EvilLandlord

Hi! 

My grandad lost his wife to illness in about 1967/68 and I think he took up this hobby to keep his mind busy and to keep my dad and his sister busy (they were in their teens at the time) sorting through coins he brought back from the bank and sorting and date ordering them. I think the collecting side of it all kicked in a bit later and he occasionally ordered coins or visited jewellers on his travels and picked up some interesting coins from then on. It's mainly silver and lots and lots of "old money" (I've put his typed sheets of these below with a snapshot from some point in time, I've yet to work out if he collected more after this point and these don;t seem to list his larger silver coins) with some silver dollars and some peculiar medallions and collectible ones that I'm still trying to identify and check out. I'll certainly get photos of those up on the silver forum when I get chance to photograph them all! any input and advice is greatly appreciated. I have tubs here full of old pennies and all sorts of other things. It's quite a daunting task but I feel quite lucky to be able to enjoy doing it knowing that he went through all these at some point too
 
He made a big deal of handing these over to me in one large collection so I doubt he had any stashed away anywhere. He seemed keen to pass the interest on at the time, eitehr to me or my children one day.

Hi! 

My grandad lost his wife to illness in about 1967/68 and I think he took up this hobby to keep his mind busy and to keep my dad and his sister busy (they were in their teens at the time) sorting through coins he brought back from the bank and sorting and date ordering them. I think the collecting side of it all kicked in a bit later and he occasionally ordered coins or visited jewellers on his travels and picked up some interesting coins from then on. It's mainly silver and lots and lots of "old money" (I've put his typed sheets of these below with a snapshot from some point in time, I've yet to work out if he collected more after this point and these don;t seem to list his larger silver coins) with some silver dollars and some peculiar medallions and collectible ones that I'm still trying to identify and check out. I'll certainly get photos of those up on the silver forum when I get chance to photograph them all! any input and advice is greatly appreciated. I have tubs here full of old pennies and all sorts of other things. It's quite a daunting task but I feel quite lucky to be able to enjoy doing it knowing that he went through all these at some point too
 
He made a big deal of handing these over to me in one large collection so I doubt he had any stashed away anywhere. He seemed keen to pass the interest on at the time, eitehr to me or my children one day.

Hi! 

My grandad lost his wife to illness in about 1967/68 and I think he took up this hobby to keep his mind busy and to keep my dad and his sister busy (they were in their teens at the time) sorting through coins he brought back from the bank and sorting and date ordering them. I think the collecting side of it all kicked in a bit later and he occasionally ordered coins or visited jewellers on his travels and picked up some interesting coins from then on. It's mainly silver and lots and lots of "old money" (I've put his typed sheets of these below with a snapshot from some point in time, I've yet to work out if he collected more after this point and these don;t seem to list his larger silver coins) with some silver dollars and some peculiar medallions and collectible ones that I'm still trying to identify and check out. I'll certainly get photos of those up on the silver forum when I get chance to photograph them all! any input and advice is greatly appreciated. I have tubs here full of old pennies and all sorts of other things. It's quite a daunting task but I feel quite lucky to be able to enjoy doing it knowing that he went through all these at some point too
 
He made a big deal of handing these over to me in one large collection so I doubt he had any stashed away anywhere. He seemed keen to pass the interest on at the time, eitehr to me or my children one day.

digging a bit deeper when googling the £5 coin there seems to be 10 known coins that don't have the BP mark at the lower right of St George. I can't see one on this either which has me a bit worried that it's a fake, or worth a blooming fortune!
https://www.sovr.co.uk/products/victoria-1887-pattern-five-pounds-no-bp-initials-pf61-cameo-hi29141

EDIT: Actually on much closer inspection there are two small dots visible. Pretty sure that'll be the BP. As well as a camera with a decent macro lens it also appears I need to get myself a magnifying glass!

Any other items you recommend purchasing for my collecting and stacking journey ahead of me? I've seen videos on devices that test the content and size of coins to verify them as authentic, but they seem quite pricey and may not apply to me at the level I'm at at the moment.. 
 
Also wondering what the best way to store and catalogue a collection is, what materials to avoid using that may react with them etc. Is there a FAQ up anywhere?
 
 

Fantastic! They look great. I'm still learning what's what. Looked up the Barmaid's Ruin. Very interesting!
 

Here’s my 1887 silver set, taken out of similar ‘Victoria Jubilee Specimen Set’ box, with the addition of an 1887 Sovereign.
Those were the days as a numismatic collector (not any more!) gradually filling up the box - that was the enjoyment, especially when complete. 🙂 @EvilLandlord
Photo is a size comparison - I’m sure you can identify them all, even the ‘Barmaids Ruin’?……

🤔1974 …. You were doing ok if you could sped that on coins🤔

Being a made up set might make sense as I found this too (the coin envelope was empty and I was hoping I hadn't lost it but it might be in here)! 

Here is a close up (which took far too many attempts and made me realise I need a better camera to take proper close ups of small coins  -  any recommendations?) of both of the small gold coins.

Sounds like I have my first mission! 

Here are the other sides (or obverses as I have just learned)!

 

digging a bit deeper when googling the £5 coin there seems to be 10 known coins that don't have the BP mark at the lower right of St George. I can't see one on this either which has me a bit worried that it's a fake, or worth a blooming fortune!
https://www.sovr.co.uk/products/victoria-1887-pattern-five-pounds-no-bp-initials-pf61-cameo-hi29141

EDIT: Actually on much closer inspection there are two small dots visible. Pretty sure that'll be the BP. As well as a camera with a decent macro lens it also appears I need to get myself a magnifying glass!

Any other items you recommend purchasing for my collecting and stacking journey ahead of me? I've seen videos on devices that test the content and size of coins to verify them as authentic, but they seem quite pricey and may not apply to me at the level I'm at at the moment.. 
 
Also wondering what the best way to store and catalogue a collection is, what materials to avoid using that may react with them etc. Is there a FAQ up anywhere?
 
 

Also possibly of interest are a couple of newspaper clippings he had.
Here's one that's a snapshot of the time
 
 

Sounds like I have my first mission! 

Here are the other sides (or obverses as I have just learned)!

 

Also possibly of interest are a couple of newspaper clippings he had.
Here's one that's a snapshot of the time
 
 

Here's an example of an 1887 'Wreath' sixpence.  I also have an example of the Withdrawn type, but don't have a photo of that coin.  But here's an 1887 shilling with the same design - you already have one of these in your set:
 

There's no way of knowing which of the two half sovs was originally in the case.  I agree with @Britannia47 and others that the set has actually been assembled over time, rather than it being an original set as sold by the Royal Mint at the time.
The 'correct' coin would be a London mint coin (that is, without a mint mark below the shield on the reverse).  So if one of the coins does have a mint mark, that is the odd one out (as it were).
In similar vein, the 'correct' sixpence for this set would be the Withdrawn Type (that is, the one with the shield on the reverse, not the wreath).
You have some lovely coins there, regardless 🙂

Fantastic thank you. I'm going down a right rabbit hole here aren't I? Seems like I may be a chip off the old block!

There seem to be an awful lot of half crowns.. and all sorts of smaller silver.
 

I agree with your hypothesis 🙂
Regarding the other coins - especially if there are other particular halfcrowns in the collection - have a look at these two sites, they will give you a good idea of values of particular UK predecimal coins, by denomination and year:
https://www.allcoinvalues.com/united-kingdom/uk-coin-values---1801-to-1967.html
https://www.coins-of-the-uk.co.uk/values/
And you're quite right about the (lack of) value in the Churchill/Coronation crowns.  Keep one of each, give the rest away!

Thank you everyone! That's very kind! Knowing my grandad he would have haggled hard for them all as well..
He once told me a story of when he went out with his dad to buy some bathroom furniture for a warehouse they were moving into and his dad kept "arguing" with the guy that was selling it. It made him feel really awkward and afterwards he asked him why he didn't just buy it. 
His dad said, "Alan.. I was there for 15 minutes and managed to knock off £X (1930's prices and I can't remember the figure, he told me it was the equivalent of about £100 today..) from his asking price.. Think about it.. If you times that by 4 that's over an hour. If you can go out and earn that in an hour you'd be a happy man, and that's what we just did.."
He always used to come into my office (family business) and ask how the "buying" was going.. Reminding me that buying right is as good as making money in the first place.

The envelope and receipt posted above from the dealer makes me think he may have got hold of this without the £2 in it and bought the uncirculated condition coin to complete the set and kept the receipt to show that.. Possibly anyway.. Once I get the whole collection researched (There's quite a lot of it all) and sorted out the wheat from the chaff so to speak then I'll ask advice on here about how to go about an appraisal if that's okay? I don't intend to sell any of these really interesting items but he has a lot of duplicated of the others so I may look to use the sale of those to stack and possibly add other interesting sets or coins to the collection.


I'll put a link here when I start the thread on the silver forum about the other coins in here as there are some right oddballs I've already come across that I may need help with, as well as the usual dozen or so of each of the Churchills and coronation crowns that I understand are pretty common.

Thank you everyone! That's very kind! Knowing my grandad he would have haggled hard for them all as well..
He once told me a story of when he went out with his dad to buy some bathroom furniture for a warehouse they were moving into and his dad kept "arguing" with the guy that was selling it. It made him feel really awkward and afterwards he asked him why he didn't just buy it. 
His dad said, "Alan.. I was there for 15 minutes and managed to knock off £X (1930's prices and I can't remember the figure, he told me it was the equivalent of about £100 today..) from his asking price.. Think about it.. If you times that by 4 that's over an hour. If you can go out and earn that in an hour you'd be a happy man, and that's what we just did.."
He always used to come into my office (family business) and ask how the "buying" was going.. Reminding me that buying right is as good as making money in the first place.

Thank you! 

I plan on taking my time going though it all and carefully going through the collection of pre decimal silver and putting aside the better condition ones he has and continuing the collection from there. Also possibly stacking some fractional gold over time from now on as well. I know the prices are high but planning on buying a bit now and then over time until I (hopefully) reach a ripe old age too

Some time ago, a few years before he passed away during the first covid wave at 96 years old (he was playing golf six months before!) I received a collection of coins from my grandad. He didn't tell me much about them at all other than that he enjoyed collecting and ordering them. As well as these there are lots, and lots of others I may have questions about but these are the boxed ones, some of which contain gold coins so if it's okay I'll post them here and ask later on the silver forum about the other peculiar individual silver ones he had (as well as loads of the old silver half crowns, sixpences and all sorts of other stuff). 

Any comments, advice etc on any of them are welcomed, even if it turns out some are copies, not collectable, junk etc. I won't take offence. I have just started going through them and find them fascinating. Looking to do a bit of collecting and stacking after reading up on it all and am looking forward to the journey!

There are a lot so I have created a shared an imgur photos album and have linked the main overhead shots of these selected coins/sets here as an overview. Can take more pics of reverses etc if it helps!  

Here is a link to the shared album with some shots of each set. https://imgur.com/a/drDpW5u


Thanks!

Also possibly of interest are a couple of newspaper clippings he had.
Here's one that's a snapshot of the time
 
 

Lovely collection your grandad left you. 🙂