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OK, own up. Which kind soul anonymously posted me an aquatics 50p? Thank you, whoever you are.

Germany, Austria and Italy are stood together in the middle of the pub, when Serbia bumps into Austria, and spills Austria’s pint. Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit, because there are splashes on its trouser leg. Germany expresses its support for Austria’s point of view. Britain recommends that everyone calm down a bit. Serbia points out that it can’t afford a whole suit, but offers to pay for cleaning Austria’s trousers. Russia and Serbia look at Austria. Austria asks Serbia who it’s looking at. Russia suggests that Austria should leave its little brother alone. Austria inquires as to whose army will assist Russia in compelling it to do so. Germany appeals to Britain that France has been looking at it, and that this is sufficiently out of order that Britain should not intervene. Britain replies that France can look at who it wants to, that Britain is looking at Germany too, and what is Germany going to do about it? Germany tells Russia to stop looking at Austria, or Germany will render Russia incapable of such action. Britain and France ask Germany whether it’s looking at Belgium. Turkey and Germany go off into a corner and whisper. When they come back, Turkey makes a show of not looking at anyone. Germany rolls up its sleeves, looks at France, and punches Belgium. France and Britain punch Germany. Austria punches Russia. Germany punches Britain and France with one hand and Russia with the other. Russia throws a punch at Germany, but misses and nearly falls over. Japan calls over from the other side of the room that it’s on Britain’s side, but stays there. Italy surprises everyone by punching Austria. Australia punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings, because Britain made Australia do it. France gets thrown through a plate glass window, but gets back up and carries on fighting. Russia gets thrown through another one, gets knocked out, suffers brain damage, and wakes up with a complete personality change. Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway. Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting. America waits till Germany is about to fall over from sustained punching from Britain and France, then walks over and smashes it with a barstool, then pretends it won the fight all by itself. By now all the chairs are broken, and the big mirror over the bar is shattered. Britain, France and America agree that Germany threw the first punch, so the whole thing is Germany’s fault . While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends. And when Germany wakes up, it goes out to its car, gets the gun out of the glovebox and heads back inside...

The 1897 is beautiful! I'd ask for dibs on the next sale but fear it might break me for a couple of months!

Gas mark 2 or 148 C.

I'm assuming he means Fahrenheit - not many British ovens will do 300c without burning the house down!

Surely Centigrade is only for US coins?

No break them free!!! don't lock them up in those plastic prisons .....too much £ I am sure Campaign to free coins from plastic C.F.P LOL

I have registered as a wikki editor now so there is no problem with that from my point of view I will try to verify my findings with at least two examples of each I have and then anyone that wants to add to things can do so as they wish if they register. To be honest it is quite a nice open way to detailing a coin in my own collection with some novelty which can be used, when I die, to sell off my collection for the charity. The alternative was a rather boring spreadsheet and lots of self orientated notes. I like the idea of sharing it, giving people a more even playing field, on which may allow us to discover new things in our own collections. Like that strange 1879 lighthouse flaw, it was just down to luck that J had another which he purchased and we could compare the pictures to see they are exactly the same. The thing that is important for me after this is to ask the question why? it may be that there is no mystery which is absolutely fine. However, we may find a transition, or a reason for its existence beyond just novelty.

I am happy to buy books and have spent my life buying expensive text books but when a copy of a book is £150 on Toy coins for example it restricts the opportunity for any new collector. Ok so it interested me on this topic for a while so I bought the book. It is a wonderful collation of information if a little out of date. Then a secondhand copy of Peck will set me back £60, same with Dalton and Hammer but I have them and enjoy them and in many ways they have paid for themselves as I have built up my collection to give to the charity one token or coin you can pick up might make it pay for itself if it is a rare variety. But it would be nice if we had a bank of knowledge that did not sit with an individual open access and yes of course any source material should be looked at with a sceptical eye if you can afford to look at it at all. Yes I have what I would consider 8 new varieties of 1860 penny because of things like repunching of a smaller older style letter in the legend by a more robust larger solid punched letter the same with the halfpennies of 61 and 62 . I see them as subspecies, in fact I tend to approach my collecting in a phylogenetic way one leading to the evolution of the next. It is still important information to know of these different types. In the same way for example that in genetics the whole of the human genome is mapped out as the redundant aspects of the DNA can sometimes give us as much information about human evolution as those that give rise to obvious traits. I just think the purpose of a collection is to lead us to better understanding notwithstanding you are all experts and have different opinions, information can be added to even by the "lowest" in the collecting ranking. I just think it is important to let the system breath and the first step might be greater access to information. when i started collecting four years back the purpose was to find something to get me out of a chemotherapy haze, I had no idea that I would find many of the wonderful things I have found, it's like being an explorer of some lost history because as we know the Royal Mint are not the best custodians of information when records are lost or there is something to hide. The thing is when I find something out of the ordinary like the repeated B over R in the bronze series it is interesting from a human perspective but also it makes me look either side and ask the question why does it keep happening, more importantly what does it tell us about the workers in the mint. Reading the diary of L C Wyon gives nothing away and I am glad they reduced the price to £10 for that old dinosaur of a reference. If ,whoever XXXXXX is, cannot open their mind to the issues raised by these variations away from the normal then they stand ready to be judged as hampering the scientific approach. We rely on things that do not fit the normal the orthodox to be signposts to events that break out of the accepted pattern and by ignoring or suppressing the information we could lose vital steps to improve our understanding of the chaos that must have existed as the country and the mint tackled a new material, design and all under political scrutiny, which when artists are at work can cause major eruptions potentially.

... and for the unitiated, "Rang" is Peter's word for worthless or ugly coins. Translation service free of charge.

Take your time kieran.....The people posting the pictures know what to buy and would not like you to just start buying Rang

Well I never even knew about these obverse varieties. I've just checked my 1953 Unc and it's an Obverse 1, so I suspect it was originally from the sets.

I bought the One Centum to tick that denomination box. It was conveniently not in copper, as I already have a 2 Cents in this metal, ex Hopetoun House Collection and a super coin. 'scuse the hair on the scanner

It cost me so little that I am using it as practice - trying a range of chemicals in increasing strength to see what happens. If I succeed in stripping it to bare metal I will then experiment with re-toning. If it looks any good at the end, I will post a picture - if not you wont hear from me again on the subject.

As far as I'm aware, all of the fakes have the same breaks in the circle above the P and E of PENSE.

As for the verdigris, I would personally bin it given the number of scratches from previous attempts to remove the mess and upgrade to one that's only a midge's off unc from yours truly