Red Riley

'It's a fair cop guv, I done it all.' 'Really sir, I was only going to mention that your rear light is a little dim'. Hi Neil, nice to make your acquaintance.

A recent bulk lot yielded this oddity. At 9.31g it is a little lighter than a standard 1967 penny, although to be honest the difference is quite marginal - 'normal' pennies average out at around 9.4g and to all intents and purposes the diameter is the same. I had an off-metal strike a couple of years ago but in that case it was patently obvious that the flan was simply one from a regular florin/10P. This is different as I can't for the life of me work out what flan is being used. It has the same level of detail and is produced to pretty much the same standards as a bronze penny. The coin is actually slightly paler and more shiny than it appears in the photographs. Any ideas?

Looking up my Krause, the same Kenyan coin was also being minted in 1966 so could well be that. As I've said before, I don't think there's any subtext to these coins, just a mint worker threw the wrong blank into a hopper and hey presto! Interesting result nonetheless.

Nonetheless, Accrington Stanley don't throw up their hands in August and say 'waste of time, don't think we'll bother this year...'

Very interesting. Thanks for that, looks eminently plausible to me.

The bronze will need to be gone through and all the following pennies put to one side; 1922 1926 1950 1951 1953 1918 H & KN (these are distinguished by having a small H or KN to the left of the date) 1919 H & KN ( as above) With halfpennies there is only 1957 to worry about but as with 1922 and 1926 pennies they are not valuable per se but there are rare varieties which will need further investigation. If you find any, post pictures on here. Also any bronze pre say, 1962 with approaching full mint lustre. Also without going into too much detail, anything Victorian should be put to one side for further investigation - probably won't be valuable but you never know... Once all the pre-47 silver has been stripped out, dealers are likely to be thoroughly underwhelmed by what's left so you will no doubt have to do most of the sorting yourself.

I do remember the June coin. Not a particularly attractive specimen in the hand and in my opinion some way below Unc. I suppose if the relatively poor June penny went for £3k then a real corker should be worth £5k but it all seems a bit expensive to me.

How did we get from Jane Austin to Pink Floyd?

Summer evening birds are calling? A wee bit esoteric even for you Peck. I have a feeling 99% of people reading this won't have a clue what we're on about.

I'm not sure that's verdigris - it could be quite stable. Would definitely need inspecting in the hand before any valuation could be given and might actually benefit from some conserving, but it's a rare thing nonetheless.

The fact is that kids make up their own minds and it's long odds against them wanting to be coin collectors let alone collect the same thing as you. I know this from experience - my kids (grown up now) have no interest whatever in coins. Perhaps it's the way I brought them up, but no matter they do share my love of real ale...

Tumbleweed blowing through the desert...

The story I have heard gives a very good reason for them not coming to market until long after they were minted. May be apocryphal but the story goes that quite a number of the new brass threepenny bits were sent to vending machine manufacturers during 1936 for testing purposes and once this was completed they were supposed to be sent back. In the meantime of course the abdication crisis was going on eventually leading to all the coins made with Edward's head on being melted... except those in the hands of the vending machine manufacturers, who If they had their heads screwed on claimed to have lost them. Therefore, if the story is correct all Edward VIII threepences at large were effectively stolen from the mint. Would also explain why nearly all Edward VIII coins to have turned up have been threepences. Can't remember where I heard this...

This thread, as you say, doesn't seem to have progressed too far, so I'll throw my fourpenneth into the ring. Now I can understand that Jane Austen is one of our greatest novelists (although I've never read so much as a word she wrote) and if you ignore the obvious Queen Lizzie, women are under-represented on our currency. Trouble is that we really don't have a clue what she looked like - the only portraits surviving are by her sister who was to portraiture what I am to tae kwon do. So yes, it's nice to have England's Jane on our banknotes but I doubt if any of her contemporaries would recognize her.

Nonetheless, I think that estimate is likely to be very much on the conservative side. A 5-star rarity and imagine the kudos of having an Edward VIII in your collection!

Yes, I suppose the only odd thing is that the pictures on the Home page don't reflect what is for sale. Bit like going to a zoo expecting to see lions and tigers and discovering mice and shrews instead. I would say, it is a free zoo though! Personally can't believe it's anything other than genuine.

I agree, just a mistake. They happen...

Wonder if anybody remembers Ken King who used to have a stall down Portobello Road in the late 60s/early 70s. Always seemed to have a big stock but I've yet to come across anyone who remembers him. One of the more approachable dealers of his era.

I'd probably go with whichever showed more detail (probably the uncirculated one but I guess it depends). But I wouldn't be paying much more for it. But I'd probably go with sword's option of a VF rather than two that look Fine. I think this whole thing comes down to the ridiculous 'uncirculated' grade. I'm not actually sure, but I think when the grading system we now use started, God knows how long ago, the 'uncirculated' grade didn't exist for the very good reason that it is a grade which relies on a status rather than a condition and why have a grade which works on a fundamentally different premise to every other? Coins produced in some years are notorious for being poorly struck, a prime example being 1920 pennies - I've never seen one fully struck up on both sides and in the cold light of day the overall amount of detail is almost always less than a run of the mill 1922 (a particularly good year) in VF! Commercial considerations being what they are, a coin with no obvious wear will always be classed as uncirculated whereas graded on the overall level of detail it may well drop a grade or two. This leads to unsatisfactory quasi-grades such as 'about uncirculated for issue' which in the cold light of day is a total nonsense. OK, rant over. I feel better for that...

Can't be much more than 2 hours drive from your place. Straight up the A1 to the 614 roundabout, cut across to the M1 at jcn 31 and you are nearly there. Yes, but you still eat missionaries up there.

I agree with Peck, in these very low grades even rare coins aren't worth much. For a 1903 HC in a low grade, there is probably a range of £30-£150 from Good - Fine. Beware of edge knocks, dinks, scratches and graffiti too. If you are anything like me, you will get far more pleasure from owning an attractive coin, compared to a low grade rare date for the same price Yeeees, sort of agree. But collectors like to put together date runs and any run of 20th century halfcrowns is going to be limited by what grade of 1905 and to a lesser extent 1903 they can afford. When I was collecting I used to have mental limits below which I would not go; good honest wear was okay but blatant cleaning, damage or graffiti was definitely beyond the pale. It may not be a popular view but within those limits I would much rather have had a coin 'in the hole' rather than a glaring gap. It is always possible to upgrade and I used to find this one of the most satisfying aspects of collecting. Anyway, it would be nice to see a picture of spw's halfcrown. 'NVG' can cover a multitude of sins!

Don't think we ever got to the bottom of that did we? Some guy came on here and accused him of all sorts of stuff then got huffy when we took it with a pinch of salt. I do know Chris from auctions, coin fairs and the like and find this all hard to believe as he comes across as a perfectly reasonable guy, and the few professional dealings I have had with him have gone off without a hitch, although to be fair they were very few.

I agree (re the grade that is). The laurel leaves show only a small amount of wear but I wouldn't push it as far as EF. The problem with extremely conservative grading is that it pulls the entire grading system upwards and creates great chasms in the lesser grades. This has to come out somewhere and you may well end up with a 'fine' or whatever that covers three-quarters of the coins available!

I'd go along with John on this one, certainly better than NVF and actually looks quite a decent coin but bear in mind my normal rider about 'in the hand... etc.'

OK, here's my fourpenneth. The lower grade coin has particularly clean legend with no obvious evidence of re-cutting.