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My latest addition not the most valuable coin in the world but nice strike and the pics are all various lightings the first is the digi light and one lamp but with auto correction. Always makes it a few shades darker for my liking. 2nd pic is exactly the same but no auto correction and there is quite a difference. Last is my standard set up with 2 lamps and the digi lamp which is almost bang on what the coin looks in the hand. This is the hardest to get right lol

either way I find the R over the R in this 37 "cool" as one of my kids would say ....I will search for one myself

I don't have an issue paying for work done, but think the threshold for paying import charges should be raised so that the RM would need to check fewer things, and to the end user the charge would seem less egregious being a smaller percentage of the total. The fixed charge on top of a couple pounds import VAT is disproportionately large, but on a couple hundred is neither here nor there.

I take the default French view of politicians ... they are all liars, cheats, theives and adulterers ..and when they’re proved to be liars, cheats, theives abd adulterers .. they shrug their shoulders and say ... yeah, we knew that ....

oh yes sorry i did not realise that it alerts them directly ...i am still getting used to things on here I do notice that I have to go back over my postings not realising anyone has commented so if I do that it will make it easier ...thanks

If it were a business other than the govt run extortion bureaux the monopolies commision would swoop on their door . To me paying tax and VAT on goods already paid on is illegal . And it is the biggest govt scam of the modern era. Vat and tax on new items is a given but to continue to charge full rate on 2nd hand goods is just an outrageous act of piracy.

A good read that Paddy and could not put it down.Interesting chapter on the intended designs and shapes for the Brass Threepence ,although the designs turned down for the silver with animals and birds on did not surprise me Thanks again. Pete.

The normal 1863 is one of the most common early bun pennies, as are the common varieties of 1861 and 1862. They were new so many got put aside. From 1864 they start getting scarce especially in top grades, but there are also squillions of different varieties - some extremely rare - between 1860 and 1861. It's a specialist subject in its own right - very complex.

The only way to change things is to act as a collective. I think that misalignments are vitally important when you put them in relation to alterations in other design aspects like the inner circle or lettering sometimes I feel they clearly show that a die may have been reused from a pattern or some lost design. If nothing else it makes us question the quality controls of the mint it also gives us a very human viewpoint someone bungled their job for that days work tried to hide it? the supervisor missed it? working conditions at the time and the relative value in time and effort to resolve these problems. It is not just in the silver or copper department look at how many errors there are in Victorian Sovereigns.

it seems to depend who finds it. An accident is an error that R over the lower R should be clearly in my book an example of variety if there are several examples. As I have said before these selective processes that lead to legend errors seem flawed in my opinion. If there has been remodelling of a letter either as a smaller type overprinted by a larger type or a change in the style of the legend which clearly shows historic changes then we dismiss an essential part of the history of a coins "development" for me this is an anathema of being a good collector, it is a duty as custodian of history to understand this mechanism of minting from start to finish. To me I find it ridiculous if an error occurred it is not noted, notwithstanding this position of inconvenience that the "variety" imposes that we have to have a book the size of an encyclopedia to note them all there is a responsibility for future generation to ensure the information it clearly collected so that someone can use the data to resolve a question. I have said before and I will say it again. If we find an error list it in some online system , force everyone to relook at their own examples, and build up a picture of the number of each type in existence around the world in collections. It is not good enough to say an error is a variety only if it is a mistake like a B over an R. Even if we do list these new varieties a pattern (data) may arise from them which may make us look differently at coining in a certain period.