a depression on the reverse? If you could get pictures of the edge / reverse it might show more clearly. In any case, if it's a dent as opposed to an EK, that would be more serious, and I would be thinking about returning the coin to the seller and asking for a refund. Late Victorian silver isn't rare and you should be able to find a replacement without difficulty.

No, that's not what we meant Chris. What we meant was clicking the Edit button while it's still there, but not getting the edit to submit properly. It's borked somehow.

Me too. I've given up trying to Edit posts, it just doesn't seem to work

I'm sure that's right, but it's also true that once a coin is out of the set, it can 'degrade' quite quickly to the appearance of ordinary BU currency (unlike real proofs). I've had coins pass through my hands that came from sets (i.e. 'set only' dates), yet were quite impossible to tell apart from a 'normal' coin.

I've heard one theory that it is due to grease blocking the die detail. This will not compress when the die is used if an airtight seal is formed and so the design is either non-existent or only weakly struck up. I have a few pieces like this. Interesting. In which case, the error either survived only for a single strike and was missed by inspectors, or maybe there are more of each out there somewhere. As I say - it is ironic that if there were a number of identical coins they would have a high rarity value, but singletons do not. Though I think there was a time that unique misstrikes would fetch decent(ish) sums at the right auctions (maybe into 3 figures sometimes?).

Hi - those two pictures are way out of focus, but enough survives for me to see an underlying copper tint in parts of them. So my conclusion would be that this is a regular 2p coin that has been silver-washed or chromed. Keep it as a curio but if it is indeed a regular strike then it has no value above face.

Good point - let's not forget that the 1950 and 1951 pennies were probably the most over-hyped "rarities" of the 60s. I had a look back at 1970 prices for them, and they have no way kept pace with inflation. In fact they are currently not even double the 1970 prices. I predict the 20p will go the same way, only even quicker

I'm not sure that's entirely valid - if it's not a proof then by definition it's a currency (albeit 'specimen'). However, I would take the "highly polished" with a pinch of salt myself. I think that's the Royal Mint selling to complete lay people who would be more impressed with the phrase "highly polished" than "brilliant uncirculated". They wouldn't actually be polished or they couldn't sell any sets to genuine collectors. And don't forget that brand newly minted coins in change these days often have a highly mirrored finish, in contrast to the (to my mind superior) 'satin' finish you got in the late 60s. I think if you broke up a Baby set and stored the coins separately, no-one would be any the wiser in years to come. It's like the 1985 50p - no-one cares if it's from the set, or a genuine currency coin. They're all scarce.

Interesting mistrike. It looks as though the die has rotated slightly, or else the blank-and-collar has, giving an offset strike. Never seen that on a 20p before.

It looks genuine enough. Definitely worth keeping as a curiosity. My bet (hunch) is that it was struck on an unmilled (?Commonwealth) blank.

It's unlikely to be a fake as a faker wouldn't miss off something so obvious as a milled edge. As its weight checks out, it may be a coin struck on the wrong blank, or else something went wrong with the collar during striking and it got overlooked by inspectors. (Guesswork really - do you have a picture?)

There was one yesterday (I kid you not), with a Buy It Now price of £1,200,000.00 - I made a Best Offer of 99p but for some reason it was refused The listing also contained such spiel as "the coin may be viewed at my solicitors, viewing by arrangement" and "you may meet me to pay and exchange for the coin at my solicitors"