Varietalis

I see the current bid on this is already an impressive £20K. Nonetheless, I wonder if the current apprehension and economic uncertainty might just keep it around top estimate, or at least under £30k.

Does anyone have any vericare to sell? I probably only need 0.5ml as the spot I'm looking to improve is very small. Alternatively, is anyone able to look at verdicare treating the spot if I send them the coin? PM me and I will send you a photo of the area. Many thanks in anticipation.

A few years ago I sent some full lustre brass 3d to CGC in Florida. After something like 3 years I noticed that they'd noticeably darkened. I also bought a CGC slabbed brass 3d off ebay, which would have been submitted by someone else and at a different occasion. Interestingly this too subsequently darkened. The fact that they were from two separate submissions proved to me that it was caused by something independent of the coins themselves. Although it also seems likely that it is something peculiar to brass. I should also add that this darkening doesn't seem to be progressive, i.e. they darkened to an appreciable degree (enough to affect value) but have not got any darker since. I wonder whether this might have anything to do with the fact that CGC holders contain a larger volume of air compared with CGS/LCGS holders. I also wonder whether it might conceivably have something to do with the Floridian humidity.

In expect that part of the reason for the loyalty to LCGS is based on the 'started so I'll finish' imperative, the analogy being filling up your Panini stickers album.

On the Facebook page he simply states, 'As I no longer have an interest in this matter I have decided to suspend the group...'. It's a shame if by 'this matter' he means CGS graded coins. P.B. is/was certainly King of the Hill when it comes to CGS coins, it's a reflection of just how shabby the whole CGS thing has been if indeed they've alienated their No.1 customer.

This is a very good point. The real reasons behind CGS ceasing to trade may well lie in their desire to water down the contractual obligations they had as CGS. As for the £99, this is clearly a suicidal strategy for CGS/London Coins Grading. Just compare the success of Facebook, which has always been free, with the failure of Friends Reunited which charged a fee.

I did manage to obtain one of these in the end (in a toned VF) through a tip off from a forum member, but if yours is a decent example then I'd be willing to go up to £50 for it. Pictures please, or PM me.

As everybody surely knows, the 1953 farthing has two obverses and two reverses resulting in four possible die combinations. Obv 1 : Cross points to a bead Obv 2 : Cross points to a space Rev A : F and I point to a space Rev B : F and I point to a bead 2+A is far and away the scarcest of the four die pairings and as such it has proven to be a seriously difficult gap to fill, hence this WANTED posting. Just to be clear, I'm on the look out for the business strike coin and not the proof. I could be persuaded to part with £50-£100 for a better grade example. Having said that I'm not too fussed about grade, my only stipulation is that it should be problem free i.e. no verdigris, no history of cleaning, no serious edge dings or scratches. Should anyone be jammy enough to have a spare one or indeed have one but want the money more then please PM me. Thank you.

Even though I was born in 1969 I do seem to recall that shillings and two shillings were still to be found in change in the 1970s and even into the '80s. They were accepted as being 5 and 10 pence pieces. I dare say the banks weeded them out over time but to the general public I think that they were seen as legitimate tender. My point is that shillings and florins were often spent in shops and handed out as change long, long after decimalisation. This maybe a factor as to why there are fewer BU specimens than may otherwise be expected.

I meant to say Mr Muscle Window and Glass cleaner. It's good at removing adhered debris and recently occurring verdigris. Moreover, it doesn't leave the tell tale purple discoloration you quite often get after using acetone.

Mr Sheen window and glass cleaner on a cotton bud will lift recently occurring and superficial verdigris off a toned bronze coin without changing the patina. However, if you don't know how long the verdigris has been there then it's best to assume that it is too established to be safely removed.

Try an inter-library loan from the British Library to your local library. A tad old school perhaps but you'll be able to get hold of the reference books for sure. Having said that Gouby might be tricky. Wasn't it privately published and sold by Michael from his shop? Still, if it has an ISBN then you should be able to get it.

You make an excellent point. Certainly the demonetisation of the farthing in the early '60s has meant that those 1953 2+A examples that have been collected are VF or better due to their curtailed circulation. I've found that condition issues such as verdigris, scratches, cleaning etc. has meant that finding a problem free example remains a challenge. However, what really makes this a difficult gap to fill is a chronic lack of availability to the market (whether you are 'in the know' or not) and this must ultimately be a reflection of the fact that only a very limited number were ever minted. It is reasonable to guess that they may well have been minted from a single pair of dies. As has already been noted in the thread, only the 1+A and, occasionally, the 1+B come from the plastic sets. It is worth adding that the 2+A has the obverse 2 of the circulation coins not the obverse 1 of the plastic set coins. Therefore, the 2+A were among the coins issues to the banks for circulation.

I was remarking on the quality of the hand-made ones compared to the mass-produced plastic-handled stuff you'd normally find down the local shops... the attention to detail, craftsmanship; by all accounts these guys were close to going out of business but the media coverage they've had lately has seen a big bump in sales which is good to see. This reminds me of a Fred Dibnah anecdote about a pair of Sheffield made scissors he lost by leaving them on top of an outside wall. Twenty years later he came across them again and found that, in spite of having been out in the Bolton climate for two decades, they cut through paper first time. Its a shame we couldn't apply the same corrosion resistance in other areas of industry such as British cars and motorbikes!

Wow, that's a dramatic turnaround! It must be because all the proofs are in high grade, where the currency strikes mostly won't be - I'll bet the 2+A currency in VF doesn't fetch so very much. CGS put a value of £10 on UIN18519 which looks to me like a pretty decent VF. Judging by the UIN number I'd say that it was graded in late 2011. Almost three years on and a toned VF is still the only one on their books. I'd say that their £10 valuation is starting to look a little harsh.

I'm trying to complete a collection of the alternative obverses for the 1953 business strike coins. This has not been as easy as it first sounds, particularly as I've held out for UNC or aUNC. The 2+A farthing is the outstanding gap for which I may have to settle for a much lower grade example. I've seen 2+A proofs up for sale, one on ebay even, but these don't fit in with the collection as it currently stands.

I didn't go there often but the shop will be greatly missed. I enjoyed the experience of going to a real shop and ALWAYS finding Michael was there ready to buzz you in. Because you didn't have to make an appointment you didn't feel obliged to spend big money. You could just pitch up with £20-30 and end up buying something without having to do lots of researching, Googling, exchanging emails, fannying about with PayPal, going to the post office depot to collect, etc.

I wonder if the new £1 will lead to a growing interest in the brass threepence and perhaps even push up prices in this particular series. Talking about brass threepence, does anyone know where I can lay my hands on a BU 1956? This is a surprisingly difficult year to find in BU. If anyone has a BU specimen for sale please PM me.

Someone with the CGS username of Johnboy now seems to own the £7K 1953 mule penny. Hats off to him for landing it. I'm told the '53 VIP proofs were pre-production sets hence the penny is, I suppose, a pattern proof. I wonder if they were minted prior to the commencement of the standard proof sets' production run... we'll probably never know unless there is something in the RM archives to explain it all.

I noticed that the 1953 VIP proof set with the mule beaded/toothed penny went for £10K (£2.5K over estimate). Obviously you've got to add 17% buyer's premium to that as well. Has to be some kind of record.

The tone spot wouldn't bother me too much. Arguably the coin looks almost too pristine. That letter dated 1997 is crucial, without it I wouldn't bid even if I could afford it. Surely though there must be more provenance than just the letter? And why leave it 60 years to get someone to authenticate it?

In short, these are the two different double exergue line '4' pointings...

Forget the pointings - what I can see there is two distinctly aligned 4's: the first is rotated slightly counter clockwise, the second is rotated slightly clockwise, in relation to a hypothetical vertical line. That alone is enough to account for the pointing difference. Good spot. In my haste I didn't make it clear that I'd attached four different thumbnails. The second posting looks like a duplicate of the first but the thumbnails were showing two additional coins. In the first posting the two coins are: (a) double ex line 4 to left of (but overlapping) a tooth; (b double ex line with a wonky 4. In the second posting the two coins are: © single ex line 4 to a gap (4 is not wonky i.e. a 'classic' 4 to a gap); (d) double ex line 4 to a gap. As to scarcity, my gut feeling is that both pointings for the double ex line are equally common. All credit to numidan, I agree that there is a real varietal difference.

P.S. the bottom serif of the 4 can play tricks on the eye, you have to look along the full length of the back of the 4 to see if it point to the gap.