FosseWay

Whether getting bags of coins from the bank is cheating isn't really the most important issue. Far more of a practical problem is the abysmal customer service in most of our banks and at the Post Office. My local PO has a sign explicitly stating "We cannot exchange coins or notes for cash." These days it is actually quite difficult to walk into a bank with a fiver and get a bag of silver. Heck, I couldn't even pay my own money into my own bank account the other week, because they'd only accept full bags of coins. I don't know why this country is so grumpy and misanthropic in this regard. In the US, where you'd have thought the capitalist ethos would have stamped on any process or service that doesn't yield profit, you can go into any bank and get rolls of quarters -- I do this every time I go there, to get the latest State Quarters.

I think I'm right in saying that the penny is the only decimal coin that has been minted in quantity for circulation every year since 1971, apart from 1972 when no circulation coins were minted at all. The reason we need so many new ones is precisely because they all end up in jars etc. While several people have commented that they put pennies in charity boxes or wait till they've got 100 and take them to the bank, I suspect this is not normal behaviour for the population at large, who will accumulate them in various places and probably not turn them out till they move house. On 'Swedish rounding': this is not uncommon. When I lived in Italy (pre-euro) what you paid at the checkout was rounded to the nearest 50 lire, although supermarket shelf prices were quoted to the nearest 5 lire. 10 lire coins did exist, but the only time I ever got some was when I went to the bank for my wages and for some arcane reason of bureaucracy had to draw it in two separate bits from two different counters. The division of the bits was such that I got five brand new BU 10 lire coins dated 1995! I believe the French used a similar idea to round to the nearest 5 centimes before the euro, as well.

I tried the ruler test -- thanks for that idea. The putative shilling comes out at notably heavier than the genuine sixpence, but not quite twice the weight (2 and a bit inches rather than 3).

Interesting about the size. I'd presumed it was a shilling as it's considerably bigger than any of the Elizabeth 6ds I've got, both genuine and potentially fake. But it's true that the coin I've scanned above is on a reasonably complete flan while some of the definite 6ds have bits missing round the edge. To avoid comparison with clipped coins, I've measured the diameter of the inner circle: on this coin, it's 21.5 mm, while on the supposedly fake 1593 6d it's 18 mm and on a definitely genuine 1565 6d, 17 mm. I realise these are all different issues, but would the 6d die vary so much in its design dimensions, rather than the dimensions of the flan? Weight -- unfortunately I have nothing accurate enough to weigh it. I'm far from convinced about the metal though. It's very friable and brittle (that crack across the middle could split at any time), and it's a brighter, yellower colour than the usual silver grey of 400+-year-old silver in not very good condition. It also makes a completely different noise when tapped.

I've attached what I hope is a clearer close-up of the date, in which the last digit to the naked eye looks like a flat-topped 8. I should also have mentioned its size -- it's 30 mm diameter, which AFAIK makes it more shilling-sized than sixpence-sized. It's also the same size more or less as yet another fake shilling I have, of James I, which has a mark of value to eliminate all doubt. Unfortunately I don't have a genuine Elizabeth I shilling to compare it to!

As promised, here is a scan of the 'shilling'. I have a 'sixpence' (dated 1593) made of the same very fragile metal and also with poor definition to the detail and a crease across it.

I may well be wrong, but the 'coin' I have has the feel of a contemporary forgery, not something done to fool collectors. For a start, someone forging to fool a collector would surely get blatantly obvious features right (wouldn't they?!). But in addition, the coin is in pretty bad condition. It's worn, creased to the extent that it will easily break in two if not handled carefully, and far from uniform in shape. In short, it's not in a condition that would particularly appeal to a collector for that series even if it were genuine. I'll try to remember to post a picture of it when I have time and I, the coin and the scanner are in the same place at the same time.

I'm quite surprised that anyone's gone to the trouble (albeit not much trouble, given the quality) of faking 20ps when £1s can't be that much more difficult but yield more profit. But then that's nothing new: in a bulk lot I acquired the other day was a lead 1908 1d forgery. It's also not new for forgers to be ignorant of numismatic details, as they are with the numerous mismatches between date, reverse and edge inscription on forged £1s. I have an, er, object that appears to be trying to be a 5th issue Elizabeth I shilling. As well as clearly not being made of silver, it has a date (1578), which unless I've misread Seaby it shouldn't have.