davidrj

Spent most of my working life (as a histologist) working with these solvents and I'm still here, and I've worked with lots of things far nastier Wear gloves, use plastic forceps, use them outside or in a well ventilated area, avoid naked flames, and you'll be OK NB avoid nail varnish remover, can have unknown additives, my local pharmacy sell small (50ml) bottles of pure acetone, with is ample to soak a couple of coins in. Acetone evaporates quickly, so use a jar with a lid if you are planning on a soak rather than a quick dip Don't know where one would buy small quantities of xylene though, I used to buy it 25 litre drums, but if you do locate some ensure it is marked "sulphur free" if you are going any where near coins. David

Happy birthday each! David

Here's a weird one, joining an aluminium 5 franc to a bronze penny would be tricky, doesn't look like the nickel issue

recommended technique for coin handling? David

Think this one will always be rare as the spot will almost certainly be the first thing to wear away, so it will only be found in a small subset of high grade 1922 pennies. David

The second one is very low grade but rare, the French 10 centimes 1853K Bordeaux mint is a scarce coin with a mintage of just 1,268,672, this one has the rare error of a vertical vine leaf to the right of the date Here's my "normal" 1853K with a horizontal vine leaf

A couple of new foreign "pennies" Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) 1907 2½ cents, 31mm copper, mintage 3,000,000 very hard to find these in any grade better than VG with green gunge David

V dodgy provenance by all accounts Typical everyone knows except me, late to the party again !. Someone tell me please. Thread here

V dodgy provenance by all accounts

Nice find Bob! Did you pay a premium or was it sold as a standard 1922? The one in the James Workman Sale made £350 I assume it's a speck flaw like the 1897 O*NE David

Surely not! Much better quality than the early bun pennies David

Agree! A coin to me has to be a means of trade. Doesn't need to be legal tender, the test is whether it could ever be used or ws intended to be used in a transaction - such as tokens or jetons used for accounting, even communion pieces or theatre tickets I'll also accept proofs and patterns, if they are examples or prototypes of real coins Art medals are not coins. I wish cataloguers would confine such NCLT crap to the back of the book. Spinks take note! Krause are beginning to see sense, moving quite a bit to their "Unusual Coins" volume David (in grumpy old man mode)

Don't know of one, that's why I'm asking. One wonders whether some of the scarcer dies that appear for just one year and then disappear are in this category. eg pennies in 1897 and 1908 David

Not seen this one before, anyone know the mintage? Looks similar to the reverse die for the bimetallic trials David

If you look at his feedback, all his sales are similar modern crap

Congratulations! David

Ditto, I was also one of those spotty youths pestering bank counter staff I also pestered several of the local corner shops to save any bun pennies they got for me, they also started saving Australian , Irish, S African pennies for me as well, Liverpool being a major port in those days had lots of these in circulation David

My problem to a T, I've been accumulating pickies of rare coins and patterns for some time, it's only now when I consider sharing my researches do I realise I don't know where a lot were copied from Ta! yes I know some I have, have been sourced from here! your 1922 penny for example is one I would like to use please Others I need to redo are things like pennies from Cape of Good Hope, and some of the S.American patterns like this one David

They are Pyx pieces, internal mint tallies of numbers (actually tons) struck best reference is the detailed study by Michael Gouby here Rob posted a picture of his a while back. but can't remember which thread David

I collect pennies and similar coins from around the world The 30mm french bronze 10 centimes series which began 1853 was the model for the GB bronze pennies from 1860, plus a plethora of similar coins around the world who were signatories (or associates of) l'Union Latine . This was an attempt to standardise both gold and silver coins so that they would be interchangeable for trade across borders (a 19th Century version of the Euro). Many had a short lived attempt at standardising bronze also Britain and Germany did not join Interesting article here with photos of coins and unadopted patterns Surprised to see a single coin illustrated for the UK - a silver I franc piece For a better view, got to the link, click on the thumbnail, then click on larger thumbnail (couldn't capture a bigger picture) not my area of interest, but does anyone know anything about it? how many were minted A full article on L'union Latine can the found on wikipedia

Thanks Rob, was this a private pattern, or one by the royal mint in anticipation of the move to a decimal currency? I can imagine the outrage of the likes of the Daily Mail if the RM were now to mint a coin bearing the word EURO or FRANC David

sorry duplicate post

Chambers dictionary says "origin obscure" but defines quid as "pound sterling, formerly a guinea"

Hard to say, such items never appear in priced catalogues, but there is a market for numismatic curiosities and counterstruck coins Only the market on the day will tell you, if two people really want it .......... David

That's a classic case of acid bath (post-production, of course). Typically all the detail remains in a semi-ghostly form, but the planchet goes very very thin. Hmm, not sure - Stress lines on obverse might indicate a split flan