Coinery

There's not a bag of them but about 25 of them were struck (forged) during that period in the 70's/80's by the same person(s)....who, I am told, is alledgedly still around. Do you know why he did not make more? If he could make such good fakes in the 70's / 80's, then I dread to think what will happen in 50 years time. Nothing given he should be pushing up the daisies I didn't mean him, but what forgers in gerneral can do in the future. What worry me is that one day, forgeries will be so good that they can no longer be distinguished from the real thing by visual inspection or weight. Then will all rare coins have to be sold in "slabs" after expensive analysis have been done in labs? Scary! Bear in mind that a few years ago, people were willing to pay a few hundred for a superbly done silver proof repro of a Gothic Crown. Maybe that is the future - affordable repros for those who can't afford originals? Better by far than fakes IMO. Ikea and others have made a fortune selling Picasso prints!

There's not a bag of them but about 25 of them were struck (forged) during that period in the 70's/80's by the same person(s)....who, I am told, is alledgedly still around. Do you know why he did not make more? If he could make such good fakes in the 70's / 80's, then I dread to think what will happen in 50 years time. Nothing given he should be pushing up the daisies I didn't mean him, but what forgers in gerneral can do in the future. What worry me is that one day, forgeries will be so good that they can no longer be distinguished from the real thing by visual inspection or weight. Then will all rare coins have to be sold in "slabs" after expensive analysis have been done in labs? Scary! As Rob has said that is where provenance is going to play a major part in putting minds at rest on un-slabbed coins. AND the slabbed! I'm really surprised they're not on that bandwagon already!

My wife did a lot of that before the birth of 'the boy'! I prefer the outdoor version, climbing trees with a chainsaw. just for the pleasure, I did recently scale an oak to see how many eggs our local buzzard had laid! In truth, I'm already too old, took me a week to recover from the abdominal and forearm grazes...oh, and to stop shaking, of course!

The best place to snaffle a sovereign is in the peripheral auction houses that sell a few antiques and a bit of jewellery, etc. UNC sovs go for the same price as fine most of the time, bought only at bullion value (which is in favour of the collector right now) by non coinies!

To truly KNOW a dipped coin, I believe you have to have dipped a few yourself, if only as an experiment! The Goddard's Silver Dip, so often talked about on here, is available even in the most basic of hardware stores! I really recommend dipping a dozen junk coins, .925, .500, even CuNi, and see what happens! Even leave an example in for 20 mins, and then look at it...the mystery of dipped coins will be revealed in a simple half-hour tinker! Really worth the £4 for the dip, and the fiver's worth of coins!

Depends on which side of the coin they wanted to display? Could have been included into a charm bracelet, brooch, etc, doesn't necessarily mean a pendant was its purpose! I have had endless holed hammereds, where it is the greatest irritation to find the hole doesn't pleasingly align for a necklace.

Ah I see, so by soldered fixing they mean welded. Closer to the process of welding than lead soldering, closer still to brazing! The silver solder is designed to melt only fractionally ahead of the silver item itself. I'm no expert on silver soldering, but I have soldered a couple of split-ring findings in the past. Overcook the heat by the tiniest amount, and the whole thing becomes a molten blob!

If it was some sort of soldered fixing, it would have been added using a jewellers blow torch, you can't silver-solder with a soldering iron...it will have alloyed with the milling, if it's solder. It does look ex-mount, jewellery piece of some sort to me!

That's a filed solder blob, surely?

Oi. What about the halfpenny and farthing? Both point to the N with the farthing marginally closer to the centre. So we can categorically state that pennies are the oddballs. Nothing new there then. The red rag is a flyin'!

There's no VAT on books, so import duty? Wasn't aware of that and certainly hasn't happened to me before. I think somebody else on here said that! It was 4 horological books from the US!

I'd say you've earned, at the very least, a token visit to your site. I did have to do this in 2 reads, though! edit: Royal Mail charged me a £9 handling fee on books!

Welcome aboard, MRD, it is indeed a fine forum, with a large world-wide audience. There are people active on here, pretty much 24/7. However, when there's not, there's always plenty of reading to be done while you're waiting! Since we have finally tamed the Scots, I suppose you can now call it GB, but ESC, Peck, and Wren, still have this strange notion that there is such a thing as an English coin! Uprising to follow shortly Welcome to the forum

Welcome aboard, MRD, it is indeed a fine forum, with a large world-wide audience. There are people active on here, pretty much 24/7. However, when there's not, there's always plenty of reading to be done while you're waiting! Since we have finally tamed the Scots, I suppose you can now call it GB, but ESC, Peck, and Wren, still have this strange notion that there is such a thing as an English coin!

I knew that was going to be a phwoar, even before clicking the link! Very nice, indeed!

Just for reference, a high grade example looks like this: I think you're leading him astray with your twopence, Peck A penny looks like this: Phwoarrr!

Its very scary....i suspect the Chinese have already sorted out the problems...the 1905 fake shillings are much easier to spot......personally I would avoid the 05 halfcrowns in high grade...even well known dealers have been fooled, believe me......stick to the 03 for the time being .. Apologies to all you techies out there....i am an old dog....still, I havent done too badly.....woof Please enlighten me. Altered dates are usually easy to spot but I wasn't aware that there were also copies. There was that 1905 shilling copy thread on here, where I posted up some big images of John's coin to view! Worth a look if you haven't seen it! I don't recall it, a search didn't find anything. http://www.predecimal.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6770&view=&hl=&fromsearch=1 It's not a bad copy! I'm sure some must exist without the bulging field 'blister' !

Its very scary....i suspect the Chinese have already sorted out the problems...the 1905 fake shillings are much easier to spot......personally I would avoid the 05 halfcrowns in high grade...even well known dealers have been fooled, believe me......stick to the 03 for the time being .. Apologies to all you techies out there....i am an old dog....still, I havent done too badly.....woof Please enlighten me. Altered dates are usually easy to spot but I wasn't aware that there were also copies. There was that 1905 shilling copy thread on here, where I posted up some big images of John's coin to view! Worth a look if you haven't seen it!

Crickey, no wonder you hit the road, Declan!

Yes, just a couple of quid, I'm afraid. I'd say keep it in your wallet as a talking piece, it's not everyone who finds a 200+ year-old artefact at work!

I know nothing at all about decimal coinage, but an undated £2 coin is likely to be of great interest, can you put any pictures up?

Its very scary....i suspect the Chinese have already sorted out the problems...the 1905 fake shillings are much easier to spot......personally I would avoid the 05 halfcrowns in high grade...even well known dealers have been fooled, believe me......stick to the 03 for the time being .. Apologies to all you techies out there....i am an old dog....still, I havent done too badly.....woof What's the weight of your's, Colin?

I use the 2x2 adhesive flips with windows, and keep the flips in little A5 Numis wallets, which have 6 2x2 slots per page. It really suits me, and a great 'read' in bed!

I've sure Dave will be able to add, based loosely on book sales, but how many micro-variety collectors do you think there are out there? I'm guessing the micro-gurus, Nick, Declan, Bob, & VS, could also have some ideas based upon their sense of competition for the coins? I'm speculating here, but I'm presuming the 20th century collectors are all using the DG Bible as their reference, with it being Davies and a bit more? I personally stop at the D numbers at present, but I do wonder at the rate of expansion into the Groom field?

I stand corrected Dave - 1922 penny on ebay- meant to bid on this but forgot. Flaw on both neck and ear are in the same postion as those on the 1918KN but this is a different obverse die. Must conclude that this micro variety is in fact a result of clashed dies You're right. The attached overlay shows (although not very clearly) that the features line up, so must be a die clash. Really interesting thread! Good image, Nick! Edit: Could have been very easy to forget to reverse the Britannia image first, before overlaying!