brg5658

Here is my most recent copper. I tried some interesting new photography to capture the edge lettering. This one is hard to find, and quite pricey as 18th Century tokens go. I'm also posting the original sketch of the token from Pye's work of 1801, which I thought was pretty interesting. It is now my rarest token of the "Conders" with only 24 struck. Cheers, Brandon

If rubbing/dusting with a cloth leaves hairlines, then it's cleaning by my definition. Where does one draw the line on your side of the pond? I'm asking this because I really want to know. I would never rub a coin with any type of cloth as it will always impart hairlines. Peck said "rubbing with the wrong kind of cloth"...I don't know of any "right" kind of cloth. Two things here : 1. Rubbing with a cloth can leave faint lines that are only on the 'film' around the coin, i.e. they're not permanent, and could be washed off. That's what I was referring to - if they are permanent striations then I agree with you - CLEANED! 2. The "right" kind of cloth is a microfibre cloth - if it won't scratch the lenses in my spectacles, it won't scratch a metal coin!! Your local optician will have them, or maybe you can Google them? Microfibre cloths most definitely leave permanent scratches on metal. The Mohs hardness of silver is around 2.5. Copper is around 3. Glass has a hardness of around 5 -- and most optical lenses (if polymer based) are coated with anti-scratch preparations. You can do what you'd like, but rubbing with a cloth of any kind on a coin's surface will leave hairlines and will ruin the coin's originality.

In my experience with the 18th Century tokens, collectors are more interested in scarce designs, not in scarce varieties (e.g., edge varieties, die markers, overdates, etc). To a very niche collector, your token may be worth a premium over the £10-15 it's currently worth. But, to find that one collector would likely take you months and/or years.

I think a lot of people don't understand what's collectible about any coin-like metal disc, issued by governments or otherwise. I mean, what's collectible about comic books, or furniture, or plates, or jewelry, or ....___fill in the blank___? I may not understand why people collect certain things, just as they may not understand my collecting. It takes all kinds to make the world go round...

If rubbing/dusting with a cloth leaves hairlines, then it's cleaning by my definition. Where does one draw the line on your side of the pond? I'm asking this because I really want to know. I would never rub a coin with any type of cloth as it will always impart hairlines. Peck said "rubbing with the wrong kind of cloth"...I don't know of any "right" kind of cloth.

Lovely coin and design -- one of my favorites. Now, as to grade -- that coin would likely not past muster as a "problem-free" coin on this side of the pond. It looks to have been cleaned with many parallel hairlines going up and over the devices (thus they are not simply die polish lines). If submitted to one of the two grading companies here, I can almost assure you it would grade out as UNC - Details (Cleaned). On a bad day, it could go AU - Details. ...now...all of that being said...I think it is a very eye appealing example of the type, and I would not care one iota if it was "blessed" by a plastic factory. The detail is all there and the toning is lovely.

Just FYI: There are Talers with this same design feature from ca. 1650 that pre-date G2 silver coinage. It wouldn't surprise me if ancients existed with a similar design also (that's outside of my experience/knowledge). I presume the symbolism is one of royalty and strength?

Thanks Paulus. It's much easier on these tokens when they are not in little plastic coffins.

A couple more new tokens. Nothing rare or expensive, but some lovely quality. ...still waiting on my rare token to arrive...more to come...

Thanks Brandon. I'm a mixed bag between ticking boxes and having interests that are too diverse (and funds too limited) so I'm always looking to rationalise what I collect without feeling compelled to buy something just to fill a gap. Except any rationalisation of goals inevitably leads to gaps. Or a coin doesn't "fit" so then I invent new goals. I have my eye on two tokens right now so it's figuring out how they'll fit in with what I have and then what to buy next. I guess I'm a bit odd! Certainly though the copper coins and token produced in the late 18th and early 19th century are awesome pieces of work. And with tokens you get some real bang for your buck. But I also have my eye on a couple of the Droz proofs right now, and Neil's farthing list just came out, and it's DNW in a month, and ... Deep breaths. Oh, I hear you. Never enough money to buy everything I like. I do have an 18th century penny-sized token on its way to me for approval. It's a monster rarity that I've been trying to hunt down for over 3 years. But, if I like it and decide to keep it, most of my collecting budget for the next 2-3 months will be spent. But, when you have a chance to purchase a token of which only 24 were ever struck, you take it. My philosophy over the past 3-4 years has become one of "buy what I don't expect I will ever have the chance to buy again." That method has proven to make me most happy as a collector. I did try collecting a few USA coin series by date 15ish years ago. I would get about 50% complete and would be bored to tears with the coins. I was just plugging holes...now I just blaze my own path and don't give a rip if other people understand or not.

These tokens are becoming increasingly appealing to me. The scope for collecting is a little overwhelming though. Do you have any particular collecting goals Brandon or just whatever pieces take your fancy? I collect the tokens with horses on them -- and, any others that strike my fancy along the way. I never understood the "fill this hole in my album" method of collecting. I much prefer to collect what I like, even if it seems a bit scattered to others.

A couple new tokens. The Midd-343 is not strictly speaking a token of the era (struck by Taylor ca. 1870), but it makes it into D&H. This particular example is struck in copper, and has a long provenance dating back to the Lincoln Collection (ca. 1890s). The Angus-40 (dated 1796, misspelled "HALL" as "ALL") is a nice bronzed piece from the RC Bell collection. I have the DH-42 (dated 1797) in my collection also, but this one was hard to pass up.

That's an unusual London example of the 1919 - presumably because of the wearing obverse die (quite apparent from the lack of hair detail and flattening ear, and common enough in the years 1915 - 1919), the reverse has been fully struck up as can be seen from Britannia's face and breastplate. It may well be that even a minute reduction in the obverse profile - in this case due to die wear - could lessen the 'sucking away of metal' problem so often seen in the general mushiness of Britannia's upper. Hi Peck, I agree. I actually purchased this example because I thought Britannia was struck up much nicer than most I have seen for this date. The face and upper torso details are usually mushy at best. Also, I gave £26 for it, so it didn't break the bank. It is slabbed by NGC as an MS64BN grade, so some of the expense was paying a little for the plastic coffin. But, regardless, it's quite lovely and lustrous in hand. Below is a larger image of the Britannia imagery.

Picked up this 1919 penny. Sorry for the quality of the pictures -- the slab is scratched all to heck.

I finally added the 1852 and 1854 Upper Canada halfpennies to my collection. Still looking for a nice example of the 1850. These match nicely the 1857 halfpenny I picked up last year. Having only been issued for 4 years, it's a nice small set of halfpennies I hope to complete.

I wish that half cent were mine. It was only visiting me for a couple days for photographs. It's a bit out of my normal coin budget range for the $1,500-2,000 or so it goes for nowadays in that grade. The competition for nice USA early copper is vicious -- I'll stick with the esoteric private token issues and other non-USA copper -- where I can still get a nearly-FDC example for $250 from the 1790s.

I photographed a few coins for a good friend, and this one was among them. It's a lovely lustrous early US half cent.

Yes - though it's highly derivative of Pistrucci, nevertheless it's a classy design, far superior IMO to the 1935. Aren't all St. George depictions highly derivative? This one is not even close to a rip-off of Pistrucci -- which, for the record, Pistrucci's work was a derivative of intaglio works he saw in Italy; he has been accused (with quite damning evidence) of having ripped off most of his St. George design himself.

I am actually quite fond of this proposed (fantasy) design. i would vote for this rendition over both the 2012 and the 2005 designs that made actual sovereigns...

In order of favorite to least favorite, I would go with 1871, then 2012, then 2005 (least favorite). For the sake of completeness, below are the 3 different designs referenced:

I thought a few of you here may find this token interesting. It was originally created as an advertising piece for Robert Lovett, Junior (a well known private US die sinker of the mid-1800's), and modeled after the Pistrucci design of St. George slaying the dragon made famous on the British sovereigns. This little token is almost assuredly among the smallest of all of the merchant tokens of the era. Coming in at only 15 mm in diameter, most of these were struck in German silver, with brass and copper much less common. Regardless of the metal composition, these are quite difficult to find in general, and downright tough to find in uncirculated condition. They are also quite "spendy" for their small size. After nearly 3.5 years of searching, I recently added this lovely example to my horse-themed collection. I'm providing an array of images below to show the state of preservation but also to give you a frame of reference for the small size of this token. The 15 mm diameter is half-way between the diameter of the 3 cent silver (14mm) and the silver half dime (15.9mm) issues of the USA (sorry this frame of reference is to USA coins -- it's the best I have for now). Cheers,-Brandon ======================================

Except that George and the Dragon is not British in origin - is it Maltese or something like that? That may well be so, but the US market will associate it with the UK surely, and would have done back then too? Maybe it just worked as a complex image that showed off the engraver's skill? The fact that it was (presumably) a recognisable image might even have been an advantage, giving recipients a chance to decide if it was a good rendition or not? I agree with the assessment above in red. The Lovett family was a highly talented group of engravers in the mid to late 1800's in the USA. To see the level of skill required to engrave such an incredibly small rendition of Saint George and the Dragon on this copper token is stunning in hand. It's honestly a work of art, and I think it would have been seen as such around 1860 when it was executed. Remember, this was a private enterprise 150 years ago -- my brain can't even quite fathom how such levels of detail and accuracy were feasible at that time.

Just got the early bird announcement for the CRO offerings -- thoughts? http://www.coinraritiesonline.com/?page=search&task=det_item&item_id=758428