davidrj

This was listed on Ebay as a "tail only" penny The Obverse had obviously been machined out, but Britannia looked a little odd, so I decided to have a punt at £2.50 Poor Brittania has been stripped, no wonder Queen Victoria left the stage, obviously "not amused" Any one else got interesting altered coins to share here? David

Agreed - they're nothing like Wonder if it's a lurker of this forum, and read this thread? I think that is distinctly possible. Probably safer not to post anything unusual until you have the coin in hand. Mind you many non-numismatic Ebay sellers often do not understand we are interested in a specific coin, and use stock/library pictures. I've been caught this way, but not on anything of value. Nothing enough for me to get too upset bar an explanatory email to the seller.

Possibly true! If only our coins could talk I actually like the holed one, it's got character I have the same dichotomy between my two narrow date 1879s, one cleaned, one holed. Suppose in 50 yrs time whoever owns them; the cleaned ones will have retoned, but the others will be forever holy

Pity about the brassoed one, David. That would have been quite a decent specimen, otherwise. This was a $20 coin from US Ebay, just listed as 1875 penny and it does have the scarce obverse variety of reentered legend The other two came from circulation many years ago, still have bad feelings towards the guy who decided to drive a nail through a good penny! me too!

Here are my three all with major faults - a worn flat b very heavily brassoed c damn great hole

looks like 1 to me very odd

But it's just a big sculpture, albeit in gold Not a real coin in my view, unless you can go into a shop and spend it Just think how many real coins you could buy with that sort of money

Quite! This is the point missed by the grade chasers A circulated old coin has seen a lot of history I suppose that makes me an old romantic rather than an astute investor; but what the heck, I collect coins for fun

Thanks, that explains why there is no mention by Gouby

Interesting, but tragic story. Can you post some scans or are they all in grotty "as dug" condition?

These two must have taken hours of intricate work with a jewellers saw; why? ?apprentice pieces fake milling

Thanks, never bothered to get a later edition so hadn't realised they had been junked

I'm re-reading my 1966 version of Freeman's The Victorian Bronze Penny. He mentions veiled head pennies with milled edges:- 1896 5 out of 4943 1897 4 out of 4297 1898 1 out of 2971 1899 19 out of 5688 1900 15 out of 6901 1901 16 out of 4533 my 1970 edition of his The Bronze Coinage of Great Britain mentions just 1896 F144 R18 1899 F151 R18 1899 F152 R18 1901 F155 R18 Is there anything in his later additions? No mention to my recollection in either of Gouby's books I have a couple that are almost certainly fake - I'll dig them out and see if I can get a photograph Anyone here know the story behind these? did the coins get sold? were they all dismissed as altered?

I was there too!, buying 5/- blue bags of copper from the banks. my limited resources had major competition, both from dealers and Michael Freeman - by 1964 he had removed 18,363 bun pennies from circulation.

Yes it looked odd to me when I spotted it, convinced myself that it was normal and it was the capsule that made it look different. Be interested to see a scan when you get it. As far as I am aware no-one has reported any obverse die variations for the veiled heads, but i know there are in other denominations

There was a set issued by the Royal Mint when the bi metal £2 first came about,showing stages of the minting process, the final coin has 'Trial' on it, they were originally made to test vending machines, probably a set been broken apart to be sold, the set usually sells at around £20/30, where as the blanks fetch more as an 'error' Quite right. I've got a set and it has a sailing ship on the reverse and the queen's head on the obverse. It was dated 1994 and showed four stages of the production process for the £2 coin. interesting! never heard of these, but quick ebay search found this £2 trial piece , I'd quite like one, but not at that price

Way out of my price range!, intereting that there were only two bids

The 1860s in worn condition are nigh on impossible to correctly identify from poor photos, I've just won this one 1869 RB no idea which one, it will probably be Freeman 6, but then I've only gambled £4.86 plus postage

I think the 1860 may be Freeman 1 (Gouby BP1860D) , Beaded border with sea not crossing linear circle, no rock to left of lighthouse, thumb touches St George's cross. Not sure I would have shelled out that much without a better photo Don't think the 1861 caused any excitement

Just found this via Google design you own coins Do you think they could do a narrow 3 1863 penny for me?

to Offa's standard? 240 pence to 1lb Sterling silver at £12 per oz, 1d would be approx 80p

from Wikipedia:- Finnish businesses and banks have employed a method known as "Swedish rounding" when tallying sums. Due in large part to the inefficiency of producing and accepting the 1 cent and 2 cent coins, Finland has opted to remove these coins from general circulation in order to offset the cost involved in accepting them. While individual prices are still shown and summed up with € 0.01 precision, the total sum is then rounded to the nearest € 0.05 when paying with cash. Sums ending in € 0.01, € 0.02, € 0.06 and € 0.07 are rounded down to the nearest 5 cents; sums ending in € 0.03, € 0.04, € 0.08 and € 0.09 are rounded up to the nearest 5 cents. The 1 cent and 2 cent coins are legal tender and are still minted for collector sets as required by the EMU agreement. ************* So maybe the 1p's days are numbered. I agree with Peckris the penny has a far longer history than the pound, maybe we should rename the pound as a "New Penny" as the French did with the franc, don't tell UKIP though

All my 1p,2p & 5p go in the charity box on the sideboard, every little helps for lots of worthy causes

I still have my copy of Freeman's "Victorian Bronze Penny",and find the figures for the number of actual coins he had examined of each variety fascinating; somehow more relevant than "rarity ratings". I also have the first edition of his later volume. The descriptions and photos in Michael Gouby's books are much easier to use in my opinion, his new specialized edition is superb David