DaveG38

Very true, '49! I am constantly struggling to find decent stuff on there these days. I like to stock up on commonish (not dirt common) 20th century stuf in high grade and I'm now finding myself forced back into the 40s, 50s and even 60s. Either that or drop my standards on grade, which I can't do. I'd much rather have nice common coins than older duffers. I'm an older duffer and I resent being rejected!!

Even straight from a mint bag - Churchill crowns seem to be a magnet for contact marks. Well, he's sold 3 already, so he's got his money back!!!

If you've got a 1686 then I'm interested.

if in acid i would have imagined the whole coin to be affected not just a liitle bit as shown. as acid makes a mess of anything Acid will affect all areas equally so the thin areas will go first, but you will retain a surprising amount of definition Putting a penny into concentrated nitric acid is a fun school "experiment". The copper gets oxidised leaving the steel penny behind. If done properly, you will end up with a very nice steel penny with the details of the coin preserved. If you are in a bit of a hurry and put a load of pennies in (with some on top of others), you often end up with patches of copper on the pennies. (However, poisonous brown fumes are produced in the process and it is not something to try at home!) Dinitrogen Tetroxide - N2O4

I wonder if anybody has ever bought or found a cut half and then found the other half at a later date. What odds on that I wonder.

You need to keep cats and lilies apart - the flower's pollen is poisonous to cats.

Blimey that's worth over £3K! My father-in-law took to collecting Royal Mint products for a while and subsequently gave them to me. This was one of the purchases. He gave me a good start at a date run of 20thC sovereigns as well. The only trouble is that I now find I need to keep all of them at the bank.

The only Piedfort I have is the 2004 Entente Cordiale crown in platinum - given to me - nice present!!

To me that engraving looks like the dreadnought the King George V, which is fitting given the coin and which side the engraving was done on.

I'd probably agree in most situations and for most coins. However, let's say I've just picked up an uncirculated 1854 sixpence, shilling or florin for a lowish price on account of the bloody great hole some idiot has drilled in it. I can either live with the hole or I can spend a modest amount to bring that coin back to almost newly minted condition. To be honest, I'd be tempted to have it repaired given the quality of the repair.

Would'nt like to lick it though I'm struggling to read the denomination on the Mercury coin. Can't wait for the Uranium and Plutonium. I wonder if you will be able to keep them at home. Probably keep getting EDF knocking on the door to see if they can borrow it. You wouldn't want to keep them in your pocket!

I believe the 2008 Britannia 50p is also difficult to find in change, although obviously no problem from a set. And of the Olympics 50ps there's obviously the underwater swimmer variety.

Love this one and its description.. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1820-KING-GEORGE-IVS-GREAT-BRITAIN-GOLD-FULL-SOVEREIGN-COIN-Very-Rare-/140874778522?pt=UK_Coins_BritishMilled_RL&hash=item20ccca879a Apparently its a 'genuine full sovereign. This coin may value more because might be error in dating. For genuine buyer only.' I'm so reassured by all those 'genuines'. I'm not sure what a non-genuine buyer looks like - any ideas anyone?

Declan, I've seen one or two in no better than fine condition, maybe poorer, so I reckon a few must have done the rounds for a while. One was a 1934!

Well the one on the left is obviously the raised nose wart variety and the one on the right is the cheek and neck tumour variety.

All I can add is that I got a 2011 shield type in change the other day. Are you sure the Edinburgh ones for sale on ebay aren't just recovered from breaking up sets?

How about this one for eye appeal? Reasonable grade though (I think?). http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280985751106&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:GB:1123

It would be quite fun to 'buy' it on ebay and then fail to pay, leaving the seller with a bill of 10% i.e. £152,100 for the ebay fees. Now that would be adding to the Greek debt crisis!! Joking aside (am I?), it looks to me as if this is either a counterfeit (the Jubilee head looks a bit rough) or this is a marriage of a hollowed out Jubilee head coin with an inserted George V 1918 reverse - looks like the India mintmark to me. Can I see a rather sharp looking line around the inner rim on the reverse? Taking a second look at the close up, there seems to be some white metal showing through in places, which possibly means its a fake, maybe like the ones I found a few years ago, which I reckon were made from depleted Uranium to give the correct weight. The 10% only applies to the 1st 750, so it would only cost $75 £75 Azda, Is that right? Drat and double drat.

It would be quite fun to 'buy' it on ebay and then fail to pay, leaving the seller with a bill of 10% i.e. £152,100 for the ebay fees. Now that would be adding to the Greek debt crisis!! Joking aside (am I?), it looks to me as if this is either a counterfeit (the Jubilee head looks a bit rough) or this is a marriage of a hollowed out Jubilee head coin with an inserted George V 1918 reverse - looks like the India mintmark to me. Can I see a rather sharp looking line around the inner rim on the reverse? Taking a second look at the close up, there seems to be some white metal showing through in places, which possibly means its a fake, maybe like the ones I found a few years ago, which I reckon were made from depleted Uranium to give the correct weight.

Thanks for the elucidation, Dave! I do agree there is a wide 'grey' area between variety and micro-variety which is nicely served by the middling term minor-variety! Can I just ask your own thoughts on the individual hammered dies, which all display clear legend differences (letter rotations, significant gaps, alignments etc), how would you describe them? I'm not sure if you're familiar with the work of BCW, but they have broken up the types into varieties using privy marks, busts, and the punches used for the major components (roses, LIS, lions, etc.), as well as major legend differences (HI/HIB, FR/FRA etc)! Do you think the next stage, moving into die identification, where there are still very clear differences seen easily with the naked eye, crosses into the 'minor' area, or are they a further extension of the major varieties? This could potentially extend the sixpence series into a thousand+ from what I'm seeing? Each would be clearly distinctive in hand, any thoughts? Coinery, When I produced my books I tried very hard to include all the known varieties so that there was a practical record of the various die types of the 20thC. This was made possible by the huge amount of material left from pre-decimal days to study, although even now there are new discoveries being made. To try and do the same for the hammered series would in my view be almost impossible. Maybe for a specific denomination and monarch it can be done, but to do so for the wide range of dies, striking forces, centralisations of flans etc. would be more than my lifetime's work I guess.

Personally, I regard the kind of varieties displayed by the 1957 halfpenny as appropriate to the category of 'minor varieties' as opposed to 'micro'. For what it's worth, I feel that the term 'micro' should be reserved for the genuinely microscopic differences that occur. At the risk of plugging my own book, here's my quote from the 'silver' one, which perfectly illustrates what I mean. 'Whilst researching this book, I came across an extraordinary design issue, which I had never heard of before, but which can be regarded as leading to micro-varieties (as if minor types are not enough!). In the Coin Monthly magazine of December 1977, there is an article by J.C.Rudge entitled ‘The 19 Varieties of the 1949 Shilling’, which talks about the successful prosecution of a Mr. James Steele of Edinburgh. This individual was found guilty of forging excellent quality florins, in part at least, because the Royal Mint were able to show that his coins, whilst superbly forged, had errors in the number of ‘nicks’ in the edge milling. Apparently, the Mint declined to provide information about this means of validating their coins on security grounds, suggesting that the number of nicks could be regarded as a kind of ‘mint mark’ in order to validate the year they were produced. In a feat of truly heroic study, J.C.Rudge set about analysing these nicks for the silver series i.e. the sixpence, shilling, florin and halfcrown (I’m not sure about crowns), publishing his results in the British Numismatic Journal for 1968. The 1977 Coin Monthly article concluded that the 1949 Shilling has at least 19 varieties based on the number of edge nicks. Multiply this typical figure by all the silver coin denominations and dates for the 20th Century and the number of micro-varieties based on the number of ‘nicks’ will be truly staggering.' In my view, the use of the term 'heroic' is entirely appropriate for the work done to establish these micro types, but as I say, I don't think it likely that anybody would want to try and collect them all. Now I've said this, I guess somebody on here will pop up and say that they've got a complete set of 1949 shillings!

looks like a william and mary tin halfpenny You are quite right. It is William and Mary and dates from 1690 to 1692. Sadly it isn't a 1689 as the busts are not the correct ones for this rarity.

its a lesson learnt for sure, but now with that knowledge, your better placed to bid in any future auction. dont dismiss auctions on the basis of 1 bad experience, by bidding on individual coins rather than bulk lots, you may fare better. ive never bought a bulk lot, ive had reasonable success with my bids on individual coins, i have returned 1 coin (in many lots)as i thought it wasnt of the grade the listing suggested and was given a full refund. maybe ask some help here on a piece and take another punt. ski I'd certainly echo what ski says about individual lots. I picked up my EF condition 1934 crown, together with EF examples of the other 1934 coins for £1900 plus fees, which is a hell of a bargain, given the going price for an EF 1934 crown alone. Also, my 1734 halfcrown in VF was well under the book price. So don't give up on general auctions, particularly where individual coins are concerned.

Along with a dozen hubcaps, 4 mobile phones, a sovereign ring and the keys to an Escort XR3. All in a sack marked 'Swag'. Surely the 'swag' bag is inside the XR3?

Anybody got a clue what's going on with the estimates for the next auction on the Croydon Coin Auction web site. There are either consistently incorrect descriptions or weird estimates. I know that estimates are often low and unrealistic, but these are mostly insanely unrealistic. For instance there's a 1937 Unc crown plus later crowns (the usual ones) estimated at £320 and immediately below it a 1683 sixpence in EF estimated at £60!!! Then there's a 1732 crown in AU estimated at £130 (wish I could buy at that price). Also a 1675 halfpenny in AF estimated at £130 following a similar date in AEF at £110. And so on. It's not just the odd coin either - there seem to be lots of inconsistencies throughout. Perhaps they've got a dyslexic typist.