Paddy

I hadn't realised GIV Crowns had got so high! This is my best, picked up about 15 years ago as part of an old family collection:

A nice selection! What dates on the Charles II and William III?

I was fortunate enough to pick up mine before the prices went completely crazy:

I had a very similar experience in about 2018. I spent best part of £1k on a huge collection of 50p, £1s and £2s with multiple duplicates. The scarcer pieces sold fairly easily - one Kew Gardens and a handful of Jemima Puddleducks, some of the £2 coins. The rest became a millstone around my neck and I ended up taking the bulk of them to the Post Office in 2023 at face value. Hence my advice above.

There are four approaches I can see: 1. Break it up and sell it in single lots or small groups on Ebay. This requires quite a lot of effort on your part and will take some time, but gives you the best chance of recouping your investment, or even making a profit. The Coin cases and storage materials my do best. 2. Sell it through a local auction house who will break it down into maybe a handful of lots. It will be bought by dealers, who will break it down and sell to private collectors to make a margin. (Collectors don't generally buy bulk lots at auction.) By the time you have allowed for auction commissions and dealer's profit margins you will be lucky if you get face value for the coins. 3. Find a dealer who is interested and do a direct deal. The price will still not be great but at least you take the auction house commission out of the equation. 4. Sell the best pieces - some individual coins and the storage material - on Ebay and take the rest to the Post Office at face value. It sounds brutal but you will save yourself a lot of effort and end up with broadly the same as options 2 and 3. You have to look at it as making the rewards from enjoying the collecting process rather than profit. Sorry if that all sounds a bit disappointing but I think it is a realistic answer.

Those are much better pics - well done. As to the original question - whether it has been cleaned - still seems unresolved. I can see no hairline scratches, but it may well have been dipped at some point. It has some wear, so short of the higher grades but very presentable. I am not sure what one would dip Nickel in. It stays so bright anyway, I'm not sure it is necessary...?

Acetone is very expensive from chemists! Try Ebay/Amazon or some hardware stores. Don't use the Nail Polish remover, which is Acetone based but has other chemicals added.

I think it depends a bit on your mindset. I get more pleasure out of filling a gap in a difficult date run with a reasonable example than I do from picking up a common coin in Unc.

Not a file format my Windows machine can recognise. Is it possible to convert it to jpg or something similar?

I think you need to Scale your image down rather than just crop it, so we can see the whole coin. As to whether that Nickel has been cleaned - difficult to say from that pic. It would not be surprising if it has. There is quite a lot of wear, but equally Nickel doesn't tarnish so the surfaces are likely to remain quite bright.

You need to ensure the photos total no more than 500Kb per post. You may need to acquire a suitable photo editor to achieve this - On Windows machines Photoscape, which is free, is a good option and the one I use. Also, once you have posted a picture in a particular thread, the system remembers that and won't let you post another straight away. Simply come out of the thread and back in and it should then let you.

Tins are very tricky! I have a few, but most are near impossible to make out from photos. This is probably my best farthing 1684:

Welcome to the forum! Storing a growing collection is always a headache and largely done to personal preference. I have a very similar target collection to yours and have kept mine in a growing number of the WH Smith's "Magpie" albums, which are reasonably cheap and secure. The double action ensures coins do not slip out, and the plastic is coin safe. They are not good for display and the folders gradually fail under the weight of coins. The range of Lindner coin trays are another alternative. They are good for display and very adaptable, but each tray is expensive. Many new collectors start with coin flips and long boxes, which is simple and practical, but viewing your coins becomes tedious. Traditionally the serious collector would use the custom made coin cabinets. Others may be able to point you to current suppliers, or you can keep an eye on the auctions. These are much better for display and the cabinets look appealing, but the coins are more open to the environment, and they can become inflexible as your collection expands. Of course if you are following the American trend towards graded and encapsulated coins, you need an entirely different approach and I have no idea how they tackle that. P

I'd say definitely 1735. This is what the 1733 date looks like:

I am pleased to discover how scarce the Farthing is too! I have this one in my collection. No idea when or where I picked it up.

I think all these alterations add to the history. A plug means someone thought it interesting enough to use as a medallion or touch piece, then someone later felt it was interesting enough to repair. Engravings are often love tokens or claims to ownership. A split or fragment means it has been in the ground for some time. I think that is why I find perfect proof coins a bit dull.

I guess most "serious" collectors would avoid plugged coins, or any other damage. But if that is the only way you can fill a gap within budget, then go for it! I have a number of damaged coins in my collection - some with engravings in the field, some ex-mount, some hammered even missing fragments, but they will fill the gaps until and unless I can afford to replace them with something better. Here, for example, is my William I penny. I would love to have one without the missing chunk, but until one comes along at a price I am happy with, it will stay with me. Your Henry VII, by the way, is a lovely example apart from the plug.

Ah, apologies, my pre-conceptions. I saw the profile portrait, which looked a lot like the Edward the Confessor design, but I now see there are William I coins with a similar portrait.

Just seen this on the BBC website. First picture is too distant, but further down is a closer shot of what seem to be mainly Edward Confessor coins, if I have got it right? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c623g74zj6vo

Although they are nice enough examples as they are, I don't think they would set the world alight in any of the specialist coin auctions. They would probably want to list them as one or two job lots to be picked up by the dealers. Your best chance of making the most is probably Ebay. Prices to be determined by researching previous sales there. At least you have the D&H numbers, so any private collectors will pick up on the ones they want.

There is a lot to unpick there! First to cover off the non-tokens - the halfpennies and farthings - these are all covered adequately in the usual "Coins of England and the United Kingdom" reference book. Nothing listed in your selection looks massively scarce and value will depend largely on condition. The Gaming tokens generally have very little value. They were made mostly during Victoria's reign as nostalgic mementoes. The regional tokens are the interesting pieces. D&H refers to the Dalton and Hamer "Provincial Token Coinage of the 18th Century" series of books and reference numbers printed in the early 20th century. These numbers were repeated in "The Token Book" printed by Galata in 2010, which is probably the easiest reference to get hold of now. I have not the time to go through and check the rarity of all the tokens listed, and value will vary enormously depending on condition. Looks like the good basis for starting a collection, and you probably need to acquire or borrow the reference book to progress.

That should do you fine. Unlike Pennies, I don't think there are that many single denomination collectors for shillings. By the way, I would extend your range just a little, to the start of the milled shillings in 1662 (barring the very scarce Cromwell issues in the 1650s). Quite a few of the 17th century shillings are fairly reasonably priced and this gives you the opportunity to add a few more monarchs to the run. Shillings from 1696 and 1697 are fairly plentiful, as are some of the Charles II dates in the 1660s to 1680s.

I don't know of a book just on shillings - maybe others do? A good starting point would be the usual "Coins of England & the United Kingdom" which comes out every year, but you only need to update occasionally. This is equivalent to the US Red Book. If you want to get more specialised "English Silver Coinage" by Maurice Bull is probably best, but only really necessary if you are going into all the varieties.

I remember a documentary in the 1960s showing the young royals preparing for Christmas decorating a tree. Anne was up a ladder and Andrew was trying to climb up with her. She turned on him and ordered "Geroutovit!" loudly. She obviously spotted a wrong'un early on!

That explains why I am not seeing any in circulation! I no longer do sets or proofs, so it looks like 2024 will remain a blank year for me.