English pennies with some history.

Mesquite

My father flew with the RCAF during WWII (C-47s; aka Dakotas). His route took him from England to the Middle East, Africa and India. We (he and I) were going through some of the coins he’d collected over the years and we made some finds – nothing great coin-wise, but a historical (his) find none the less. There was an old envelope labeled “foreign dough” that contained paper money from his war years (England, Gibraltar, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, India, etc.). Those I took home and put into a bill wallet and sent them back to him (didn’t think to photograph the more colorful of that collection). In addition we found some English pennies that were pretty crapped up. The years were 1914, 1919, 1921, 1948 and 1963 (obviously the last two were post-war pick-ups). I have cleaned these up by soaking in a 1/10 diluted solution of MS70 followed by gentle Q-tip rub, a good water rinse and an acetone bath. Thought I would show the results for two of the coins here. Both the 1914 and 1983 were pretty grimy. The coins are certainly in better shape now than they were prior to my intervention. These will make it back to my dad the next time we get together. Whatever coated the 1963 left an incredible iridescent trail of reds and blues and the coin has a lot of lustre. Just thought I’d share.

1jester

Mesquite, welcome to the Darkside! Thanks for sharing the news of your dad's collection with us. Surely it is exciting going through his collection and talking to him regarding the historical aspects of the coins, as well as the sentimental journey embodied in this activity.

I find the irridescent colors of the 1963 attractive as a piece of art, but I'd sincerely encourage you to never use MS70 or any other cleaning agent on copper; you'll certainly devastate the collector value of the coins.

lordmarcovan

Some of those old wartime servicemen's hoards can be quite fun. I had the opportunity to buy a hoard a few years back from a man named Everett- his father had served in the US Merchant Marine during the war and had saved coins from Brazil, South Africa, Great Britain, and British India, to name a few. They'd sat in an attic here in Southeast Georgia for decades, and while some were "crapped up", as you put it, many had lovely iridescent toning. I can't help but wonder if the summer heat in that attic here had something to do with it- temperatures in attics here in the dog days of summer can easily top 120°F.

rhound1977

Nice history and coins, thanks for sharing and..... to the darkside