1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

I've looked into my personal folder today and noticed this one. It's a commemorative coin from 1953. I'm not sure what the denomination is I really can't find much information on the internet anywhere! Looks like it was and could be used as a necklace though.

1953 in United Kingdom:
28 January - Derek Bentley executed at Wandsworth Prison in London. I didn't realise they did that in 1953?!
5th February - The rationing of sweets, introduced during WWII ends.
24th April - Winston Churchill receives a knighthood from the Queen.

George III 1774 Half Penny

Gooood morning all! Keeping it with the United Kingdom coins today looking at this 1774 half penny. 6.3 grams of Copper. Sometimes I think to myself wow why doesn't copper just suddenly run out and it becomes a precious metal - then all us coin collectors would be rich, wouldn't we?!

Prime Minister in 1774 - Lord North (Conservative)
2 May - The Society of Antiquaries of London opened the coffin of King Edward I and discovered that his body has been perfectly preserved for 467 years. WHAT?!
4th October - A highwayman robs Prime Minister Lord North.

The United Kingdom Is Now Sovereign

There's a reason why my Instagram and my Blog dried up the past 2 weeks. I've been focusing on the EU referendum! I've been following the inner workings of the EU for 4 years so I had to put as much effort in as I could. I was being dragged into debate after debate online and it took my attention away from my coins.

WE LEFT THE EUROPEAN UNION AND I'M SO HAPPY. As you may have seen if you follow financial markets... Short term hit for a long term gain. I am so excited that we've left because we'll now be able to engage with the Commonwealth that we so shamefully abandoned and replaced with this protectionist anti-democratic club.

To celebrate our reclaimed sovereignty here's my 1892 Sovereign. 7.99g of Gold. By far my favourite coin. I realise I have posted this on Instagram before but wow if there was a moment to post a sovereign it's NOW!

Happy Independence day, United Kingdom!

1853 10 Centimes - Bonjour La Chat

I got an E grade in French. Like I know how to say apple or swimming pool but not much more. So if I'm ever in France in the future and you need to buy an apple, give me a call I'll tell you how (hahaha)

This is a 10 Centimes 1853. Napoleon III is the guy on the coin. 10 grams of Bronze. Faded but still in tact! 

1945 Diez Centimos - Spain

This is an aluminium Spanish coin from the war time period! Diez Centimos 1945.

Spanish coat of arms with Horseman and a spear. Love all these war time coins as you know! This one is a little beaten up but I'm still appreciating!

The Third £100 Coin... I've Got It!

This came through the post this morning. These are the £100 coins @royalmintuk are doing! I've posted about these before on my instagram.

This is the latest one. The Trafalgar Square 2016 UK Silver Coin. I wish they'd stop producing them because I keep buying them! They're actual legal tender. 3 have been issued so far. 999AG Silver. 62.86 grams of it!

10 Random facts about Trafalgar Square:
http://londontopia.net/guides/10-random-facts-and-figures-about-trafalgar-square/

Italy - Bronze - Runescape?

The fact that the weather has been so fantastic this week has got me out gardening! Honestly you wouldn't think I'm 21 I sound so old. But basically I've been tidying up trees, cutting the grass all that sort of stuff... all week!

Italy today... let's go there!

1958 20 Lire. I'm pretty sure this is my oldest Italian coin... Not that old I know! It's made of Aluminium and Bronze... 3.6 grams to be precise.

What is the deal with Bronze? When somebody says to me 'Bronze' I always think of precious metal? But it's not? Maybe it was because I used to play Runescape when I was in primary school (hahaha) on a serious note that was a crazy good game don't knock it!

Flood of 1806/1807 Coins For Sale

The coins I had incoming were drying up so I had to get some more. Back by popular demand are some more 1806 and 1807 half pennies. There is 12 of the 1806 and 3 of the 1807 all for £1.00 each. All dates are visible. Let me know if I can help out! 

I'm feeling very young around these coins! 

1939 South Africa Half Penny

I always get the South African accent confused with the Australian one I'm not sure why... One thing is certain though... They are both part of the Commonwealth! Can't wait until we leave the European Union so we can engage with these countries again (I won't go on but the referendum is pretty close!)

This South African 1939 Half Penny isn't in bad condition at all. It's not that old I guess but there's not gigantic wear on it. It's 5.6g of Bronze. Basically the same as the UK half penny.

1939 in South Africa:
The first two diesel-electric locomotive types enter service on the South African Railways.
September 5th - The National Assembly votes on a motion whether or not to join World War II and they approved the motion to form a Commonwealth alliance.

Gigantic Thankyou

A returning customer in Chile has placed a gigantic 1.7kg order of coins and it's ready to send! All packaged up. This is actually the first time I've used a cardboard box to send an order because my big jiffy bags won't hold this weight! So so exciting. 

Thanks once again Ignacio. Hope these get to you quicker than the last one!

Off to Denmark - 1966!

The chap on the coin is Frederik IX, King of Denmark at the time. Looks like a cool guy! He was King between 1947 and 1972. So he took over just after World War 2... The Prime Minister in 1966 was Jens Otto Krag.

The coin is 15 grams of copper-nickel with a 33mm diameter. In other words it is quite a hefty one. Wouldn't want many of these in my pocket! The coat of arms is the Royal Denmark coat of arms... with two oak twigs. 5 Kroner is equal to £0.51 wow it's basically a £0.50 coin!

Seriously Old Coins For Sale For £1.00 Each

I never advertise my coins in my blog posts but I'm going to make an exception here because I never sell coins this old!

I'm selling:
2 x 1775 Half Pennies
and
2 x 1799 Half Pennies

All are £1.00 each so let me know if you need any. ALL dates are visible! (May not look it in the photos but they are to the human eye)

1775 Half Pennies

1799 Half Pennies 

1 Sol - Louis XVI 1777-1791

There's no date on this coin I found and the monarch made it even harder! I thought it was an English monarch but it turned out to be French - Louis XVI. This means that this coin is between 1777-1791.

1 Sol which is the equivalent of 1/20 Pound. 12 grams of copper however this coin is a little lighter due to the wear on it!

Now my oldest French coin! How exciting!

1843 Farthing United Kingdom

I'm really surprised at the condition this is in. It's 173 years old and parts of it are untouched. Unfortunately it looks like it's got some sort of disease though! What ever caused that?!

4.6 grams of Copper. It almost looks Gold doesn't it? Like a Sovereign? (Yes please)

In the year 1843 -
Monarch - Victoria
Prime Minister - Robert Peel (Conservative)
2nd September - The Economist newspaper first published
1st October - News of the World newspaper first published
6th January - Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island

1806 Half Penny... Discovered!

Normally when I'm sifting through my shrapnel bag I get a good few undated/unrecognisable coins that I have to throw into the 'ultimate unreadable shrapnel bag' (hahaha). But this afternoon the first coin I looked at, I could recognise it!

This is a United Kingdom 1806 Half Penny. Great structure still in terms of weight, faded though which is a shame but what do you expect for a coin 210 years old!

In the year 1806 -

20th March - Construction of Dartmoor Prison to house prisoners of war begins.
November - Napoleon declares a Continental Blockade against the British.
The Monarch was George III.
Prime Minister was William Pitt the Younger of The Conservative Party.

AND THE NEWWW... OLDEST COIN IS

Still sifting through my shrapnel bag this morning and I've found a beauty!

This is a William III Half Penny, England. I can't identify the date however these were minted the years 1695-1701 so it's my new oldest coin. 10 grams of copper with a 28mm diameter. So so exciting!

To put it into perspective this coin is 315-321 years old wow.

My Oldest Farthing... BEATEN

Looking through my bag of near/unreadable dates, also known as the shrapnel bag, I found this coin. Got into the best lighting I could find to try and catch a glint of light bouncing off some numbers and there we had it!

1789 Farthing. United Kingdom. George III was the monarch. The Prime Minister was William Pitt the Younger.

Interesting facts about this year -
19th March 1789 - Catherine Murphy, a counterfeiter, becomes the last woman in Britain to suffer a death sentence by burning
12th May 1789 - William Wilberforce makes his first major speech in the House of Commons on the abolition of the slave trade

1789 Farthing United Kingdom

William Tell - Switzerland's National Hero of Liberty

I'm finding that when I research these coins I actually am learning more about the world than I ever knew before. Like the other day I learnt that Indians have different shaped coins because it's easy for illiterate people. Still can't get over how fantastic that idea was but anyway onto this coin.

1974 5 Franc from Switzerland. Not silver of course. 13.2 grams of copper-nickel. The chap on the right is a herdsman wearing a hooded shirt. Assimilated to William Tell. According to legend this is the man that shot an apple off his son's head.

If you want to read more into his legend there's a nice link below for you. Actually very interesting. As a British man I never knew he existed! This is so exciting.

My coin

William about to murder an apple!

http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/william-tell-switzerland-hero.html

Threepence - Transition from Silver to Nickel-Brass in 1937

The threepence represented 1/80th of a Pound. Before decimal day in 1971 there were 240 pence in One Pound Sterling. Crazy! I thought decimal day just meant we put decimal points everywhere. Yep I really am still uneducated on coins.

What I really wanted to look at was the transition from silver to nickel-brass in 1937.

The reign of King George V (1910-1936) featured several changes to the threepence:
In 1920 the metal content went from 92% silver to 50% silver, 40% copper and 10% nickel.
In 1922 the metal content went to 50% silver 50% copper.
In 1927 the metal content went to 50% silver, 40% copper, 5% nickel, 5% zinc.

George why did you change it so much?!

The nickel-brass threepence took over the bulk of the production of the denomination being produced in all years between 1937-1967, except 1947. The metal content went to 79% copper, 20% zinc, 1% nickel. WHY BOTHER WITH 1% OF NICKEL?! I need to research this at a further date!

Comparison: Here's two of my threepences. Whoever bent the silver one, I am not impressed! 

On the left has 50% silver, 40% copper and 10% nickel.

On the right has 79% copper, 20% zinc and 1% nickel.  

Square Indian Coins? Huh?

I was looking through my Indian coin collection today and thought I'd take a look at this coin, and give it a good research!

This is a 2 Annas from 1944. 2 Annas is 1/8 of a Rupee. The coin is Nickel-brass and weighs 5.74 grams. With a diameter of 25mm it's not a small coin, nor too overpowering. What strikes me about it is the shape! Square?! Fantastic.

Research that I carried out suggests that they used to have triangle, square, hexagon and octagon Indian coins. This was because most Indians were illiterate. If all coins were the same shape they could get confused. Is this true?

It sounds like a brilliant idea if it is. I couldn't think of that!

15 grams of Silver for the Queen's 90th

I'm mostly into old coins, they're my favourite. However I do make an exception for The oyal Mint who continue to make these beautiful coins, notably the £20, £50 and £100 coins. I buy them all! I can't resist. The fact that their legal tender makes it even better. You pay £100 for a £100 coin, you pay £50 for a £50 coin and you pay £20 for a £20 coin. And they are 99.9% silver. Does that seem like a good investment? 

Nevertheless if it's not a good investment I can't wait to get to 90 years old in the year 2084 and say wow, look at this £100 uncirculated coin from the year 2015. That's what I'm doing it for. 

Happy Birthday once again Your Majesty. 

My Oldest USA One Cent

USA this evening! Here's my 1907 One Cent! Pretty good condition considering it's 110 years old next year! It's my oldest one cent! 108 mil were minted. 3.11 grams of Bronze! 

The 'Indian Head Cent' finished in 1909 replaced by the 'Lincoln Wheat Penny'. 

My 1920 Farthing - Amazing Condition

I didn't even realise coins this old came in this condition! When I was recently sorting through my latest batch of farthings this caught my eye immediately. It almost looked gold! Obviously not but... wait it might be... *checks*... nope it's not.

You know those moments when a coin catches your eye though. You have a browse over the general selection of coins and bam! A ray of light bounces off the virtually unconditioned piece of metal! What an amazing feeling!

By the way for any of you guys needing United Kingdom farthings shoot over to my 'United Kingdom' page on this blog... there's loads all for sale at £0.10 each!

Ever Seen A £50 Coin? You Have Now!

I'm keeping it modern again today with this fantastic coin from the Royal Mint. This is a £50 coin from the United Kingdom. It is .999 Silver! 31 grams of SILVER! Does anybody think the price of Silver will be the same as Gold in 50 years time? Will that happen? I hope so!

Britannia facing the left holds a trident and shield with a lion at her feet.

Again like the £100 coin I posted yesterday this is legal tender! If I paid for a bus ticket with this the bus driver would still be pretty annoyed!

One Of My £100 Coins - Legal Tender!

The only time I really buy new coins is for special occasions or very cool coins! This is the first ever £100 coin issued in the United Kingdom by Royal Mint. They're out of stock now and sold out pretty fast. It's a commemorative issue celebrating the British Architectural icons. This is Big Ben!

This coin is .999 Silver and weighs 62.86 grams. I know, that's a lot of silver! What's cool about this though is it's legal tender. So I can go into a shop and buy stuff with this! Obviously I wouldn't!

I've got another one too, a different £100 coin, so stay tuned! 

A Small Pile To Sort Today

Hope you all had a cracking bank holiday weekend. Mine was the same old stuff really I don't drink or go out much it's not really my thing. I just think about the day after being a complete hungover waste of time! Don't get me wrong once in a while is great but wow it's not my thing.

Today I'm sorting through this pile of coins I kindly received from a friend on instagram. He's a silver collector and he sent me out the old foreign coins he didn't want! For that I will forever be grateful! If you're into your silver coins please go over to instagram and follow @WRIGERZ1

Blown Away By Royal Mail International Delivery

You may be aware of this already if you follow me on Instagram but I was just blown away by this that I had to make a blog post about it. I posted the below coins to Spain (I'm in the United Kingdom) on the 25th April... and they arrived IN SPAIN exactly 3 days later!

Am I going mad? Are Royal Mail not busy? How did they get the envelope there that fast? I'm so impressed.

I must say thanks very much to Pablo for his order. Hope to deal with you again in the future! Left me a really nice review below that I have also listed on the 'Review' page on this blog.

Really excited to just engage with and help out fellow coin collectors!

Belgium Coin from WWII - I Can't Help Myself

I've landed on another WWII coin. This is a Belgium 5 Francs coin from 1941. Belgium was invaded by German forces on 10th May 1940. After 18 days Belgium surrendered beginning a German occupation that lasted until 1944.

As I mentioned in my before post; zinc and aluminium coins are normally issued in a time of crisis. In this instance copper and other metals used for coins during the time were needed for weaponry.

My WWII memorabilia is slowly building...

1862 Indian Commonwealth Coin

I haven't yet sorted through the latest batch of Indian coins to add any spares to the blog. HOWEVER, this one coin did catch my eye and I had to give it a look.

It's a 1/4 Anna 1862 Copper Coin. What a beautiful coin! I particularly like the old coins with the British Monarchs on it makes me feel like I'm closer to India, Australia, the general commonwealth! Unfortunately as you know the European Union has pulled us sharply away from the commonwealth. We are unable to make free trade deals with the likes of these countries because of the EUROPEAN UNION.

It winds me up when these career europhile politicians claim that being part of the European Union gives us more CLOUT on the world stage. Rubbish. Iceland with a population of just over 300,000 has signed a free trade deal with China and you guessed it, the European Union hasn't! Leaving the EU would allows us to engage with the Commonwealth countries which we've so shamefully abandoned.

Wow that's my rant for the day!

Let's Go Back to WWII - In The Netherlands

My favourite period by far for coins is WWII. The period is littered with zinc and aluminium coins. The reason so many WWII coins are zinc or aluminium is because many base metals such as copper and nickel had to be used elsewhere for the production of war materials.

This is a 1942 Netherlands 10 Cent. Germany invaded The Netherlands on 10th May 1940. These coins were produced from 1941-1943!

3 Worldwide Delivery's in 3 days!

Reporting to base! Very excited as during the weekend I had 3 customers, 2 of which were new, one returning! I find that the people that buy my spare coins have fantastic taste. As soon as I send them photos for them to check that they are to their standard I look at the photos and think 'Wow, these actually look really good' haha! 'I'd buy these coins myself!'

The countries that the orders went to are Romania, USA and Spain.

I'm also in talks with an Australian! HOW EXCITING!

Cleaning Zinc NAZI Coins - FEEL LIKE I'VE DISCOVERED FIRE

Ok I haven't discovered fire. However I may have stumbled across a way to clean ZINC coins.

Basically I found a Nazi coin with the swastika and the date covered up, which is no good to me! I need to see a date! So I took to the internet as I always do and typed in how to clean zinc.

How I cleaned the coin:
1. Squeeze lemon juice into a little tub
2. Put the coin in
3. Wait 6-12 hours (6 hours should be enough but I took it to 12!)
4. Brush off the juice with a tissue

DONE

I did the one coin then I ended up soaking all my Nazi coins! Worth a try if they're in really bad condition! I never clean coins because I know it ruins them most of the time, but if they're in awful condition what have you got to lose?

Before and after, and my little lemon juice tub

You can see the dirt rise to the surface 

The finished products

A Coin 296 Years Old, In My Hands

Yesterday a gigantic load of coins arrived! 12 kilograms! I'll go into more detail in terms of what I received in due course but first let's talk about the oldest (recognisable) coin in the load.

1720 Half Penny. A coin 296 years old. I've researched on an auction site that one of these in good condition costs £420! WHAT! Obviously this one below isn't worth that, it's probably worth half a penny still... but it's still cool to have a 'new old' coin to add to my collection!

Front

Back 

What it should look like! 

Building A 2014 Coin Into A Church Wall

I mentioned in my blog post yesterday that I replaced the coin I found in the church yard with another coin! Well here it is, with the photo!

I remember repointing the flint work and it got down to this last void that I had to fill. I remembered in my pocket I had some change! Would you believe it, it was a virtually uncirculated 5 pence coin from 2014. Perfect!

My hope is that in maybe 1000 years time when this area is rebuilt again somebody may find my note and my coin and get rich. Although I'm slightly worried the coin will deteriorate somehow because I literally wrapped it in the note, no plastic! So it's a long shot!

How cool would it be if when rebuilding the church wall I found a note and a coin? Imagine that!

I Found My Oldest Coin Digging Up A Graveyard

WOOOOAH! Don't take the title of this blog post as criminal activity! My previous job was a labourer working for 2 builders who specialised in Church restoration. A whole new drainage system had to be put in and you know what that means... Trenches... at least 3 foot deep... around the whole Church. This meant we'd be digging up history! We'd be digging through unmarked graves from hundreds of years ago. This coin didn't come from a grave though.

We were digging the trench for the pipe on the North side of the Church. Lee, my boss, was on the digger and I was with the shovel, down and dirty in the trenches making sure the trench had a nice 'fall' so the water in the pipe would actually run down it! Half way along the North side I remember Lee dropping a pile of soil from his digger onto the side and this circular piece of metal catching my eye.

I knew what it was straight away. I was worried that we'd have to 'hand it in' to a museum or something and they wouldn't have appreciated it as much as I would have! I got it into my pocket and I didn't even know what coin it was! It could have been a coin from 1500, 1300, a gold coin, or just a rotten 50 pence.

At dinner time I took it to my bag and put my phone light on it around the date. 1797! Bingo! I say bingo... It's virtually worthless. I would say it's worth face value. Yep 1 pence. It's a One Penny coin from 1797. Look at the condition! Horrendous! For any of you new policemen scouring the web for criminal activity please don't waste your time chasing me down for this old thing! To me it's part of history. It's the stories like these that make me want to collect and discover coins.

I actually did 'replace' the coin, planting my own coin built into the same church. I will do a blog post on this tomorrow! I've even got a photo of me building it in, and a photo of the note I left. Stay tuned!

Starting My Present Day Penny Collection

I'm not sure how common it is to collect circulated coins but I don't see why not? If I could go back in time to the year 1900 and collect up the best conditioned coins out of my back pocket then stick them in a folder, they'd be worth a lot more now! Obviously I wouldn't be alive to see them but it's about passing them on. Imagine if I had a family member who back in 1900 had this idea. To collect up the coins of their time for future generations.

Anyway the photo is my current circulated penny collection. The page starts at 1971 because the previous page is the old style large penny which finishes at 1967. So once you finish looking at the old pennies, flip over and you've got the newer version, in date order! I feel so efficient right now.

I know, there isn't many is there! But the beauty of doing this is my family and myself get a new load of pennies in their back pocket just from daily transactions! So I can sift through them and exchange them for worse condition coins in my collection. This is nearly as exciting as collecting old coins.

A 161 Year Old Coin I Didn't Even Realise I Had

This afternoon I searched my mini folder to see if I could find any hidden gems. You know when you learn things about coins over time such as words that link to the country of origin, or a certain monarch on the front... then you take a look at your collection and think wow! I didn't even realise I had this coin!

That's what I did this afternoon. I opened my folder to see this one particular coin. I turned my lamp on and found the date and some recognisable words on it that I could pump into google. Why didn't I do this before?

I found it was a French 10 Centimes from 1855. A coin 161 years old! Very bad condition but still, how cool! I can't even remember where I bought it from. I think it was in a pile!

As you can see below my coin is bottom left and bottom right. The photo on the right shows a different light because I literally had to hold it right up the lamp to even get the detail to show up on camera! The top photograph is a photo retrieved from google, just so you can see what it should look like! The google example is 1953 whereas mine is 1955!