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Domestic relations are an all-time low despite a gushing Valentine's card yesterday. The new bathroom budget has been blown again on Hiram Brown's F76. I'm in raptures about it but the other half is unimpressed.

Richard's must be penny acquisition of the year, but I'll just class my DNW wins as ordinary acquisitions of the week. The first is the F46, 1863 die No 3 under date. I've wanted a die No under date for a very long time. Didn't quite have enough dough for the die No 4 in the Waterbird collection. So when I saw this one, I just knew I had to have it. Well worth the cost:- (sorry, made a bit of a cock up uploading the images to start with)

Thanks Richard. I've been saving hard for this auction ever since it was first advertised, and still had to open a savings account. Been doing things round the house "on the cheap" recently, to economise, for that very reason. My F25. I definitely wanted this one, as F25's aren't that common anyway. Not many are sold, and only very rarely in grades above VF:-

My mate keeps saying "Cheer up, it could be worse, you could be stuck underground in a hole full of water!" He means well.

and me, three or four times a week - usually oily fish like salmon, which is reputed to be good for you.

True, but a lot of people - me included - are still meat eaters but have cut down their consumption. I like to eat fish where possible and there are some great vegetarian dishes out there.

Die 3's don't come up very often so, well done. As you say, you have to grab these opportunities when you can (at least that's what I tell myself, and the wife).

DNW are pretty accurate at grading nowadays (by the book) and tend to understate grade as Spink used to be known for, presumably to avoid arguments post-sale from buyers going strictly by the accepted definitions. And, to be fair to DNW, there is the slightest wear on the highest points of Britannia's gown to the right of the shield - but many dealers and sellers would offer this at AU or better. I went up to view the coins pre-sale so I knew this was a good one.

Nice one Richard , if you keep this up you'll have to sell the entire collection to buy the next coin up the price ladder.

...and what would Aethelric think if he knew we would be talking about him a millennium on....?

The inventor of tongue twisters was found guilty of fraud today. He is expected to get a tough sentence.

A related question, and may I say, a very interesting one. The "UNC" percentage seems to vary considerably from coin type to coin type, and although there is obviously some absolute relation to overall rarity, there are some definite real terms differences, which can be difficult to explain. For example, off the top of my head, amongst the rarest coins there are some, such as the F14 penny, the F8 and F9 mule (all 1860), and the 1862 F38 mule, which seem to have more than you would expect as UNC examples. There are others. Whereas such pennies as the 1864 (plain and crosslet), and the F98 1879 narrow date, which are not that desperately rare in lower grades, are extremely difficult to locate in top grade. The F90 1877 narrow date penny, which is roughly on a rarity par with the F8 & F38 mules, has nothing above fine among its ranks. Obviously I'm talking exclusively pennies here, as it's my specialism, but the same principles must apply across the board. In some cases I think there are more UNC specimens available because they were collected by default shortly after mintage, as part of a date run (the collector having no idea of the coin's significance at that time). In other cases, it's very difficult to know the precise reasons for either a surplus or deficit of UNC examples. I imagine we never will and are left to speculate.