Red Riley

I'd go with NEF/GVF but would need to see in hand first. In any event £166 is a reasonable price to pay, speaking personally I've never found them that hard to sell and have never sold one for less than or anything like £100.

I have my own website, sell on ebay and also occassionally at coin fairs. In addition I frequently have a table at a coin club meeting. 1) Website; useful thing to have but getting up the top of the tree is a nightmare which I still haven't perfected. Useful that my wife and son are both computer wonks as I wouldn't be able to sort out anything other than minor problems myself, but other than a coin club table probably the cheapest way to sell; 2) E-bay. Most of what I sell is 'buy-it-nows' as the auction format has a multitude of pitfalls - possible losing money on a deal or putting potential customers off with high reserves to protect your margin. However you sell, charges are horrendous which means that the stuff you put on needs to have a high inbuilt profit margin but despite all this it can work; 3) coin fairs. The difficulty I have as a comparatively new dealer is getting a table in the first place - long established dealers getting priority even if they turn up an hour late, have little to sell and leave an hour early. When I have got a table I have usually been able to make money, although on occassions it has been marginal if you take petrol etc. into account. So the answer is not straightforward but really you try to sell wherever and whenever you can.

You'd be very lucky to get it for less than £100.

It is the same photograph. So conceivably the American seller (whose price is about double what the English seller sold for) was so confident of winning that he put the coin up before he had won the English auction, but also possible that they were in cahoots although quite how this could be achieved is unclear. It is too distinctive, or even pig ugly, a coin to forge so can't see that there is any other explanation.

Quite agree Mr. Watch. I love football (OK we lost 6-0 last night...) and I love coins but I just don't buy combining the two. Mind you our centre half has got a head shaped like a 50p.

It looks almost as if the coin was picked out of a very shallow solution almost the consistency of treacle and then left without any attempt to dry it off by hand.

I seem to remember somebody on here (Scottish Money?) describing her as the 'Plasticine Princess' but Miss World she was not. I tend to admire portraits where accuracy has been the main criterion and as such the two portraits by de Saulles (Queen Victoria Old Head and Edward VII) are favourites of mine although due to its very intricate detail, the Edward VII portrait is problematic from a numismatic point of view. And whilst I admire the portraits of Victoria by William and Leonard Wyon, as I have said on here several times before they don't look anything like dumpy, chinless Victoria did in real life.

Could be that was the contact point at the bottom of the vessel in which the coin was being toned.

Behave!

And not only proofs. The 1818-20 currency crowns received multiple strikes and were sent to banks wrapped in tissue paper.

Yes I do remember those. Ours were QE2 and all dated 1953 but (this was pre-1961) I had never actually seen a Queen Elizabeth penny, so it certainly roused the curiosity of this mixed infant as to whether they actually existed.

London, but I'm an ex-pat...

What you do with them really does depend on how much verdigris. Tiny spots can be removed mechanically but from my point of view a coin encrusted with the stuff just isn't worth the candle.

Hi Debbie, There are a wealth of nicknames for old money, some of them regional. for example the sixpence or tanner was known where I come from as a 'sprazie', Derivation is from the rhyming slang, 'Sprazie Anna' I'll leave it up to your imagination as to what a sprazie was and how it became associated with a sixpence... Shillings were a 'bob', silver groats and threepences, 'joeys' and Londoners would usually refer to five shillings as a 'dollar'. Don't forget also that pre-decimal halfpennies were invariably pronounced as 'hay-pnee' and 1 1/2d as three-'aypence. You would get very odd looks if you pronounced them as they were written!

Every megapixel is sacred. Don't waste 'em. Wear on her plait is what we're looking for here and the lions/harp show wear on the reverse. Good strike though as frequently the lions are pretty poorly defined. I would micrograde and go NEF-EF. If Victoria really had looked like that she would have had all the crowned heads of Europe forming a disorderly queue outside Buckingham Palace. By all aqccounts though (mostly her own), she made up in enthusiasm for what she lacked in star quality. Her diary entry concerning her wedding night is very revealing... Sorry to be so un-PC but it is Christmas!

From what I can see probably around fine but the hole decimates the value. Maybe a fiver?

And unsurprisingly always very large...

Should be getting mine for Christmas but these days it's like giving a rat to a rat catcher...

As you say, nigh on impossible to judge the obverse but the reverse is certainly 'fine'. With the obverse, get rid of cellophane (I would never suggest photographing with it on) and using natural light tilt the coin at a slight angle; using a macro lens some of it may go out of focus but concentrate on getting the head in focus. Alternatively you could use a standard lens and shop the result. Even using a tripod I find it a nightmare getting any detail on Ed VII/George V effigies.

Oh, is that what it is. I thought it was tarmac.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across all preachy but that's just the way I do it. In hard cash terms I would expect to get that for around 'fair' money and then hope I didn't need to sell it in a hurry. As regards grading hammered - that's a black art to me!

Do you mind if I have a dig at this one? I'll get in first so I can reflect on any other grading suggestions to follow. I'd personally go with fine/good fine, probably pulling the whole thing back to a fine overall, in view of the obverse scratch, and the reverse 'stain'. So I'm going for 'fine'. I'll watch out the other opinions with the greatest of interest. Put yourself in the position of a collector buying blind. Would you prefer 'Fine' or 'F/GF. Scratch on obverse, stain on reverse'? In my opinion, you mention damage rather than attempt to grade it. I would have to say I have given the obverse the benefit of the doubt as the picture leaves something to be desired and that (recent?) scratch would be the killer for me. As Rob has said, this is one where a bit of blue baize would be a better contribution to the collection.

Actually a fairly common coin but definitely one for the scrapper.

Frugal Victorians Peter. You also have to remember that they were striking for currency users not us poor coin collectors. Basically, if it hadn't flown to bits it was still serviceable. How many Victorian (and earlier) coins have you seen with great die cracks running across them. Its days were numbered but if it could still produce a few more coins then they just kept banging away. Nowadays labour represents a high percentage of a manufacturers cost but then it was cheap, so better to pay someone a pittance to recut a die rather than throw it away and start on a new one.

NVF looks reasonable (although I can't reaaly see enough detail on the obverse to be certain) and as you guessed has probably been dipped. Personally I dislike the treatment but it has to be admitted that it doesn't affect the price as much as it used to, for the simple reason that more and more coins are being dipped and acquiring one in its original form is becoming increasingly difficult. If you were selling that coin, you should really describe it as 'NVF, probably dipped' or similar but sadly, fewer and fewer people will make mention of the dipping.