November 22nd 2017.
Next
club meeting Monday 4th December
2015.
The activities will be as follows:
1.
The main feature will be a mini coin
fair. Tables will not be charged for & there will be a collective members
table.
2.
A coin quiz
3.
Members to bring along one or two items
that for some reason are considered special (e.g. recent acquisition, a long
sought after piece, an unusual find, an oddity etc.). A brief written
explanation as to why the piece is special to you.
4.
Christmas buffet!
Meetings are held
at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
Notices
·
Please continue thinking about Short Talks for
January, and Auction lots for March!
November Meeting
Michael explained that when
he began in the business it was important to have reference books to work from.
He then pointed out that errors and varieties in coins are continuing to be
found and that reference books cannot keep up to date. This talk would be
restricted to new errors and varieties that are unreported in the standard
texts.
Starting
with the gold series, Michael explained that Michael Marsh’s book was the first
to come out in 1980. Only two sovereigns were singled out as unusual, the 1839
Ansell and the rare 827 1863, no other varieties were given. An academic
advised Michael at the time that there were no errors in the gold coinage
because so much care was taken in their manufacture. Michael was told that the
first Victorian sovereigns (shield-back) shared a common obverse with the
farthing, so any dies that were deemed unsuitable for the sovereign would be
used for the farthing instead. This, it turns out, is a myth, as Michael
explained. Contrary to the advice given, Michael DID find
varieties in the gold series and then realised that
those varieties were not present in the farthing series, so the farthings must
have had their own dies.
Three examples of the
varieties Michael illustrated were - an 1846, 4 over inverted 4; an 1861 with an unusual repaired E of DEI and an
1861 C over rotated C in VICTORIA
but these were only three of a much larger number. Interestingly, all the
varieties were for the obverse, none has been found for the reverses, so far.
Next, Michael covered the
silver issues. The standard reference for silver was Seaby
and Rayner’s
“The English Silver Coinage
from 1649” which has been updated over the years, most recently by
Maurice
Bull, however the book that has been of most use to Michael was Peter Davies’
“British
Silver
Coins” as it contained far more varieties.
Starting with the Crowns,
Michael showed a piece where the edge legend had been doubled, with the second
imprint upside down with respect to the first. This is a genuine 1844 Crown,
verified by the Mint, which has accidentally been through the edger twice.
Another Crown variety is the 1893, where two different obverse “pointings” are known. Most interesting though, were the
different “streamers” on the reverse of the 1893 Crowns. It seems that the
engravers were allowed a certain latitude in this area and seven new “streamer”
variations have been found (by the combined research work of Michael
& Malcolm Lewendon) in addition to the two
mentioned in Davies’s book (for 1893). The two variations mentioned by Davies
are common whilst the other seven have only been found as single examples, so
far.
Moving
on, we come to the double florin, for which there are two obverses (1&2)
and two reverses (A&B). Always listed as (1 + A) & (2 + B). Some
fifteen years ago, Michael came across the (1+B) variety which no other
reference book or dealer have ever picked up !
For
halfcrowns we have very small pickings, with only a
small variation on Victoria’s crown on the obverse of the 1887 (listed by
Davies but not clearly). As Michael was only reporting varieties and errors not
reported in standard references and florins are extensively covered in the
latest ESC, (an extensive re-write by
Malcolm Lewendon), they are not included here,
with the exception of the 1849 florin. Michael pointed out that the florins
listed as ‘without WW’ DO have a WW. The obverse bust and date have been moved
fractionally, causing the WW to disappear under the thicker linear circle just
inside the edge teeth.
There is also a variety with
an inverted A for V in Victoria.
A more
general but unspotted variety is where the ONC reads ONC (broken bar of e). This ‘broken letter’ reverse die had a
remarkable lifetime and can be found on florins from 1852 to 1860. All examples
are rare with the 1853 being the commonest. Michael also showed us an example
of a choice reverse brockage gothic florin.
Moving next to shillings, we
have three reverse dies for the Jubilee issue, differing in the tail of Q of QUI. Next a sixpence from 1853, with examples of both Arabic 1 and Roman
I in the date. The Roman I created by the inverted repair to the 1 ! Also a variety of the 1883 sixpence, most easily told apart
by the alignment and size of the SIX. An obverse brockage
illustrated the effect of not having a collar, which allows the design to
spread out more, appearing larger. In the groat series,
Michael has found two 1840s with a broken centre bar in the E of PENCE (showing
as PCNCE). There is also a variety that has always been assumed to be 1847/6.
Michael has investigated further and deduced that it is in fact 1847/8 (as the
shape of the underlying numeral could NOT be a 6 but was an 8) – not to be
confused with the 1848/7! Another example from 1848 is the G over G sideways (in G of D: G:). So, we arrive at threepences, with a repair to the bow on the reverse
resulting on both ribbons being tied over, instead of right over and left
under. We also saw a C over C sideways, an A over inverted A and an N over R
that looked like a H over R. Unexpectedly a 1861 Maundy 2d is found with the 6
over 1 together with an example of plain 1861 before the repair.
Michael
then went on to describe the copper/bronze series and began by mentioning the
standard texts, Peck, Freeman and of course Michael’s own publications on Victorian
bronze pennies.
Firstly
he showed a copper penny from 18??, the last two
digits being completely missing, speculating that this could be a test strike
or a filled die. An overdate accounted for as 1858/3
turned out to be 1858/2, Michael putting forward the explanation that as a
bronze coinage was imminent, old dies were being used where possible and that
this would have been a die originally used for the Trial of the Pyx, in 1852. Michael showed us that there are two varieties
of Rose on the reverse of the copper pennies, the large Rose being rare, the
small Rose being the norm. Next in the Bronze series, we had the
I of BRITT over T (showing as BRTTT) and C of VICTORIA over G (showing
as VIGTORIA). We also we were shown an example of the ‘scratched’ halfpenny,
where a record was made of the total tonnage for each type and the total of all
types struck between 1860 to 1869. Peck recorded 28 of
these coins, Michael has been able to add 6 more (giving a total now of 34).
Another halfpenny had the final T of BRITT over an inverted V, which Michael
explained by saying that the engraver probably forgot the die was reversed and
put the letter punch for the V of VICTORIA on the wrong half of the coin. Yet
another halfpenny had the B of BRITT over R. Finally he showed us a dramatic mis-strike, where the blank hadn’t stayed in the collar and
had spread across the top right edge.
A
well researched, illustrated and presented talk, given at short notice, with
many of the actual coins on show. Thank you Michael.
Future
Events.
Past Events
In November 1977 the annual auction took place....
... Ten years later members were
still holding an annual auction....
...... and ten years after that
in 1997 the annual auction continued to be centre stage!
Just for a change, in 2007 we had a talk on Hop Tokens
by Duncan Pennock
Club
Secretary.