Coinery

I struggle to draw a stick man, Stuart! Not gonna be the new illustrator for Julia Donaldson then?

You might want to Pass in the link to coincommunity forum Peter of the 1864 florin, especially to andyg and Point out that its also from China and not some other foreign field. I know how he hates to be wrong, but this time we're right. I'd do it myself but the prix banned me for f all Barred! Well, Dave, you DO surprise me! You should be proud!

Someone got an art project on the go?

Just heard on the Classic FM news that Police in Connecticut have released a statement saying 'the man who shot 20 children MAY have had a personality disorder!'

Christ, it's really sad for the collector!

There are so many fakes on the Pre-decimal website that it makes me wonder whether Chris is the 'M' behind it all!

I agree and would also ask where did he get the coin from in the first instance, in essence it is an expensive grading lesson for the person who submitted the coin. It would be interesting to know what grade he was expecting it to come back at? I would also guess that Joe public will also now and then unwittingly find a coin in a draw, loft or somewhere else, and via the words google coin and authentication will end up at CGS. I have multiple queries most days from people who find a farthing of some sort and often expect that due to its age it must be worth a few bob!! I could see a few ropey coins making their way into the system that way Excellent point! Maybe that submitter thought he was sending off an UNC farthing? Maybe even bought it as an UNC?

Okay I will, thanks Dave, Stuart, Peter! I have laid out the princely sum of just under a tenner so far, so I don't feel I should have done it earlier!! I have about 10 books so far but none about hammered specifically ... Books are invaluable Stuart, especially if you intend to collect the subject. What we need though is a modern day book of fakes, i think that would be a best seller, outstripping even Harry Potter lol That would be even harder to keep up with than the new discoveries of the hammered farthing series! A dedicated web-resource would be good though! One that is actually useful, easy to navigate, and WORKS (that rules out the forgery network site IMO)!

Hear, hear...compliments of the season to you sword!

Me too, Sword!

You really should, Paul, it's only the price of 1 basic farthing! Also, you can't really collect hammered farthings using the Spink catalogue, you'd be missing out on so much! The way I look at buying coin books is this! You only have to single out 1 single rarity, and get to buy it at regular money, then the book pays for itself! I forget which coin it was now, but even my copy of the BMC exposed something that justified its purchase within a matter of months!

Wow! I hate London, but the above half makes me wish I lived there!

It's an ebay snipe! I will be pressing that dig out when I get a moment! Really pleased with it, it's much, much, richer in tone than the images show, I still haven't mastered that side of photography, yet! You really must get Tim's book, there are enough varieties in it to make for a really interesting and pretty hammered collection!

Like so? LOL Happy Christmas everyone! Ha, Ha, nice one gentlemen! Yes, and compliments of the season to you...we're inside the 12 days now, it's kind of official, ain't it! ROFL. Considering Christmas Day is the first of the 12 days, I'd say you're a bit premature! But I like what you've done to your avatar 9 chocolates to go, that's less than 12!

Bob C, known on here as "RLC35". "Bob C" is underneath all his posts. Debbie must have mistaken the 'R' in RLC, for Richard as opposed to Robert. Ahh, well happy birthday then, Bob!

Like so? LOL Happy Christmas everyone! Ha, Ha, nice one gentlemen! Yes, and compliments of the season to you...we're inside the 12 days now, it's kind of official, ain't it!

The 12 days of Christmas it is then! 'On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, a partridge and a Lennox E30c

Let's find out, then! Hope I'm not too late - but that looks like an obvious cast replica. I think you're 99% right, I'll let you know 100% very soon! This would be the first hammered sixpence I've seen, so worth having, if only to mark on my die template, against it's original, that 'crude copies are known to exist of this die'! I will be discussing a partial reimbursement in the likely event of a forgery exposure, or a return with full-reimbursement! After I've got it's vital stats and a nice picture, of course! So, there it is...a 1566 portcullis sixpence of Elizabeth is also 100% on the counterfeit list! I'd prefer to keep it, as long as I can renegotiate a price, otherwise back it goes! Camera's coming out tomorrow, so will put a few pictures up. Nothing to worry about for the hammered boys, this one is not going to catch anyone out! Nowhere near as convincing as the Mary groat. Next coin of interest is that Elizabeth milled sixpence, that one could stir it up a bit, though the obverse on it is a little corroded/pitted! The bugger's gone quiet on me, after saying 'sorry I don't allow returns,' so 'case open' it will have to be! Anyway, as I said, not that worrying a copy, though could entrap some if it was slightly more worn I guess?

What shocked me is that it was reported that he didn't have a Facebook page, as if that was a clear indication of a dangerous sociopath. Unbelievable. Absolutely bonkers, and very worrying what constitutes normal! You can hear the deep intake of air in the court room when they announce he didn't EVEN have a Facebook identity! Well, that's it confirmed, he CAN'T be functional, the Police were quite right to speculate he may not be normal after all! I wasn't sure, until they told me!

As others have said, we'd need a look at this coin to offer any opinions. You can link to photos directly by using a photohosting site like flickr or photobucket James. That way you are not restricted by the size limit that applies if you try to upload pics from your computer. Or if the coin is offered by a dealer or auction house, just link to the listing. You should however remember that NGC is an American company. That they have only graded one such coin as PL doesn't necessarily mean that it is rare in this condition or more desirable. US companies generally only get to see a fraction of the number of British coins available. And some of them appear to have little experience in this field upon which to base an opinion. So I suspect that their views will, for UK collectors at least, be much less important than how the coin looks and how individual collectors rate it compared to other examples they have seen. That's what I need, some colour in my avatar!

I'd personally like the term reserved for coins that are perfect from a collectors point of view for type, meaning also that a rich-toned (without blemishes) g3 copper could also be described as FDC, though it's obviously not as it left the mint, on account of its tarnish! I think bag marks should not be majorly present, if at all, separating it from its mint-brethren as a 'lucky' coin and, I guess that's it, it stands separate from all other coins! We know when we've seen them! I once had a toned G5 penny that I felt I could call FDC! I wish I'd kept it! Whether it's an E2 penny, or a James1 shilling, you know what a perfect one can look like! At J1 level, I'd romantically like to think that you might have no more than a dozen FDC examples for a variety and, at the E2 penny end, for it still to prove difficult to find an absolutely perfect coin (even from unopened mint rolls)! IMO Peck, I promise you I was still writing mine when you posted your's!

The 12 days of Christmas it is then! Since Tim's publication, the hammered coppers seem to be a market that is gathering momentum if you consider the number of collectors, but the prices don't seem to have been affected yet. It is quite bizarre because you will struggle to locate pieces at coin fairs (unless you go to Rob's table ). But the steady supply from the Thames seems to be satisfying demand at the moment. I don't know where Spink's get their prices from, we hardly see truck loads of farthings going through the big auctions? When we consistently get a gaggle of individuals all bidding for the better eBay pieces, we're going to see some good prices, but these won't be reflected in Spinks. I do think a catalogue of the quality and usability of Tim's is bound to gather momentum and drive the market! I wonder if we are seeing the beginning of the end of affordable high-grade hammered copper? After all, the Thames finds will slowly begin to dry up (I'm only presuming it's only the new 'affordable' breed of metal detectors that's made this mass of new finds available). These tiny little thins (sounds like an after-eight) are a miracle of nature. To find ANY old copper, especially buried copper (which is sometimes nearly as-struck in the case of the C&J1 farthings), in a condition that's really collectable, is quite a tall order. It amazes me the hammered farthings have stayed off the radar for so long. As Dave said, we really should fill our boots, it aint gonna be possible for very much longer. And as Peck said...'kept should've I mouth my shut!'

I saw that over there. I read about spittal and tinfoil on hammered.(Not to rub) What's a clad coin? Is it something an archaeologist pulls out of the wall of a 20thC house? Very good question, I hope I don't have one! Most of this "tissue test" comes from people in the US who coin-roll hunt, or who don't know if a foreign coin is silver or not. When opening up rolls of half-dollars to search for silver, there are 90% and 40% silver coins and coins that have no silver. When looking at the edges, its easy to tell if a coin is 90% silver or not because a 90% silver half dollar will be solid white. 40% silver coins look similar to coins with no silver in them, although they might look a bit "green". 40% halves were minted from 1965-1970 but there have been reports of some very rare wrong planchet errors dated 1971. The problem is, people flood forums anytime there is a funny looking 1971 edge and claim its a rare error worth $1K+ (I've never seen someone discover a 1971 on a 40% silver planchet despite reading 75 threads+ about it). Since apparently a lot of people in the US don't have a scale to weigh them, people have come up with the "tissue test" to help mitigate the flood of these false threads. Among US coin collectors, a non-silver coin is often called "clad" because US quarters/dimes dated 1965-present (and post-1970 halves) are copper-nickel clad. You can see the cladding on the edge where there will be the white stripe of nickel and the reddish-brown of copper. US collectors will also incorrectly refer to non-silver but non-clad coins (such as 99.9% nickel Canadian coins) as clad, and so in US coin forums clad just means non-silver. Even more confusingly 40% silver half dollars are correctly called silver-clad, but such a coin would not be called "clad" in a US forum. Really, the best test for circulated coins to tell if they are silver is the "sound test" (this is quite useful when rummaging through a dealer's "junk bin") copper-nickel coins will "ping" when dropped while silver will "clank" although the alloy does make a large difference (a sterling coin will sound different than a 40% or 50% silver coin). Of course this test isn't exactly recommended for expensive high grade coins! Forgot to mention, clad on eBay has a different meaning, generally meaning plated in order to deceive buyers with titles like: "1 Troy ounce .999 clad silver bar" which have 1 troy ounce of something like nickel or copper that is plated with pure silver. Wow! Many thanks for taking the trouble to clarify that, a really interesting read! I had absolutely no idea!

I saw that over there. I read about spittal and tinfoil on hammered.(Not to rub) What's a clad coin? Is it something an archaeologist pulls out of the wall of a 20thC house?

The 12 days of Christmas it is then!