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Serration Count on Gold Sovereigns - The Number of Grains on Milled Edges


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23 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

The syntax there is perfectly clear, and is a nice clear and efficient way to say it.

I hadn't noticed the split infinitive, and had to look when you mentioned it.

It isn't a crime to occasionally split an infinitive.

🙂

I agree completely.  Let's boldly continue!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Wrong serration count on a fake 1958 gold sovereign.

We mention it in passing here:

https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/1958-counterfeit-gold-sovereign/255

Out for the Count - Edge Serrations
A feature which is not apparent from our photographs is the edge milling. On our fake, it is noticeably crude, whereas a genuine sovereign has a much more even appearance. We also decided to count the edge serrations and discovered a small but important difference.

In our blog, "Introducing the 1957 Elizabeth II Sovereign", we state that the 1957 sovereign has 168* serrations instead of 108 serrations found on other Elizabeth sovereigns. To date, we have not checked every single date of Elizabeth sovereign, but we did originally compare with 1958. Our fake has 106 serrations. At this point, we re-checked another randomly chosen 1958 genuine sovereign and confirmed that it did have the 108 we had stated. It is possible that not all Elizabeth II sovereigns have the same number of serrations, and there may even be differences within a single date year.

I feel sure we took photographs, also including a comparison image, but they are not included on the above mentioned page.

I will check to see if we have taken them, then include them on the page, and also here if I remember.

And here they are:

comparisontoshowdifferenceinnumberofserrationswithgenuineandfake1958fullsovereignrev4000.thumb.jpg.8312f4aae98c1d1b583019e086563db2.jpg

Genuine coin on the left, fake on the right.

* That should say 169, but nobody spotted it in time to win a pint!

😎

Edited by LawrenceChard
added photo

Chards

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On 14/03/2022 at 20:22, Stuntman said:

To paraphrase Winston Churchill (I think), ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will no longer put 😉

 

On 15/03/2022 at 15:41, SidS said:

Winston Churchill quotes lol.

My favourite Churchill quote was his reply when a snobbish lady stated to him:

"Sir, If I were your wife, I'd poison your drink."

Winston's retort was:

"Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it."

I just wish I was as quick witted as that!

Another famous alleged Churchill quote, after a female MP had accused him of being disgustingly drunk:

'My dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.'

😎

Chards

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23 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

My favourite Churchill quote

Ian Harvey was the Conservative MP for Harrow East, privately educated, a graduate of Oxford University, and had sat on a Parliamentary committee that worked to crack down on homosexuals in the British Armed Forces. He was caught in the bushes of St James Park with his trousers down by a park warden one freezing November night in 1958, engaging in an act of gross indecency with a 19 year old guardsman, Anthony Plant of the Coldstream Guards. It cost him his job as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, and his seat in Parliament. When told, Winston Churchill remarked, “On the coldest night of the year? It makes you proud to be British.”

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9 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

 

Another famous alleged Churchill quote, after a female MP had accused him of being disgustingly drunk:

'My dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.'

😎

😎? Really? That (alleged) response is the lowest of lows to me, however funny or witty it may seem at first sight.

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43 minutes ago, CollectForFun said:

😎? Really? That (alleged) response is the lowest of lows to me, however funny or witty it may seem at first sight.

Most humour offends somebody.

Is it better for us to avoid humour or avoid offence?

I would also much prefer tho receive some humorous oral offence than the inhuman physical military offence which Putin and Russia are currently inflicting on Ukraine and its citizens, amongst others.

😎

Chards

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 02/04/2022 at 23:41, ady said:

... and had sat on a Parliamentary committee that worked to crack down on homosexuals in the British Armed Forces.

Conjures up some kind of image, but I'm not sure what!

😎

Chards

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On 02/04/2022 at 23:41, ady said:

Ian Harvey was the Conservative MP for Harrow East, privately educated, a graduate of Oxford University, and had sat on a Parliamentary committee that worked to crack down on homosexuals in the British Armed Forces. He was caught in the bushes of St James Park with his trousers down by a park warden one freezing November night in 1958, engaging in an act of gross indecency with a 19 year old guardsman, Anthony Plant of the Coldstream Guards. It cost him his job as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, and his seat in Parliament. When told, Winston Churchill remarked, “On the coldest night of the year? It makes you proud to be British.”

Harvey was educated at Fettes - not the only thing he had in common with Tony Blair then!

Winston would have known his sort, having been educated at the rather average Harrow….rather than Eton.

 

Not my circus, not my monkeys

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58 minutes ago, ady said:

The Number of Grains - 

Should these not be called reeds?

Only when on "ponds" 😎:

gold-historic-gold-collection-coin-sets-united-kingdom-8-coins-5.jpg.128f158cfec638930297ca2ae328f068.jpg

Such as this 1950 South Africa Half Pond.

I think serration, milling, or graining are all more appropriate.

Without going into heavy etymological research, I don't know who, where, or when, was the first use of the word "reeding" for the indentations on the edge of a coin.

Some of the earliest edge security features appeared on British gold guineas from about 1662, and these were produced by milling machines, so milling, or milled edge seems highly appropriate.

A dictionary search for "reed" finds mainly mentions of grasslike plants, and I don't see the connection between them and coin edges,

Perhaps it was our American friends who devised the term "reed" for the edge graining.

If you have any detailed knowledge about the first usage if "reed" in relation to coin edges, I would be delighted for you to share it with us here, partly for my own education.

 

Chards

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3 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

If you have any detailed knowledge about the first usage if "reed" in relation to coin edges, I would be delighted for you to share it with us here, partly for my own education.

Thanks for your response and thought you might put me right. I did start a thread (feb 21) Milled Edges where I got one reply. I would say some of the 2oz beasts,could be called serrated as were sharp. I do find the edges of coin alittle overlooked. Think you might be right about the american useage.

The reeded edge of a coin is the series of grooved lines that encircle the perimeter of some U.S. coins, such as the dime, quarter and half dollar.

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14 minutes ago, ady said:

Thanks for your response and thought you might put me right. I did start a thread (feb 21) Milled Edges where I got one reply. I would say some of the 2oz beasts,could be called serrated as were sharp. I do find the edges of coin alittle overlooked. Think you might be right about the american useage.

The reeded edge of a coin is the series of grooved lines that encircle the perimeter of some U.S. coins, such as the dime, quarter and half dollar.

I guess you got that from thesprucecrafts.

It is typically parochially US-centric "of some U.S. coins". Why don't they just say "of some coins"? It could be because the writer knows nothing about other coins, or perhaps knows nothing about anything or anywhere outside the USA.

Thay could also just be called grooves or grooved lines. I would bet that the writer did not know why they are called reeds or a reeded edge. He just heard or read it somewhere, and is passing on his (lack of) knowledge to everybody else.

Actually, I don't mind anyone saying "reeded edge", as it is still fairly clear what they mean, although milled edge and serrated edge is even clearer, in my opinion, and with the additional benefit that I know how and why those terms arose.

😎

Chards

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19 hours ago, ady said:

The Number of Grains - 

Should these not be called reeds?

 

17 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

Only when on "ponds" 😎:

 

I managed to find a pair of South African Gold Pond photos:

1898southafrica1pondungradedgoldrevcrop.thumb.jpg.5a718d0b93b88720b8d8535b30e170ae.jpg

1898 Reverse, above, and Obverse:

1898southafrica1pondungradedgoldobvcrop.thumb.jpg.2a640272acdb013f203dda2212aeabd7.jpg

Featuring Paul Kruger.

People, on ebay etc, often call these Krugerrands, because they don't know what they are talking about, but say it anyway.

They are Kruger Ponds which came well before Krugerrands.

😎

Chards

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On 13/03/2022 at 12:42, LawrenceChard said:

I can't remember the first coin we decided to count the edge serrations on. It may have been a Krugerrand, or it could have been a sovereign.

I can remember getting complaints from the staff member I tasked it to. Despite him being someone with a University degree, albeit in history. I had to nanny him by working out ways to accomplish the task. The simplest method was to use a very fine tipped pen to mark the starting point, and then to mark every tenth ridge around the coin. There was a lot of grumbling, many recounts, and a few second opinions. Clearly there had to be a better method.

I asked our photographer (at the time) to take our usual macro photos, but place the coin on a reflective concave surface, so that the edge serrations were clearly visible. You would have thought I had asked him to undertake a moon landing! Again, this was someone with a (master's) degree in photography. I had to provide the ideas about what he could use, and then I had to find the actual objects to try out. Once we had taken the shots, I had to "invent" ways to mark out the serrations, and to clearly show the count. Eventually, we got the images I wanted.

As we have recently done a number of serration count images, and also denticle counts, I thought it worthwhile to create a new topic / thread, so here goes:

2022-108serrationcount.thumb.jpg.a3e4e232e0e273d233fc00904142c62a.jpg

Edge serration count on a 2022 (bullion) sovereign. I should mention that there are 108 serrations, as shown.

More to follow, but all TSF members are welcome to contribute.

🙂

Excellent can I use my fingers and toes 😋 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 8 months later...
On 17/05/2022 at 14:04, LawrenceChard said:

Getting back to serrations on gold sovereigns, here is an 1872 London Mint shield sovereign:

Is there a reason you chose to count serrations over denticles?
For example have you experienced a pattern with counterfeits being inaccurate in their serration count more so than denticles? Is one easier than the other to get right

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Just had a go with an image of a 1953 from an image search which happened to be one of Chards images on the top spot. I've marked number 1 with the vertical red line at 12 o clock and then 10, 20, 30 etc until 130 and then 1 final denticle totalling 131 which matches 2 from my stack that I counted of the same year

image.thumb.jpeg.4be4928dc8e31fc50317dcb6819865b4.jpeg

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