LawrenceChard

1644 Charles I Gold Triple Unite Oxford Mint Declaration Type Obverse King left, crowned, armoured and draped, holding sword and olive branch, Oxford plume Lettering: CAROLVS.D:G:MAG:BRI:FRA:E.HIBER:REX Reverse Declaration on continuous scroll, three plumes above, date and mint below Lettering: EXVRGAT.DEVS.DISSIPENTVR.INIMICI RELIG:PROT:LEG:ANG:LIBER.PAR: 1644 Weight 27 grams. Value if genuine £50K+ This is of course a Chinese fake in brass, although gold plated ones are available. Sourced from AliBaba for under £3 including postage. Weight 24.08 grams ... and the reverse: Niton XRF test result: A fairly typical brass alloy, with no gold plating detected. As there was a small iron content, I also tested it with a neodymium magnet, with zero attraction detectable. This is today's Chinese fake, acquired for educational purposes, as are the rest of the "coins" in this thread. AcCtualy, it might be more accurate to describe this as an imitation or replica coin, as it would be difficult to mistake it for the genuine article, excpet on ebay where it would be described as an extremely rare coin, worth £100,000 but for sale to the highest bidder over £50. Being ebay somebody would probably be stupid or greedy enough to buy it. 😎

I guess the "TBC" was from here https://www.chards.co.uk/products/2022-perth-mint-gold-tiger As you can see, we have all sizes from 2 ounce down to 1/10 ounce. We never go hyper on the 1/20th ounce or smaller sizes, because of the high premium. It is likely that the 1/20th will be produced soon. We also try to "batch" our Perth Mint shipping, to keep the shipping costs in proportion. Best to just e-mail info@chards.co.uk, because you might get a quicker answer, because I would do the same as our Customer Service team, and ask what we know. If we had an indicated delivery date, we would normally add it to the pqge, but it can sometimes get missed. I hope that helps. We should have bought one or more one kilo versions as well, so I'll ask why we didn't.

Those will be minor details when someone decides to sell one on ebay. They will probably call it a very rare mint error, but I don't know anything about coins, so I will start the auction at £0.99 😎

Brilliant, thanks again. I tried Google Lens on it, but without any success. I will add your info to the OP.

I came across this 150 grams silver bar recently: It appears to be Chinese, and the birds over junk stamp in the cartouche reminds me of some early 20th century Chinese silver dollars. This is a closer view of the stamp: I didn't know what the symbols (words?) mean. But thanks to @Happypanda88 "4 tael bar from Lee Cheong bullion dealer in Hong Kong".

In addition to fingerprints and scuffs from handling, it would not be surprising if there were scrapes and drillings made for assay purposes, but... ... perhaps the Royal Mint should make this clear in its advertising and product descriptions. 🙂

I've been boycotting them the last 10 years, and they haven't noticed yet! 😎

I poke my nose into things, but 'snot always productive. 😎

Machines? Possibly not, or at least not anything with any great degree of accuracy and ease of use. Equipment? Yes: 1) A neodymium magnet would cost a few pounds. Precious metals are not ferro-magnetic, and neither are most of their alloys. 2) Scales. Reasonable electronic balances now cost under £10. 3) Measuring devices. A ruler would cost very little, or a caliper gauge would be more accurate, and cost about £10. 4) A pack of acids, or a precious metal testing kit, would cost about £30 + or -, from a jewellers' supplier. 5) You could do your own cupelation by buying some cupels (£1+-), a blowtorch (£10+-), or a furnace (from $125 on Alibaba). 6) "Ping" test ap for mobile phone (free). Limited results. 7) Fisch, or similar, gauge, from $200. Eight) (TSF converts 8 followed by a right bracket to an emoji). A drill. Most people probably already own one. Practical, reliable, but somewhat destructive. 9) Probably a whole lot more I have missed out. 😎

Yes, at a guess. You thinking of getting one? 😎

I agree, but it is still preferable to have a minty one to photograph. One big distinction, in my opinion, is that it is a coin intended for circulation, in preference over a "made for collectors" coin. It would have been good to have had access to a mint bag (£250) of 1969 fifty pences, and pick out a near perfect specimen, but for photographic purposes I would be equally happy to photograph one from a B.U. mint set, third choice would be a proof version, but that actually makes it a different variation of the same coin. Fouth choice would be a circulated specimen, but even then, I would try to find the best condition coin to photograph. Whenever I see the image I posted, I feel frustrated that it was the best specimen I could find at the time. In the next few days, I will try and search to see if we have a better one in stock. We did have some of the 2019 "reprise" 50 years proof sets a few years ago, so if we still have one, may photograph the 1969, and possibly most or all of the others. As you can probably tell I collect photographs. 😎

Annual service is over £1000 It has a built in calibrate function Minimal power costs. There are 3 "consumables" similar to a the lamp in a projector, these cost about £3000 to £4000 each, and have no operational life guarantees. When they fail, they fail, and the replacement cost is ours. So far, none of these 3 have failed, but writing this is tempting fate! 😎

Just got today's promo e-mail from the Royal Mint (mis?)Informer. Basically it's a sales pitch for its range of new gold, silver, and base metal proof, and B.U. commemoratives. Here's an old, low-res photo of one which I took about 20 years ago: That happened to be the best example we could find at the time. Strangely enough, minty 1969 fifty pences don't seem to turn up very often. If we see one, we will get a better photo. The above photo was from our very first website: https://24carat.co.uk/frame.php?url=fiftypencestory.html amd was probably written in about 2000. There are no plans to update that page.

I'm glad to hear that you found it useful. We will be adding some other dates to the existing page, but have also pencilled in a major project to test almost every date and mintmark combination, capturing the data directly to a PC, then making it available as a complete work. It will take some time though!

https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/krugerrand-gold-content/507