victorian coinage

[hami 1]

i,m starting with young head Vic half and pennys. I cant find online guidance as to the ALLOWED variation in weight and diameter.

I,v calibrated my dig machine to 200G and cant decide on the weight whether any are fakes. Some are heavier than the listed values but how much can be allowed ???

[Nordle11 564]

None of them should be heavier without an obvious reason why (thicker flan, retained cud, etc.) but best advice is to get some books and compare coins against coins and against other pictures.

Most people would be using their eye to detect a fake Vic penny or half penny, the details and placement of certain parts of the design or things like that. Weight would just serve as a second assurance, after all it's easy to weigh out a piece of metal to match, not so easy to copy the design 100%.

[copper123 1,510]

Virtually no contemporary forgerys exist (Unless anyone knows different) but there are a few modern copies that might be passed off as the real thing .

Surely these will just be the key dates - 1869 and 1875 h penny etc

[declanwmagee 122]

Great place to start though Hami!

Good date filling area for beginners and you can take it as far and as deep as you like. Sky's the limit with those two series...

[copper123 1,510]

Halfpennies are pretty hard with few in much more than washer state , nicer grade coins are few and far between

[hami 1]

thanks to all for responses. I,ll try to make myself clearer. Suppose I have 10 young head vic pennies of the same date and considered to be uncirculated and genuine. How likely is it that I will find ALL to be exactly 18.8G. If not what would be an acceptable "drift" before suspicions are aroused, ?1 decimal point or a fraction of 2 decimal points. I note the advice to use my eyes first but that could take years !!

[Nordle11 564]

They should all be 18.8, but like copper says, there aren't many forgeries of these out there, and the ones that are fake, are obvious..

Honestly though, weighing them isn't really going to tell you if they're fake, just find an example of the same year on a dealer's site and compare the lettering and the general look of it.

If you're literally just asking the weight lenience on a penny, then I'd go with +/- 0.1g and the diameter should be exactly the same on all, unless there's an obvious problem with the coin.

[PWA 1967 2,142]

Hi hami and welcome to the forum.

I am not really sure what your on about sorry.

Have you got any pennies and if so what dates are on them ?.

Pete.

[Nutsaboutcoins 105]

I'm no penny expert but is there not a difference in weight between copper & bronze pennies? or is the weight difference due to composition miniscule?

[PWA 1967 2,142]

Yes the weight is double or there abouts.

[Nordle11 564]

I'm no penny expert but is there not a difference in weight between copper & bronze pennies? or is the weight difference due to composition miniscule?

Yeah, he'll be talking about copper pennies though as they weigh 18.8 grams.

Hopefully he's not comparing a copper to a bronze

[PWA 1967 2,142]

I am not sure what is going on

[Peter 615]

i,m starting with young head Vic half and pennys. I cant find online guidance as to the ALLOWED variation in weight and diameter.

I,v calibrated my dig machine to 200G and cant decide on the weight whether any are fakes. Some are heavier than the listed values but how much can be allowed ???

Hi Hami

Do you mean bun head 1860 to 1894.

Or the proper young head 1838 to 1859 (1860,64 do exist but don't tell on a forum as you might get an unwelcome visitor )

[hami 1]

thanks to all, but NORDLE11 has got a real handle on my problem and in fact his argument can be applied to any assessment situation.

[PWA 1967 2,142]

Well done Nordle glad you sorted the problem out

[Peter 615]

Nordle

I have a red rash on my bollocks after a brief encounter at the Suffolk Sheep show.

Do I need to be dipped or keep using TCP?

Abbot Ale should be a class A drug.

[Nordle11 564]

As stated above, Peter, my argument can be applied to any assessment situation

[1949threepence 3,367]

To the best of my knowledge there aren't any modern fakes of Victorian bronze - unlike, say, the 1905 shilling and halfcrown where fake BU copies from China exist, as well as tooled 1903's.

[PWA 1967 2,142]

There is some on ebay at the moment but terrible.

[1949threepence 3,367]

There is some on ebay at the moment but terrible.

Oh sure, but if they're the ones I think you're referring to, they're not touted as genuine anyway.

[Nordle11 564]

Are we talking about the 'Museum copy' pennies that the one seller keeps listing? They're really bad haha

[Mr T 179]

The weights and measures would have been dictated by law, so the tolerances may well have been too - I believe Acts of Parliament are available online but I don't know if all Acts back to whenever the copper penny was first produced are available.

Also, even if you find the tolerances, it would likely be an ideal case - sticking to the tolerances for silver and gold coins would have been much more important.