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Another issue this country faces is the lack of skilled labour in certain fields, such as construction, plumbing, electrics. All vital components of basic infrastructure support, which cannot be robotised. Too many generations have been aspiring to university education in academic subjects, leaving a deficit in essential skills. As older workers with those essential skills retired, this has left an increasing deficit, which up until now, has been filled by EU migrant workers. Obviously, this skills deficit will be worsened, to a greater or lesser extent, by our exit from the EU I partially blame the schools system. When I hear what my sister's and brother in law's kids have been taught (niece & nephew aged 12 and 15), I am horrified at the strong politically correct bias, and the downgrading of practical subjects such as woodwork and metalwork, which were on the syllabus when I left school in 1994. This may be due to lack of teachers with the skill to actually teach those subjects. For anyone now leaving school, I'd say there is far more money to be made, both short and long term by various practical apprenticeships, and therefore plugging a skills gap, than by going to university to get a two a penny degree in an often worthless subject, and saddling themselves with massive tuition fees debt.

Last night I got mugged by 6 dwarves......NOT HAPPY.

I used my Tesco Discount Card to scrape the ice on my windscreen. I only got 10% off.......

I read it but didn't reply to all the points raised because the answer consumes so much time and I also have to do real work sometimes. FYI, replying has taken well over an hour. I agree that if you join a club you have to abide by their rules. That is normal, but I don't think their objectives align with our own which is why many voted to leave. Their increasingly federalist stance with a stated aim of ever closer cooperation will have a tipping point whereby retaining semi-autonomous parliaments becomes pointless. I don't aspire to that, nor do I believe does the majority of this country. As for them setting the rules, I believe it would be better for us to be detached from the EU, but initially transfer the existing laws into those going forward and then cherry pick those we wish to adhere to based on our needs. There seems to be an automatic assumption that EU founded laws are socially good and anything we might propose as a replacement is inevitably going to be bad for people. Why would they necessarily have the moral high ground? I agree the rebate was negotiated through MT, but I was talking net contributions and on one occasion we actually received more in handouts than we put in. That was the point I was making. Everybody old enough remembers the 70s. Rampant inflation, oil prices shocks (twice), Vietnam, ongoing Middle Eastern violence, three day weeks, miners strikes, year on year industrial unrest, Ireland, Baader Meinhof or their Italian soulmates the Red Brigade killing Aldo Moro, Afghanistan (again), IRA violence, Iran, the Munich Olympics, having to wait a few months for the final episode of Fawlty Towers to be aired......................... We all know the list is endless. I don't agree that our economy is healthy. Of significant size - yes, but healthy? No. We have lost too much manufacturing capability to say the economy is healthy. Finance accounts for over 10% of the economy, and that is too much relative to the number of jobs created within the industry. The earnings base is too narrow and we have lost the ability to provide across the board facilities for the economy. That leaves us reliant on international suppliers or at least their political masters, at which point they have you by the short and curlies. The motor industry's reduction in investment is only partly due to Brexit. China has thrown a real spanner in the works simply due to the size of their economy and the number of potential consumers. Somewhere along the line the industry would need to contract and it just happens to be now. To rebuild lost capacity using taxpayers' money would fall foul of EU rules and would be challenged as unfair by incumbent businesses, so government has its hands tied to a large extent when it comes to supporting business. However, the deficit in traded goods is in my view the most serious weakness of our economy and needs to be tackled head on. We really do need to support what remains, whether it be personal or state expenditure. We have never been and never will be self-sufficient as you say, but we do at least need the capacity, from which there is a chance, to trade out of our current dilemma. The trade deficit might be small relative to GDP, but it is structurally permanent by now, having been consistently negative for over 20 years. In money terms it means a slow death by insolvency as the asset base of this country is systematically stripped bare to pay the nation's debts. There are insufficient earnings to afford the trappings of a western lifestyle that people now expect, so people draw down on savings, or take out a portion of their pension fund to buy the latest must have consumable item. That is the treadmill we need to get off, and as I said before, the status quo within the EU keeps us firmly on it. We have to be independent and outside the control of Brussels and its institutions. Negotiating any trade deal with the EU will involve each of the 27 countries and require their approval. However, the way that the Agreement is structured will ensure that the EU holds all the cards. They can effectively tell us what they are taking and rest assured that every single country will want something in their favour - that's their 'Brexit bonus'. They have no reason not to press this case, as we have already waved the white flag. From our perspective a deal might be nice, but not at any price. Signing up to a tailor-made straightjacket in a vain hope that we will allowed trips away from the loony bin is not very palatable. I really can't see May's agreement being beneficial in any way. We need to be either fully out, or fully in. Paying to not be in is just p'ing money down the pan and to agree on this route is verging on criminal.

Manufacturing was dealt a heavy blow long before MT came to power whereby a failure to invest coincided with a large expansion of third world industrial output on the back of cheap labour costs and the added bonus of starting with up to date facilities. Globalisation became an issue from the 70s, whereby goods produced with a fraction of the labour costs here were able to undercut indigenous manufacturers. All political parties are guilty of failure to have a coherent policy addressing the issues. We further shot ourselves in the foot with the terrible industrial relations in the 70s and early 80s. Thatcher came to power on the back of a workforce relation situation perceived as verging on anarchy. Whilst it may have only been a relatively small percentage of the workforce involved, it inconvenienced most people. The striking workforce put MT into power. The definition of state aid is far reaching and at the mercy of the lawyers. It is impossible to imagine the state setting up any enterprise that wouldn't have some competitive element subsidised. Any subsidies given for whatever reason will free up cashflow for use elsewhere - i.e subsidised by the back door. Infrastructure is state funded at the expense of direct industrial investment, because you can't build a bridge for example with state money and then export it. It is safe and uncontentious. Think of what the projected cost of HS2 could buy in terms of manufacturing capacity. The motor industry is under pressure from all sides, of which Brexit is but one reason. Global warming has struck a chord in many countries, with diesel sales way down. Ultimately it is consumers not buying so many cars for a range of reasons, both here and abroad such as China. Germans arent' buying so many BMW, Mercedes and Audi cars either, and they will have virtually no UK input. Different reasons, different locations, same outcome. We have a huge trade deficit with the EU, or more specifically the Eurozone. I cannot see any way to address the lack of competitiveness with German output, which is the main source of the deficit, because the undervalued Euro in terms of the German economy effectively subsidisies their industrial output, as has been discussed several times previously. Of course it isn't state aid because the Euro is a currency basket, but it might as well be. The EU made the Eurozone, nobody else did. Having to adhere to identical rules ties our hands, but leaving would allow us to tweak them a little to best suit us. However, the biggest opportunity to address the imbalance still lies in the hands of the consumer. Both sides do indeed need each other, but only today Spain rattled its cage by insisting Gibraltar is a British colony and documented as such. France wants to fish our waters as do the Spanish. Every other country will (rightly) push to get whatever it can from future negotiations. The position we would be in if May's agreement was accepted would result in the EU giving everyone what they wanted at our expense in return for us to have whatever access they would allow. TM raised the white flag by accepting such a weak position. Yes, we opted to leave, but she has given us no hand to play in the future. BTW, I don't have a problem us paying for contractually agreed contributions as long as we get a rebate for our not benefiting in the future, and the EU continuing to honour UK payment contracts already placed. Like everyone else, I don't know what the immediate future holds. I really cannot see the agreement giving us any leverage whatsoever, and at great cost to boot. There is absolutely no point in being tied to the EU with them setting all the rules and us paying for the privilege. It's a halfway house that suits nobody. At least with full membership you have a say for your money, though I suspect that option will expire after the 29th March even if the date is put back with current terms no longer applicable. Reapply and we might well have to join the Euro. Anyone? The situation is farcical, we have to bite the bullet and leave properly, and immediately find a bunch of politicians capable of making it work. TM has to step down on exit, so that someone can do a proper job.

Yes, Peter, Eddie was a fine maker and created many wonderful items, I spent valuable and enjoyable time in his company.

Another of my pastimes /obsessions is conjuring since I was about 10 yrs old. Years ago, I asked someone I trusted to make things for me but he started making them up himself and selling them under his own name, water under the bridge now, but he did (and still does) make a lot of money at my expense. So, I decided to teach myself and purchased the contents of a clockmakers workshop, lathes/milling machine etc in order to make my own tricks and devices. Without giving too much away, there are a LOT of tricky coins out there, most of which remain in magicians hands but they occasionally get spent by mistake, you may have ended up with some in your change at some time and wondered what the heck it was. Double-headed coins, coins that fall apart and have another coin inside of it etc, etc. The variations are endless. Back to the thread, the graining on the penny looks like it was done to give better grip when executing a conjurers sleight called a coin roll-down (google it) where the flat edges of a penny would not ensure enough grip. I've seen several of these in the past, made for the conjurers of old. They are, imo, worthless. In the photo below you'll see some I made for that very purpose. Grained on a milling machine equipped with dividing head set at 2-degree intervals to give 180 grooves. (Btw, the silver coins are Morgan silver dollars and the copper is a fantasy piece).

Definitely Norfolk coz im the only person whon can right in Suffix.

Normal for Norfolk or Suffolk? Peter might be able to shed light on that.

Beyond my price range at the moment but thought others might be interested in something a 'bit different' https://www.cooperscoins.com/collections/new-listings/products/victoria-1860-pattern-copper-penny-by-joseph-moore-bmc-2101-a-unc

I think it is more likely to be at least double that number. The RM was uncertain as to whether the undated 20p was struck from one or two journeys, i.e. a mintage of 100K or 200K. That would have required the obverse die to have lasted throughout, unless they were drawing dies from a box of obsolete obverses.

I can't help you with any of the proof strikes, but someone who visited the RM recently reported on here that there were just 200,000 of each letter in circulation strikes. 100,000 of each released in early 2018 and a further 100,000 of each at the end of the year. The RM employees said no more were being made - but of course they can always change their mind. If this is true it puts each coin on a par with Kew Gardens for rarity, though I doubt 10ps will ever be quite so avidly collected as 50ps.

It's only when you do have reasonably good knowledge of a given topic, that you realise the sheer volume of utter tripe peddled by the tabloid media on a daily basis. Whether in ignorance or by deliberate design.

Northumbrian coins can be linked to other Saxon coins as well, as well as other coins of the contemporary 8th-9th century. Here is a coin of Aethelred II of Northumbria by the moneyer Leofthegn, featuring a hound, compared with a series K sceat of Kent from nearly 100 years before. The "hound" creature is very similar on the two coins.

none at all, I mostly buy coins then sell them for about half that price so that someone can have a great day

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1866-SCARCE-QUEEN-VICTORIA-ONE-BRITISH-BRONZE-PENNY-SUPERB-SCARE-COIN/303046211168?hash=item468ef63660:g:kwwAAOSwqVVbN5~u:rk:1:pf:1&frcectupt=true Shelley's up to her tricks - she describes this as a "scare" coin - it's the price that scares me !

https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital BNJ/pdfs/2011_BNJ_81_7.pdf PM me with your address and you can have an offprint.

And take a look at the Victoria Unofficial Patterns section of my varieties website for more information.

Birmingham had many businesses producing medals, buttons and tokens from the start of the industrial revolution, and the number of 18th counterfeit halfpennies indicates the skill set was there long before Boulton & Watt set up the Soho mint. Coins are simply an extension of this list because the manufacturing processes are pretty much the same for all. If you are in business, the opportunity to get a design accepted for a national coinage is something to be explored and exploited if possible. So, yes they were made with a view to putting them forward as a prospective currency design, but were not produced in complete isolation. In the case of Joseph Moore's work, the laureate bust punch (see below) was used on his 1860 patterns and also for colonial issues such as the Auckland Licensed Victuallers Association penny token from New Zealand of which 4 varieties are noted in Krause (ref. Tn6). The rust spots are as the die was found in 1886, prior to subsequent polishing down by Shorthouse for the restrikes and do not feature on any original Moore strikings. cf Peck p.483-490

i don't like the fact that the kew isn't an original 2009 one but is being treated price wise like it is (i believe it has 3 dates on it,where the 2019 date on the obv) i also don't like the fact the 50 "New Pence" was reduced in size too, kind of ruins it again, i guess it would have messed up the symmetry of the box too 🤷‍♀️

Another VERY relevant set of stamps planned for next spring!