Accumulator

As far as I can judge, you are quite correct. That sad and sorry specimen is indeed the Gouby X or hollow neck type. In that condition for wear, worth £30 -£40 based on recent sales. As it is, well £0.99 looks about right if you can live with it. The hollow neck is no longer the infallible predictor we worked out (see long thread in the Varieties sub-forum) : i.e. ALL Gouby X's have a hollow neck, but not all hollow necks are GX's. The I in BRITT is the only cast-iron guarantee. Very true about the 'hollow neck', but this penny clearly has the I of BRITT to a tooth unfortunately. What a waste! I've bid 99p just to say I've got one.

Not a laugh at all.... Please, please tell me this poor sandpapered penny isn't the Gouby X that I'm looking for! Even for 99p I think I'd rather keep an empty slot in my coin tray! :(

"Mint error"

You're right... There's a sleeper in the lot and I never even noticed!

It's tempting to bid 20p for the coin and probably win the auction. Postage will cost him 46p (new rates from Monday). Having received the coin demand that he sends you the tea-towel because it's in the photo and therefore you assumed it was included. Otherwise you'll leave very negative feedback! Point made, and he's well out of pocket! A bit of fun too

Ok here goes, what I have as my F192A. I've shown another 1922 in similar condition for comparison purposes. Freeman has it as rarity R18. There are several differences from the common F192, but the easiest to spot are: Centre prong of trident below a border tooth, not touching it Shield closer to Britannia (so further from edge of coin and more sea showing) Britannia's thumb higher up the George Cross The lower edge of Britannia's outstretched arm curves upwards (instead of downwards) from her body This is a penny I found amongst many old slot machine coins I searched, so not something I have paid for (well one penny, I suppose). I'm posting to ask whether others believe it's really as rare as Freeman states? Any comments or comparative info much appreciated. F192 on the left, F192A on the right.

P.s. I wonder how many of us check all the 1922's, 1911's, 1903's, 1908's etc. etc. on eBay? I doubt much gets through!

Sorry Dave, no luck this time. Notice it has border teeth rather than dots. This comparison of the shield and trident positions might help you...

"In good nick but needs a good clean" Actually it looks like the cleaning process has already been started. Maybe the seller ran out of Brillo pads? Anyway, the low £5 start price should see the bids rolling in.

Fantastic... Thank you!

"...but only if you're lucky" Apparently! Now here's a chance that must only come up once in every hundred lifetimes.... A roll of 2p coins I bought back in 1973 that seemed to have leaked!

Ok, I've established that I'm not completely mad anyway! I think that part of the confusion is in the different cataloguing by Freeman & Gouby. For 1908 it turns out that: Freeman Reverse 'C' = Gouby Reverse 'd' and Freeman Reverse 'D' = Gouby Reverse 'c' I appreciate that they use entirely different lettering systems but Freeman presumably believes his die 'C' was used first and die 'D' was a later correction of the alignment of 'E' in PENNY, whereas Gouby's system suggests otherwise.

I've been struggling with the various 1908 penny die combinations for a while and more than once found myself making an assessment, only to change it later. On a couple of occasions I have also queried another member's (Bronze & Copper Collector) opinion. I'm beginning to wonder if part of the problem is an error in Freeman's book? Without going through all the various combinations, and just focussing on the two reverses for the moment, we have: Reverse C - E of PENNY aligns more closely with the first N Reverse D - E of PENNY aligns more closely with the P According to Freeman, reverse D is significantly more common. Turning to VR Court's study, Freeman reverse D is called 'Reverse A' and Freeman reverse C is called 'Reverse B'. Here the latter is quoted as nearly 5 x more common, so the complete opposite to Freeman's assessment. Was this simply an error by Freeman in assessing rarity (unlikely) or has he actually mixed up the two reverses in his cataloguing? I'm beginning to wonder.

Have just realised that I may be reading VR Court's survey incorrectly.... his description of the 1908 reverses is not based on the orientation of the 'E' (as they were for 1905 and are in Freeman)but purely on the tail of the helmet plume, which on worn pennies is hard to determine! Perhaps I've been spending too long staring through the magnifying glass tonight and need a break!

It's HERE Gary.

As a lad in the pre-decimal late 60s/early 70s I used to collect anything old/unusual found in my change. At that time I would say there were virtually no 92.5% silver (i.e. pre 1920) coins in circulation and not that many pre 1947 (50% silver) coins either. Almost all 'silver' coins were from the 1950s & 60s. Bronze was a different matter.

I completely agree Peckris. The 'something not right' feeling for me, anyway, is the almost complete lack of marking or texture in the fields, compared to the obvious wear in the design. Presumably, in creating a die from an original coin the design wear would be replicated in a lack of die detail whereas tiny bag or handling marks in the fields would be flattened out. Nevertheless, it's much easier to spot these things with hindsight!

I'm still waiting for the 1920 penny, missing colon dot after IMP to be recognised for the valuable rarity that it is (although I do have 2 of them, so one ready to sell when it happens )

Very nice indeed. I recently scanned my two and was shocked at how poor they actually were, certainly not nearly as good as the one you show.

The DNW auction archive doesn't show photos unfortunately, so hard to make a comparison. Dave, describing your coin as "cleaned" would perhaps be a little harsh as the marking is relatively localised and only evident on the obverse. It looks more like someone has removed a stain in the past so perhaps "damaged" is a fairer description? As always, it depends if you're selling or buying!

Thanks Peck... Some more bedtime reading!

You sound like the sort of chap that, instead of going to PC World and buying a computer, goes to Radio Shack and buys a whole load of electronic bits which he strews around the room and proceeeds to 'breadboard' together with various odd lengths of wire and lots of crocodile clips. But I'm sure that's completely wrong!

If you do find the time, it would be greatly appreciated. Unfortunately all of my old magazines and several books have been thrown out over the years following the usual succession of house moves.

It's unfortunately true of so many 'hobby' magazines today. The emphasis seems to be on presentation and not content. Very rarely do they contain articles which require more than a few hours original research. 672,000 coins searched is a substantial undertaking and the writer fully deserved the goodies he found amongst them!

Is it one of these? I understand that such coins are not always delivered with the word "copy" as shown. If it's the size of an old halfpenny in 22k gold it would weigh around 12g.