1877 Great Britain Large Penny - Large Date Or Small Date

Hi. The 1877 'narrow date' British penny is documented in Micheal Freeman's book called "The Bronze Coinage of Great Britain". It's very rare...probably only a handful known. The last example sold on ebay.com for 7250.00 GBP. Photo attached showing what this variety looks like.

The "small date" scarcer variety occurred in 1857 - 59 for copper issue pennies.
The "narrow date" variety is recognized for years 1874 - 77 and 1879 for bronze pennies.

A well-known Midlands dealer located an 1877 narrow date penny last year in a small tin of coins. It was very worn although the date was just still visible. It sold for £3,300 plus commission on 4th June 2012. Check out the auction lot here

http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=...searchtype=2

How can CGS grade that at Fine?...it just isn't.

I agree, it's overgraded. FAIR would be a more accurate grade. A true FINE specimen would indeed be worth £6,000. However, this is a case of overgrading to generate more money for the auction house. Your thoughts?

Wow, thats making me dribble ;)

Hi Rebecca!






Can I first just check, is your penny 1877 or 1977? That will make a difference!

Then I should warn you that coins stored in jar sound like ones that have just been picked out of change. Generally the coins in such 'collections' are quite worn and not worth a great deal.

However if you can post a photo (of both sides - you might need to put each side in separate posts if they are too big) that would help everyone give you much better advice.