Coinery

.

I have emailed him twice. The first time telling him it was a pewter replica. The 2nd time asking him why he hadn't added this to the listing. Reported to ebay who do diddly. I reported it this morning too! He's a 'top' seller with a lot of feedback, bet they ignore it! What really annoyed me about this one was the blatant 'what is it'? You mean he couldn't actually read ELIZABETH on the edge of the coin and, putting two and two together (ie the date), realise it probably isn't Elizabeth II? And another! 170906386505 please do add link please!

This idea might have some merit, so I will have a look later on. We know that punches existed at York to cut out a circle as the coinage is usually found without any flats except where the sheet was incorrectly positioned and the dies passed over the edge. These coins are usually centred on one side only with the other being slightly off-centre as a result of the dies not being in perfect alignment. In the case of Truro and Exeter coinage, it would appear from the coins which are frequently double struck that traditional methods were employed, but the use of a rocker press is not excluded as there are coins with a characteristic bow. The list of equipment seized in June 1646 gives 6 pairs of shears for clipping, 4 large and 2 small, so we know that the flans were trimmed at some point using shears. There is also a pair of tongs and a hammer for rounding listed. There is also 'one iron plate for nayling' (annealing) which would make the shears easier to use. The later undated crowns (C3-C7a) appear to be mostly round with only the following square examples in my images - C3 (4, 1 clipped), C6 (1), C7 (4) and C7a (1). There are a couple of hexagonal pieces too. The C7s account for nearly half the images I have of this type, but square flans as a percentage of the total C3-C7a (approx. 70) is no more than 15%. The 1644 dated crowns (C8-15) only have one or two at most that are square for any given type which equates to less than 10% (sample size approx.100), the rest are nominally round, as are most of the 1645 pieces. This would date the angular pieces to earlier in the period, or in very busy periods. It is possible the nine items listed as iron rings could be cutters which would be used up to the end of operations. This could explain the improvement over time in shape. So many questions without answers. Cutting crown flans by hand, you'd need a good pair of tongs/pliers to hold them with! I don't think it would be physically possibly to cut a thick decently-round flan by hand, without much time-consuming nibbling, leaving hand-cut flans, providing the square was close in size, which we'd presume it to be, with at least a third/two-thirds section which was a credible curve ( depending on how conscientious the cutter was) and the remaining edges a struggling series of awkward cuts, for the reasons mentioned? What a subject, Rob, crikes!

Another variable, Rob, it that these are pretty chunky bits of silver to cut by hand. Forming curves would be near impossible at this thickness without grinding afterwards. Even cutting the thinnest aluminium sheet with modern cutting shears it is all but impossible to get them to form a curve, UNLESS the waste edge is very thin, namely, right against the edge of the sheet! I don't feel these coins would be cut entirely free-hand, wouldn't there be too many mistakes at apprentiship level to justify it? My thoughts would be a lightly stamped circle to cut around. Also, in view of the near-impossibility of cutting a curve with too thick a waste edge, I'd say the blanks were first squares cut as close to the maximum dimension of the coin, as is possible, and then a circle marked onto these (another point here is this would of course 'lead' the work and take away a lot of the individuality). My theory then is the circle would likely not always be perfectly centred on the square blank, namely, it could potentially be in a position where it already has one or two sides minutely breaching the edges of the blank. Where you find one 'longer' flat edge followed by a nice curve, it would be my proposal that the 'stamp' breached one edge of the blank, and was extremely close to the other, allowing the worker to follow the curve more easily, due to the easily bending away of the thin waste strip. Shorter, more arduos cuts, suggest there was a greater amount of waste between the 'curve' and the edge of the blank, and we would be talking millimetres here. I hope you can understand my thoughts? I did mentally put squares around each of your images, and thought the theory might hold water. Where there were short straight cuts, I presumed to find either a longer straight 'edge' on the opposite side, or a slight curvature, both indicating that the stamp was either perfectly against the edge of the square (curve on coin) or fractionally over (flat edge on coin) with the short cuts opposite being due to the thickness of waste, which couldn't easily be forced away by the shears to form curves. A perfect '50p' crown might indicate a nice centrally struck circle on the square flan...probably a pain in the arse for the cutters! If you consider any logic in the above ramblings, you could try drawing squares over the coins, using the proposed theory. If the squares all turned out the similar in size, it would add a little weight to the theory, maybe?

I like it because it's better balanced than most I've seen in that grade! Artistically speaking, it's rather appealing!

Welcome, Nicky, and congratulations on selecting one of the top forum on the web in which to make an entrance. You'll be glad to know you're not the only lady on board, so you'll no doubt get a big thumbs up from her at some point very soon too! Being honest and straight forward in life has won me more friends than ever has lost them, I admire your approach! So, once again, welcome aboard!

His 'bottom' was probably too (Christ, just had to edit and add an O to the to ) wide to fit inline on the screen, you can be so insensitive at times, Peck! Are you Dave in disguise??? That's me! Oche, Nooooooooo!

His 'bottom' was probably too (Christ, just had to edit and add an O to the to ) wide to fit inline on the screen, you can be so insensitive at times, Peck!

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 have bought some great bulk lots from W&W but I suppose it depends how you define the term - one was a collection of pennies from 1860 to 1967 many in high grade (buns average VF, though the only rarity was 1869 in Fair), an incomplete collection of halfcrowns from 1874 to 1967 many in high grade, and a collection of coins in flips in two coindex trays, some of which went into my own collection e.g. an EF 1797 penny. The point I'm making is that all three lots were obtained at considerably less than the total book price for the individual coins. On the other hand, if by 'bulk' you mean accumulations mostly in bags, then you do have to be careful. If there are one or two coins among them that you want, you're better advised to work out what you want to pay for those, and then add on top an amount for any bullion value, or if no silver then a notional amount to cover the remainder of the lot. If your bid fails, you can always note who wins it and approach them afterwards explaining you wanted a particular coin(s) and asking if they would sell to you. A genuine dealer might be perfectly willing to horse trade on that basis, and you can't lose anything by asking. I once missed a superb collection of farthings from 1860, all in minimum EF many UNC, but I'd also noticed that the 1915 was the rare one. So I found out who won it and left my phone number for them to call me. When I said I was only interested in the 1915, the dealer didn't know (or care) that it was a rare variety and I got it without any problem. Good tip re approaching winning bidders of lots - I'd been writing lost lots off as a bad cause! This happened to me at the last W&W, I was bidding on a couple of lots for specific coins I'd spotted in them...never occurred to me to hand a quick note to the winning bidder!

Don't forget, the shilling suffers from the same syndrome as pennies; those often show Britannia with barely any facial or breastplate details. With shillings it's the lion face e.g. nose. This has nothing to do with what's conventionally called a 'weak' strike (which would show an overall weakness), nor a worn die. It's entirely due to the fact that first series George V coins have a very deep portrait, very high relief, much more so than any other monarch in the milled era. Where the reverse is strong and detailed as with halfcrowns, this doesn't really affect things, but where the reverse has a shallow design and rims - as is the case especially with pennies, halfpennies, and shillings - the obverse 'sucks' metal from areas of the reverse and they don't fully strike up. Would this affect all the coins of a given year? If not, what sort of percentage are we talking about? I'm presuming, if the percentage of sharp strikes is small, that a GEF fully struck up would attract a higher premium than a weak UNC? Difficult question. In the case of pennies, it's rare indeed to see a fully struck up Britannia before 1921/22. And yes, it would affect if not all, then certainly the vast majority of strikes. It's worth noting that on the 'recessed ear' pennies of 1915/16, Britannia is usually fully struck up, indicating that the Mint were aware of the problem ('ghosting' was the main effect they wanted to eliminate) and tried experimenting. Would a fully struck up Britannia command a premium? Very hard to say. It might, for example, go along with a not fully struck up portrait with weak hair detail which would actually be more noticeable and have a negative effect on value. Some dates are notoriously bad - the reverses of 1917 sixpences are a case in point - and a good example would almost certainly attract more buyers. In general, eye appeal counts for a lot, so in any reign a sharp and attractive GEF would nearly always score over a weak UNC. It's also a factor that collectors get so used to a feature - e.g. a not fully struck up Britannia on Series 1 Geo V pennies - that they expect it, and it therefore doesn't affect the value. If only we could 'save' favourite threads on this forum! Thanks, peck!

Only 2 widths for 1898, but two different fonts for final 8 The variation just goes on and on for these coins, I often wonder how big a work it would be to finally get to the bottom of it? You've obviously got a significant collection, I think you, accumulator, and Declan should get together with numisdan and get the work done!

Don't forget, the shilling suffers from the same syndrome as pennies; those often show Britannia with barely any facial or breastplate details. With shillings it's the lion face e.g. nose. This has nothing to do with what's conventionally called a 'weak' strike (which would show an overall weakness), nor a worn die. It's entirely due to the fact that first series George V coins have a very deep portrait, very high relief, much more so than any other monarch in the milled era. Where the reverse is strong and detailed as with halfcrowns, this doesn't really affect things, but where the reverse has a shallow design and rims - as is the case especially with pennies, halfpennies, and shillings - the obverse 'sucks' metal from areas of the reverse and they don't fully strike up. Would this affect all the coins of a given year? If not, what sort of percentage are we talking about? I'm presuming, if the percentage of sharp strikes is small, that a GEF fully struck up would attract a higher premium than a weak UNC?

The bottom one is a manky scan, Coinery - do you think it'll work? Let's give it a go, nothing to loose if you're up for it? Just PMing you now!

If you exchange the word "f***ed" for "fine", then he is spot on! I was only sad to find a reverse image wasn't uploaded so I could see the "Greek shield nestling to her left" for myself! Saved himself 12p on an already wasted listing I suppose.

Do you have a link to your particular crowns on their site? That would save me a bit of legwork, especially as I don't normally use the CGS website, being a "non-slabber". Actually, a link to the most prooflike of your crowns would do. I just went there anyway, and you can't browse or search without being registered. What kind of cockamamie service is that? Most websites let you browse quite happily without registering first, only insisting on registration if you want to post comments or in their forums. I won't bother going back. I hate registering for a site and inventing yet another username and password, just to look. Pathetic. Rant over. Talking of rants, I'm forever banging on about the quality of TPGC's imagery, and CGS are as bad as the rest for that kind of thing (at least with the 20 or so coins I've had/got of their's) so I'm not that sure, with proof/proof-like qualities being the hardest thing to capture on pixels, that you'd get a great deal from seeing them, at least in the detail you'd be wanting to see them in to make a judgement? I'll have a look for you, they let me past the gate Divemaster, I don't suppose you've got any quality pre-slab pictures you could post?

Well, you're certainly amongst friends here if it's knowledge you're craving. There are plenty of extraordinarily generous people on here that are infinitely happy to part with their hard won findings to absolutely anyone and everyone. Your crown collection sounds absolutely amazing, how far back does it go?

There's no year which is generally a weak strike, but there are years when dies got overused so that towards the end of their life they produced weak strikes. This happened especially from 1915 - 1919. Also, the Type 2 obverse (1920 - 1926) is much shallower cut to reduce reverse ghosting, and therefore might mistakenly be thought by the inexperienced as weak strikes. Those latter years, the portrait wears much faster, and if you put an EF example alongside a VF Type 1 obverse, you wouldn't see much difference especially in hair detail. But that's due to redesign, not weak strike. From 1926 ME onwards, there isn't any notable weak strike, though as I've said, any well-used die will produce worse results than early strikes. The General Strike was in 1926 I have always taken the position that if the lions nose is missing it's worn not weak. Depends on whether you're buying or selling, Gary!

???????????

After weighing dozens of albeit low-grade Halfcrowns which I bought for scrap, I found they could vary from 12.75g to 14.20g in these lower grades. The point being that, and especially so with a larger coin, that circulation wear can have a surprising and significant impact on weight. Hope that helps!

You have to remember you bought this as a 'mixed' lot of coins in varying grades! Auction houses list bulk lots this way because they are (mostly) not worth listing singularly due to their faults or low value generally. If they were expected to go over every coin and describe it in its minutiae, they'd never get the auction ready, neither could they afford the cost for the tome that would inevitably be their auction catalogue. You've obviously learnt a great deal from this experience, and will likely do it differently next time. I think the expectation of the auction house is that you the bidder should be doing the legwork and sorting over the lots yourself. Hence, you really need to be there, and when looking through your 3rd batch of a 50-coin lot, you'll realise with cross eyes and a scrambled brain, why they sell them described as 'mixed lot in various grades'! Great thread, coinmerchant!

Yes, I agree! They all seem to be like that, regardless of spacing. The pictures in Michael Gouby's book suggest the same. I don't know, on Declan's pictures, the last 9 on his close-date doesn't look like it could be moved another micro-mil to the right without breaching a tooth, preliminary suggesting it might be a larger 9, maybe the punch that was used for the first 9 on the matrix. I agree the last 9 on the others is smaller, and logically so. I'm going to PM him and see what his images look like when overlapped with some transparency added...just for the fun, of course!

You'd have to take a perfectly flat image, get it on your PC and draw some lines...the longer the lines, the more clearly you might see any differences.

On the edge, rather than the rim, means it's even more likely to be an ex mount. Holes in the edge are obviously less detracting than on the rim. However, a mount's a mount, and they seem to 'annoy' some people more than others. Whether they can put up with it or not depends on how desperately they've been looking for that particular coin. Personally, I think I would prefer the gap, i'll let you know if I ever get close to that situation.

not a million miles from us, Coinery. twixt Stroud and Ciren, or Soiren as they say round 'ere I used to live in Coiren. Did you know there is an Old Ciren Facebook page? Just a thought. Me too, we keep overlapping Peck! See above

not a million miles from us, Coinery. twixt Stroud and Ciren, or Soiren as they say round 'ere A very nice part of the world! We spent a lot of last winter in Soirensestur, shooting back and forth to Saul, where our boat's being built! We probably passed you a dozen times! A good memory for me is walking through Cirencester Park into town, along that straight thoroughfare and through the gates into the old part of town, with 6 inches of snow on the ground! Amazing picture-postcard stuff!