Accumulator

Only just noticed this post Derek. It's beginning to sound possible that this coin was part of Baldwin's stock, though being such a good example I'm surprised it didn't sell before they 'hoovered it up' (if that's what happened) or that it sat in their stock for a long time. Unless, of course, it became 'lost' in their basement for some years.

Right, I've got the catalogue for 20-21/6/1940. Lot 282 was 4 proof pennies, 1860 toothed and dotted borders, 1868 bronzed and plain. The provenance is George Wight. I don't have buyers, nor where it came from originally. If Wight was a Baldwins customer, then a good possibility would be ex Clarke-Thornhill, as his 1868 set (lot 842) was bought by Baldwins for stock. This lot was ex-Nobleman 378. As regards whose handwriting it is, there is nothing conclusive. The bold writing could be Fred Baldwin's based on the tenuous link of a slight upturn at the bottom of the 1, which would possibly make copper? either another Baldwin employee or Wight, or the buyer of lot 282. Depending on who wrote it, the ticket could refer to the first of the 1868s with the copper? written afterwards, but equally could refer to the second with someone questioning the bronzing compared to the first. I think we are looking at the difference between bronzed and bronze though in all probability, with the catalogue reference to plain meaning bronze. Unless a metal analysis was done it would be difficult to predict. Not sure if this takes you any further other than the provenance of Wight. Fantastic work again, Rob. Thank you! After trying the British Library and various other sources for the 1940 catalogue, I'd got as far as establishing that Spink had a copy. They offered to let me have a look next time I was passing, but I've not been in town since. The conclusion about the material being copper came from Mark Ras (based on the colouration and his experience), though, as you say, only a metal analysis could confirm it 100%.. The Wight provenance (with a possible Clark-Thornhill link) is a great start. It must have passed through a few hands since 1940, though. The search, as always, continues! Thanks again!

As VickySilver says, there seem to be various examples of 60's pennies struck in other metals. If your example is for sale, please let me know too? I have nothing in CN myself, but I do have a 66 penny in brass:

Which book did you read? It's in Spink and is a fairly common coin. Here's mine:

Gone The seller appeared to be brazening it out, so I doubt he de-listed it. I presume it was eBay, after all the complaints? If so, power to the community!

I had a bad day, so writing to this seller made me feel a lot better Not that I expect him to take any notice.

Both coins have a steely-grey colour, but I'm sure that's more to do with the photography than the toning of the coins. The CC coin is certainly approaching GEF, but the other I would place at the lower end of EF, judging by the wear to the high points.

The Payramid is one of the greatest machine's ever produced. Well done for getting one of those! Tony Clayton's site gives the dates and a few basic varieties, though he's done a great job overall, especially in finding some of the photos on his accompanying site. For more variety details you'd be best to get a copy of Michael Freeman's 'The Bronze Coinage of Great Britain'. I believe Tony has visited this site, though not on a regular basis.

Complete? Including the H's and KN's in GEF+?

Hi Alan, it's Steve not Peter. Peter collects lots of things but not slot machines, to my knowledge! Also, you're reply got lost in the quoted posts. Sometimes it's better to just add a fresh comment to the bottom of the thread. Anyway, unless you've been extremely thorough, you may well have missed something. Do you know what a 1903 'open 3' is? Or a 1908 1*+C? or a 1911 Gouby X? I doubt it! It might just be worth checking those pennies again once you've done some background reading I have an early Allwin, a Bryans Elevenses, a Bryans Clock, a 'Test Your Grip', a Bradley's Crusader and a vintage German jackpot machine.

Hi Alan, I also have a small collection of old penny slot machines (Allwins included!) and collect pennies. Some of my best finds were amongst old pennies that I purchased years ago for the machines, so you may be lucky! However, unless you find especially rare coins, those you have in less than pristine condition are unlikely to be worth much. Before bidding on eBay, or anywhere else for that matter, it's worth picking up a book or two and learning a little about grading and values. You could do a lot worse than read through a few threads on here to start you off. Good luck and thanks for joining us. How many of the 1927 rev 1922 pennies are extant, Steve? And do tell once again, for the benefit of Mr Allwin here, where you found it... I can't fail to respond to your introduction, Declan Having just mentioned this same coin in another thread I hesitate to bore anyone again but, for the benefit of a fellow slot machine collector, here's the story: I collected coins (especially pennies) as a boy but hadn't touched them for many years. About 20 years ago I started collecting penny slot machines, for which I eventually built a mini 'amusement arcade' that I took to my daughter's school each Christmas. Over the same period I had started to amass a fairly huge number of pennies, mainly for playing the machines. Many of these, taken at random, were handed out at the fairs at 10 for £1 and ended up back in the machines and taken home again. A fair few were pocketed as winnings, though, never to be seen again. Some years after I started attending the fairs, I decided to have a sort though the pennies (maybe 20,000 in all) just to see if there were any rarities I could add to my old collection. I did find a 1903, 'open 3' and a few less-common die pairings for other years but most of these were well-worn and valueless, as you might expect. One day I laid out all the 1922s, reverse side up, possibly a hundred or more of them, and was just scanning for any obvious differences, not even thinking about what I might find. Suddenly I noticed that one of the coins was markedly different from the others and, on top of that, was in particularly good condition. This was a penny that almost certainly been used on my machines. I pulled the coin out and did some checking, only to discover that this was an example of the ultra-rare 1922 rev of 1927 (Freeman 192A). Not only that, it was possibly the best example ever found! Ultra-rare means that perhaps 15 are known, worldwide, that a survey of pennies done in the seventies didn't find a single example in a couple of million searched, and that no example has appeared at auction for many years. So Alan, do check through your pennies, as everyone else should. You never know what you may find!

At the risk of boring all those that have seen it before, I wouldn't struggle to choose:

Hi Alan, I also have a small collection of old penny slot machines (Allwins included!) and collect pennies. Some of my best finds were amongst old pennies that I purchased years ago for the machines, so you may be lucky! However, unless you find especially rare coins, those you have in less than pristine condition are unlikely to be worth much. Before bidding on eBay, or anywhere else for that matter, it's worth picking up a book or two and learning a little about grading and values. You could do a lot worse than read through a few threads on here to start you off. Good luck and thanks for joining us.

Sorry I sold my spare copy 20 years ago for £60 Clearly someone got a bargain with the eBay copy for £46! Anyway, I've managed to locate a copy, but at a more hefty £120 (inc. carriage) so I'm happy.

Just picking up on something Bill Pugsley interestingly mentioned in another thread, and with which I agree. From a purely 'investment' point of view, coins appear to have comfortably outperformed stamps over the past 30 years. Two questions from me: 1. Is this true, and if so why? 2. Could whatever has caused a fall in stamp prices, eventually affect coin prices too?

Interesting penny! Although it's suffered more wear than you might expect from a coin that was removed from circulation after only a few years, I would guess it was afterwards carried as a memento and probably became worn from that. Also, one would imagine that the impact still did some damage, though certainly saving the victim from a great deal more if the bullet had penetrated! A real piece of history.

Likewise, I have some inherited ciggie cards too. I looked on eBay but am not going to get many coins for the money these will realise. If only they'd collected quality coins!

I do agree with you, and I still have the Penny Black bought with the money I made from selling my train set. I think it cost me about £9 in around 1970. I just checked and there are 1300 of them on eBay right now, most fetching no more than £100.

I noticed a couple of mis-attributions of 1908 pennies by London Coins at their auctions. The very rare F164A is relatively easy to recognise though, compared to the less-rare but difficult to find die pairings.

That's only true until you regard a (rare) coin as being part of our collective heritage. That coin will exist long after you have gone and, in a sense, you are only looking after it for a short time. Should you have the 'right' to deface it? Imagine the owner of a great painting doing the same and the understandable outcry that would ensue! Edit: just realised you weren't quite saying this, but the point was worth making I feel.

Taken to it's literal conclusion, the problem with that scenario is that the minimum currency available ~ and hence miminum price ~ would be £5, as there would be paper notes available, but no coins. True. But the way things are going, I could visualise a situation where the lower denominations gradually disappear. The penny is worth less than the 1/2p when it was demonetised, and who really finds much use for the 2p or even 5p now? The 10p probably has less buying power than 1p did in 1971. You see where this is going - small change will become too expensive to manufacture, and people will start to think in 10p or 20p units as the minimum. So revise my prediction to see the 10p or 20p as the smallest denomination in a generation. The cheque is to disappear, most people use plastic or online for much of their transactions, and it's not far-fetched to imagine that before too long, someone will come up with a working alternative to the Mondex experiment. Remember - pre-Euro, the Italians gave sweets as change rather than the worthless smallest lire denominations. And that was a long time ago, I remember it in the 70s! It must surely cost more than 1p to produce a (copper covered steel) penny already? I think you're right. it can't be long until the smallest practical unit of currency becomes the 10p and eventually, a £1.

Although there appears to be no H there, a bigger picture would help, there does appear to be a mark or disturbance where the H would be. My guess would be that there was an H there sometime in the past. I would completely agree. Even the downstroke of the '7' is feint near where the 'H' should be. It looks like a Freeman 89 to me.

I should have realised and bid higher! Oh well...

I have never met a 'perfect' person before and I do not think I have done so through this forum. I actually find your calling me a muppet very offensive - because that is what you have just done with your post. No offence made.It wasn't intended for you. Anyone who can afford over £20k in slabbing his collection has made their decision in how they want to collect.Each to their own. Think of the nice 1905 half crowns you could buy with over £24,000 (many coins cost £19.99 and some even more to get graded)! To try and add some balance to the expenditure some of the results of grading by CGS have to me been spectacular - not so much the grade achieved (although it helps if it is high) but the new varieties that they have identified in their process (yes, and they have got some wrong as well as previously noted). Anyone looking at the site may be interested to inspect the 1953 series which now has seven new types of the proof that are unrecorded in any of the traditional catalogues (farthing, halfpenny, threepence, sixpence, two one shillings, florin {this last rejected though}). The same set had a mule penny, one of three known proof halfcrowns of a new type and a VIP Proof Crown. Apart from the penny which was a fairly obvious variety, all the other coins could easily be mistaken for normal proofs with a modest value. Now I am not suggesting that the value of this set matches the cost of grading but if it ever came to selling it I am sure it would attract some buyers. Other coin collectors or dealers may have spotted the new types. Perhaps they would (will) be written up in Coin News or some other publication/website. What I do know is they are now on the CGS site with pictures so anyone registered to the site can compare them against their own coins. Bill, I'd be more than happy to re-imburse your costs of grading for the penny alone. Actually, quite a lot more!

I second that. Whatever our individual views on slabbing, Bill, you have come on here and argued your case in a most thorough and courteous manner.