Just bought this beauty, and being newbie in grading British coins I need your help to evaluate the grade and price. The price was 43.50 euro. Cheap, fair, expensive? Thank you in advance.

Looks pretty good to me, perhaps AU-55 without the rim bumps.

Heavily worn on St. George's head, chest, and the dragon's rib cage. All indicative of a well-used coin. Maybe fine-very fine at best. Also, some pretty evident hairlines/scratches on the obverse. All in all, a pretty unattractive coin. These are very common and cheap. Go to some good auction companies sites and look at some of these coins when they are in mint state to see what detail is missing on this coin. For example, this link, http://www.mkjassociates.com/cgi-bin/ilgvu...=46&lot=469 will take you to a beautiful example of this coin. Compare the reverse with St. George and look at the sash across his chest, look at the detail in his headband, and look at the detail in the dragon. Now compare your coin, and you will see the differences. This is the way to grade, not just pulling something out of the hat. The previous message opined that this was AU. Not a chance. AU means just a tiny bit of wear. Sometimes an AU coin can be nicer than some unc coins, if the unc coins have lots of bag marks/hairlines. Your coin is much more worn than AU, and, as I said, perhaps fine to v.fine at best.

If the other URL for the Goldbergs site doesn't work, try this (in brackets).

[http://www.mkjassociates.com/cgi-bin/ilgvulot.pl?site=1&sale=46&lot=469] 1893 crown on Goldbergs' site

About Uncirculated my British-grading arse!

Sorry just had to say that, don't take it too badly, the differences between the two grading systems means that this might be an EF in some but my first thought about this coin was VF+, - it's in better nick than average and for the price tag of around 30 GBP this just about seems to fit. The overall grade looks fairly sharp but there are flat surfaces especially visible on the St. George side and don't forget the corrosion on the bust.

Marv^ the photo you provided links to an auction of a proof coin so you should expect sharper detail anyway for that one.

I think he has done okay regarding the price of that one, and no they are not too common and too cheap a type of coin in my opinion. Still a great acquisition

AU my American, but British grading opinion arse twa I agree, VF, but apparently wiped on the reverse of the piece. I concur that it is a nice coin for the price though. I have an 1890 Crown somewhere that I feel like I got ripped off on, I paid something like C$90 for it.

Thank you all for replies!
The coin is still in the mail system. When it will comes I will post a high resolution scan here. Because of the rim major knicks it cannot be AU in my oppinion. But considering the almost perfect plain fields (no visible scratches, bag marks, etc) I still hope that the missing details on St. George's chest, dragon and Victoria's bust may be the results of a weak strike. At first sight I considered it VF (with a hope of XF).

I'd go with almost Very Fine, a lot of scratches on the fields and quite a bit of wear. Not too bad though!


Clive.

You're right of course, it's a proof coin. I just think that one needs to know what the design "should" look like before one even begins to evaluate a coin. Someone also mentioned a "weak strike." In my opinion, there's no way that amount of loss of detail could be due to a weak strike, but the real determinent of that, of course, is luster, and from the pictures, it appears to me that the coin has no luster left. Even an EF coin may have some luster in protected areas, and certainly an AU coin, even a weakly struck AU coin, should have a lot of luster remaining, but this coin looks like all the luster is worn away, that's why I'd grade it no better than VF. Here's another link to an unc one: http://www.coinarchives.com/w/lotviewer.ph...1&Lot=51379

In the end, however, one cannot really grade a coin from a picture. There's no substitute for having the coin in hand, so obviously all this is just a guess.

Marv Finnley

Okay, I stand corrected, my noobness is showing

I still don't see very much wear on the details the coin in question, although the lack of lustre and many rim hits are indicative of wear.

I will post some pics of the Crown I own to compare. I bought this long ago (one of my very first ebay purchases actually) and looking back at it, it most certainly has had a cleaning. However there is still lustre in the devices. I always thought of this coin as in the VF range, as there is quite a bit of wear on the higher points, but most of the design elements are in good shape.

I'd say that your crown grades in the Fine region as this is determined by this definition "Fine ranges from F12 to F15. This grade range will show moderate even wear. Some of the detail will be worn off." That's the American Grading Scale, so perhaps a F14?

I grade in the British style and I'd say that this is almost VF, look at the brooch on Vickie's shoulder, there's no detail on it and there are quite a lot of 'flat' patches such as her hair and veil.

But it is still a nice coin! No major edge dings either!

Clive.

My coin is a quite a bit more worn than the OP's, yet they get about the same grade? Other than the rim bumps, I don't see very much wear on the OPs, just a little bit on the highest points (blade of the sword, chest and head). I am getting confused about grading these, lol.

On these crowns, Pistrucci's design (on the reverse) is much higher relief than the obverses, so that is where wear (!) shows up first. Your coin is more heavily worn than the first coin in this thread. I would grade your coin only fine at best, perhaps worse, as the major design elements on the reverse are heavily worn, i.e., the arm, the sword, the chest, the helmet, the dragon's body, St. George's leg, horse's head, dragon's head, etc. The obverse design is flatter and therefore more sheltered by the coin's edge, but it too shows a good bit of wear. I prefer to grade these crowns by the reverse.

You mention that there is "still some luster in the devices." I sincerely doubt that. You may be mistaking the "shine" created by the heavy cleaning of your coin for luster. There is no comparison. Try to find an uncirculated example of these crowns at a show to get an idea of what real luster looks like (e.g., cartwheel luster) which is created by the flow lines of the metal during striking by the dies. These tiny lines are easily worn off, and are a very sensitive indicator of wear. I hardly expect that your coin, suffering from so much wear, still exhibits any real luster. The "shine" from a harsh cleaning is mistaken frequently for luster by inexperienced collectors. You could also view an unc Morgan dollar (not prooflike or proof) to get an idea of true luster. Even if the unc coin has lots of marks, unless it is cleaned harshly, you should still see a lot of luster. However, sometimes the luster is muted by toning, so you need to look at several coins. Stop by a reputable dealer's table at a good show to learn what luster really looks like.

Marv Finnley

I do have a number of uncirculated Canadian and US coins, albeit no English unc coins. So I have a fairly good idea what lustre looks like. My coin is rather odd though, it has surely been cleaned, but in the devices the "shine" is different. I don't see how someone would scrub their coin harder in between the letters so precisely.

"High Relief" means that the image in the foreground is elevated higher relative to the field, right? If so, I fail to see how even my coin could be classified as "heavily worn".

Here are a couple images I found of crowns worn far more than my own. Would you grade these as Good, and Fair/Poor, respectively? There was one other 1820-some crown I saw, but lost a link to, which was far more worn than even the 2nd one I posted here.

Different types of coins show wear differently, so as you might be used to wear American and Canadian coins the wear on British coins will be different.

I would grade the Vicky a Fair and the George a Poor.

The "shine" in the device line is probably dirt and grime rather than lustre.


Clive.

I found this guide for UK grading at http://www.tclayton.demon.co.uk/values/coins.html. Does it sound about accurate? It seems the grading definitions are quite different between US and UK grading.

It is relatively accurate but each person has their own opinions on grading, I'm voicing mine whereas others are voicing theirs.

You can take this as a general guide, but each design wears differently. On some, the date is sheltered such that even if the whole design was worn smooth, you might still see the date. I don't consider myself an expert, but I do know that even in US coins, each design has its own characteristic wear pattern, and I believe PCGS has attempted to show, for each design, the higher relief areas that would tend to wear first and more heavily as the coin circulates.

For example, on standing liberty quarters from 1916 through 1924, the date was one of the higher areas of the coin and tended to wear off first, so the guidelines you quoted wouldn't have applied to this coin, as this coin could have been graded vf but have no date visible. In 1925, the date was recessed below the rim of the coin, and as a result, one can find very worn examples of coins from 1925 through 1930 with the date still very visible. So it all depends on the design and for very expensive coins, I would recommend working with an experienced dealer if you are contemplating a purchase. For a cheap coin, it really doesn't matter if you're off by a grade or two. If you like the coin, that's all that counts, and you won't suffer too badly upon resale.

Marv Finnley