ColonialCoinsUK

Congratulations to all the winners this year!

Congratulations to all the winners this year!

Congratulations to all the winners this year!

Congratulations to all the winners this year!

Congratulations to all the winners - some amazing coins and sets, it just makes you want to collect everything!
This year my contribution has been a bit intermittent, and not as regular as I hoped, so another Journal Award from NGC was an extremely nice surprise. As @Star City Homer said 'real life' probably got in the way for most of us this year - personnaly everything seems to take much longer done remotely so it was good to get back to work as my day job really needs specialist facilities. Major post-COVID complications didn't help either so I won't be running anywhere for a while - not that anyone would notice the difference.

Congratulations to all the winners - some amazing coins and sets, it just makes you want to collect everything!
This year my contribution has been a bit intermittent, and not as regular as I hoped, so another Journal Award from NGC was an extremely nice surprise. As @Star City Homer said 'real life' probably got in the way for most of us this year - personnaly everything seems to take much longer done remotely so it was good to get back to work as my day job really needs specialist facilities. Major post-COVID complications didn't help either so I won't be running anywhere for a while - not that anyone would notice the difference.

The auction catalogue for 1927 for Prince d'Essling's collection on the coins & medals of the 1st Empire Napoleon I to Napoleon III - bought from an auction of numismatic literature. This gives the Essling/Ess/E numbers used for Napoleonic Medals.
The other references used for these are Bramsen (1907 which is actually an attempt to list these) and Julius (1932 which again is an auction catalogue of a private collection) which are the main ones but auction houses vary in terms of which and how many references they cite. As there are 1000's of Napoleonic medals none of these are complete and don't cover any of the restrikes which the Paris mint produced at various points - 1840's, post 1880, 1920's and 1970's.
My retirement project was to write the first proper reference book however enough collectors/auction houses have asked me so I have now started this - 20 year clock to publication is now ticking ! (Using auction house pics as there is no way of buying examples of them all and almost any examples in silver are way beyond my budget and the gold ones can be worth more than my house)

I seem to have 100's of auction catalogs - just highlights which coins I should have bought years ago - i.e. not the ones I did
I have just bought another one from 1927 which gets cited alot in current auctions (will probably not actually get it until the end of February though) and lost out on another one from 1959 which went for >5x estimate

As a collector, also based in the UK, I thought I would contribute to this thread - my Dad used to call the brass threepence 'shrapnel' as it was very heavy to have a pocket full of change and much preferred shillings and pennies instead, as a result we always had bags of brass 3d's which went back to the bank so people didn't have to carry them around!
Proofs were issued in sets in 1937, 1950, 1951, 1953 (plus special proofs from sand blasted dies) and 1970 which were available to the public, there are proofs for the other years but these are very rare and are often referred to a 'VIP proofs' although the term 'proof of record' has been used alot over the last couple of years, the Stacks example in this thread is one of these. Coincraft's Standard catalogue of English & UK Coins 1066 to Date has a full list, including the 'VIP Proofs'. It is only worth collecting Elizabeth II issues in Brilliant Unicirculated and these later dates are usually available for a $/£1 or so at the most and some coin dealers here in the UK will sell them by the bagful which would work out at about 10 pence each which is why there are very few graded examples of these coins - the rare 1946 and 1949 issues being the exception.
The 1965 example in this thread is a circulation issue and damaged resulting in verdegris on the surface (which can have slightly different colours and change with time and the conditions the coin is kept in) and is effectively worthless. I can recommend 'The Standard Guide to Grading British Coins' by Derek Allen as I have found this useful of the years - now seems to be available in paperback.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Standard-Guide-Grading-British-Coins/dp/0948964561/ref=asc_df_0948964561/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310977525294&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4689948517733290315&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006659&hvtargid=pla-628664944557&psc=1&th=1&psc=1