Novice requires help with victorian coins

[mand98 0]

Hello all, my father in law has two Victorian coins of which he has no idea of value. We are complete novices so I will explain as best I can.

We believe one is a silver penny bearing the date 1837 which seems to have a young Victoria one side & an older Victoria on the other side. This doesnt seem to make sense to me though as I cant understand why they would depict her as older on one side when the date of the coin is only 1837. It is a very worn coin but it does seem to say 1837 on it.

The second coin is also silver. It is a fourpence bearing the date 1837 with Britannia on one side and what we assume to be Victoria on the otherside but that side is particulary worn unfortunately.

Any information anyone can give about the coins generally or values (if any!) would be much appreciated.

[azda 979]

To be honest both sound very odd, how could anyone depict Victoria before she aged, i would assume that it might not be the given date. A few pictures of both coins of both sides would help. There is an upload function at the bottom of the page. 150kb max per picture. It would be better if you made 4 posts of each side of both coins at that size if the coins are worn so we can have a close-up view.

[mand98 0]

thanks for the reply. Im not sure if these pictures will show up very clearly. I have taken them with my mobile but think I may need to use a digital camera to get a clearer pic. This is the one my father in law thinks is a penny but my mother in law has made a good point saying she wondered if it could be a later coin but bearing the date 1837 to Victoria's jubilee? Unfortunately I do not have the other coin to hand at the moment. I will sort out some good pics of that one too & get them posted.

[azda 979]

thanks for the reply. Im not sure if these pictures will show up very clearly. I have taken them with my mobile but think I may need to use a digital camera to get a clearer pic. This is the one my father in law thinks is a penny but my mother in law has made a good point saying she wondered if it could be a later coin but bearing the date 1837 to Victoria's jubilee? Unfortunately I do not have the other coin to hand at the moment. I will sort out some good pics of that one too & get them posted.

The picture you have uploaded is a jubilee medal.

[azda 979]

Here is the same one but in Bronze

Edited May 16, 2010 by azda

[mand98 0]

Here is the same one but in Bronze

Great. At least we can say we know what it is now ! Are they quite common ?

[azda 979]

Here is the same one but in Bronze

Great. At least we can say we know what it is now ! Are they quite common ?

To be honest i could'nt say, but at least we have managed to sort out what it is. You said you had 2 coin/medals? Do you have a picture of the other?

[mand98 0]

Here is the same one but in Bronze

Great. At least we can say we know what it is now ! Are they quite common ?

To be honest i could'nt say, but at least we have managed to sort out what it is. You said you had 2 coin/medals? Do you have a picture of the other?

Unfortunately I dont at the moment. I will try & sort one out hopefully tomorrow.

Thanks for your help

[Red Riley 2]

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.

[Peckris 579]

Here is the same one but in Bronze

Great. At least we can say we know what it is now ! Are they quite common ?

Not common as in coin-common, but not rare either, and with only a small collector base anyway. To be honest, yours is too worn to be of any interest more than scrap value ... but I've never seen a worn example before! So it's interesting purely from that perspective.

[mand98 0]

Here is the same one but in Bronze

Great. At least we can say we know what it is now ! Are they quite common ?

Not common as in coin-common, but not rare either, and with only a small collector base anyway. To be honest, yours is too worn to be of any interest more than scrap value ... but I've never seen a worn example before! So it's interesting purely from that perspective.

Thanks for everyone's comments & info. They have been much help to me as I will admit to being a complete and utter novice! Shame they are not worth anything but still interesting items. I did take pics of the four pence but unfortunately they wont upload I must admit I was looking at the four pence thinking it looked more like a man on the head side!

[Peckris 579]

Thanks for everyone's comments & info. They have been much help to me as I will admit to being a complete and utter novice! Shame they are not worth anything but still interesting items. I did take pics of the four pence but unfortunately they wont upload I must admit I was looking at the four pence thinking it looked more like a man on the head side!

How do you know when two coin collectors are about to decide something by the spin of a coin?

"Ok, your call - obverse or reverse?"

"Don't you DARE toss that, it's BU!"