Red Riley

I'd be surprised if you found anybody on here that wanted to buy it Eduards, it just doesn't work that way. I would grade it slightly higher than Mat at perhaps NEF based purely on the photos and about £1000 but a coin is only worth what somebody is prepared to pay and I don't want it!

A sane price would be in the low thousands. It is what I call a genuine variety and should be sought after. I reckon the guy that went apeshit with his money last time is now satisfied and the market will return to normal levels, but if he's not... It's an interesting question why there were narrow and wide dates which occur every year from 1874 to 1879 (bar 1878), but of course the width of the date is only the tip of the iceberg with many other differences (e.g. thick/thin lighthouse) also in evidence. I don't know what the reasons behind this were, but if anybody knows I would be fascinated to learn.

Going off at a complete tangent, I inherited a lot of masonic paraphernalia from an uncle some years back including a book of complete gobbledygook. I took the latter to work to show to a known mason. It was gobbledygook to him as well, apparently he wasn't high enough up the hierarchy to understand a word of it. Shhh, they're all around us...

Interesting question. Given the current state of the market I would guesstimate well into six figures. If I could persuade the bank to help, I might even have a pop at £70k!

Very useful information Azda. This fits the bill for the type of forgery that would have appeared pre the current glut of Far Eastern fakes i.e. it is a key date in the series and is likely to be sought after. Many collectors would even turn a blind eye to its dubious origins. In the same vein, forgeries of 1831 and Gothic crowns have been doing the rounds for many years. £400 posted a link to a forgeries website a few weeks ago (http://www.forgerynetwork.com/Default.aspx,) which I have now bookmarked and it may be worthwhile contacting them about this coin.

As do I, but I just felt sorry for Gary. It was however, what I was taught at school. Going back to the initial topic, the last few items I have sold on e-bay have gone for way below what I expected. I just wonder if people are beginning to abandon it, perhaps because of the impenetrable mountains of utter crap that nobody would buy in a million years.

Now, what did I do with that trombone...?

NEVER start a sentence with a conjunction (chortle!).

Hi, just come back from holiday, so have missed a lot. My suggestion, is one that I have made before when this topic has come up. Simply give them to any kid you know who has shown the faintest interest in coin collecting. They may be worth next to nothing but the acquisition of some old, albeit extremly worn coins can set a youngster's heart racing and can plant a seed for the future. If you don't know any likely candidates, just have a word around, I'm sure you will find some willing takers.

In that one sentence you have opened up a can of worms. Let's look at George IV first because it's simple, yes they are all what we would understand as maundy i.e. they were not intended for circulation. George III is much more complicated as those from 1762 and for several years afterwards were effectively circulating coins (as were the 1d, 2d and 4d). At some point the system changed and their main function became a ceremonial one, but I have seen various suggestions of when this might have been, some people suggesting that even the 1800 dated coins (which were used for the ceremony right up to 1816) were somehow issued into circulation. The whole thing is complicated by the fact that the deserving poor who received what amounted to the princely sum of 10d, promptly went out and spent it, so from that point of view all maundy coins, probably into the mid-Victorian period, circulated. Once again, who knows where you draw the line. And one more complication. Until 1908 it was possible for anyone to go into a bank and effectively ask for and receive maundy money. Although we generally accept that there were roughly 9000 sets produced every year from 1893 to 1908, the numbers of their individual constituents varied, so the mintage figures that we see are in fact either the 1d, 2d, 3d or 4d whichever had the lowest mintage. From 1909 the system changed and only the poor beneficiaries and various dignitaries (I still can't get my head round why there were as many as 1,000 of these) received the maundy sets and at this period, by and large kept them as sets. I'm sorry to complicate your life, but who ever said numismatics was simple!

The second coin you refer to pre-dates Victoria by a year and is in fact her uncle William IV. These are quite common and in view of the fact that the obverse (heads side) is very worn, its value is likely to be negligible.

Yes, as a date run collector it wouldn't matter to me, especially as I couldn't tell. I wouldn't want a 1927 silver 3d in my date run though, so as long as some were issued for currency, Maundy would count. The problem with 1927, well not really a problem, the maundy and currency split and became a different design. The problem with 1927 is that the currency was only issued in the proof set so go for £80-100. Gary 1927 is obviously an exception as there were two different types of proof, neither of which were issued for circulation. Date run collectors will obviously have to make up their own mind on this one.

Yes, Dave and Julie are very decent sorts, and we've had many very satisfactory dealings with them. Perhaps we should have a "Decent eBay Sellers" thread as well as eBay laughs? Good idea, Declan. I am always in favour of the stick and carrot approach and if any dealer shows themselves to be honest and helpful beyond the call of duty, then I think this should be made public. I don't however think we should restrict it to e-bayers.

Perhaps | am just going to reveal myself as an absolute philistine here, but aren't we heading down the 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin' road. I just can't get my head around why it matters, especially since the higher quality coin is actually cheaper! If you are intending to put together a maundy set then yes, I can see why you would want the genuine article (although distinguishing maundy from early strike could also cause problems). But the other way round? Sorry, I just don't get it. It also strikes me that to get the most out of their dies and hence save money, the mint may at the end of the day have used the maundy die (I guess there was probably only one in any given year) to produce currency threepences which can only further cloud the issue. I apologise if I have trodden on anyone's toes. All in the interests of a 'lively debate' you understand...

Although it's worth zip, still fascinating to try and figure out what it is. Won't be Duke of Wellington - too late for that. My guess is some kind of cheap medal to commemorate something Gladstone did early in his second(?) term. Irish land reform fits the bill, but maybe not in Yorkshire...

Bits of it may be EF (would need a much better photo to tell) but it seems to have been struck with the worst pair of dies ever. Forget grading, I think the mint's machine minder had gone to sleep when they made this one!

Could be very difficult to identify but it may help to say where you found it, as it may have local rather than national significance.

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I don't want to downplay the forgery issue, but we have to remember that 99% of coins in the market are still genuine and many of the 1% that aren't are unconvincing. In the case of early milled issues, the original coins were typified by their variety. Spinks list varieties for many years and you only have to have been a member of this forum for a little while to realise that new (or newly recognised) variations turn up all the time. Yes, we have to be wary and it pays to arm yourself with the appropriate tools such an accurate pair of scales, but still the vast bulk of coins will turn out to be genuine. As I mentioned above, the method by which modern forgeries are made would mean that if there is an item such as a dot missing, then that is because the original (and genuine) coin from which the die was made also had this feature. Modern day forgers are not going to go to the trouble of completely recutting a die when a few pounds on e-bay would provide them with the genuine article. Contemporary forgeries are different, usually being made of the wrong material, often with a wash of silver or gold to hide the base metal underneath. Most of these just don't feel right and a reasonably competent numismatist can smell them a mile off; there are of course exceptions but they are in a very small minority. Going back to the original coin (1707/8 2/6d?), you have provided a good quality picture and although this is a real hostage to fortune, I would be pretty convinced that it is the genuine article.

Do you not get my point though, that in this particular instance we cannot rely on the die flaw to indicate a forgery.

Yes, pewter figures. Much is still made from pewter though and my guess would be that they were turned out by the bucket load in the 1980s or 90s. I have a further recollection that at one stately home (Warwick Castle rings a bell) you could pay £1 or something and strike your own coin on site. Whether this was the same coin we are talking about here I don't know.

I think I agree with you Bob. The eBay coin and that posted by Gary are different grades. As the Chinese forgeries are usually produced using a genuine coin essentially as a master hub (a positive die), all will be identical and therefore the same grade. By the same token, dies made at the mint last for what, 100,000-150,000 coins. The issue of half crowns in 1905 (normal 'health warnings' re annual mintage figures apply!) was 166,000. It is therefore highly likely that a very high proportion of those dated 1905 had this particular flaw. I know the forgers can be good, but if the coins for sale on eBay were indeed forgeries, their producers would have to be very, very good indeed.

OK, I've tracked mine down and it is identical to yours, dated 1562. The 'r' in lower case is to the left of the French coat of arms i.e. the top left hand segment of the shield. That blob in the field on both your coin and mine is an 'r'. Q.E.D.

Hi Rob, Some of us on here actually enjoy answering questions; somehow it makes us feel important! So my answers are as follows: 1) Er pass... not my subject. I still rue the days when information was stored on little stone tablets. 2) See above, but if you want answers to everything, suggest you don't flood us with 100 all at once. 2 or 3 at a time saves overloading our little brains. 3) See above. 4) See Azda's reply. 5) Yes, Azda has pretty much got it right, Spink's is the market leader particularly as your coins go back to before 1797. Rotographic (aka Chris Perkins, the owner of this site) also publishes a very handy price guide which is a lot cheaper than Spink's. If you don't have many copper coins before 1797 or silver prior to 1816, it may be an idea to buy 'Collectors' Coins GB 2010' and just borrow Spink's from the library. Rotographic also publish 'The Standard Guide to Grading British Coins'. There is a reason for my suggesting this, but I've forgotten what it is!

This certainly isn't resin; my guess being stainless steel but with toning in all the right places, so very easy to be taken in. The 'r' being lower case is also very easy to confuse with a metal flaw whereas an upper case 'R' would be much more obvious. I still have it somewhere, but I can't lay my hands on it at present.