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I must be honest and say that although I now have most of the pre 1860 types, with the exception of the obviously really rare dates, I don't think any of them have truly merited an entry as penny acquisition of the week. But I'm making an exception for this one. It's an 1853 plain trident (very much the scarcer of the two types for 1853), and is in excellent overall condition, with no visible wear to the right breast area, which is the one of the first to see wear on these pennies. It complements the intermediate colon 1853 I got a few weeks ago, which is also quite scarce. I bought it from KB Coins, and surprisingly Keith Bayford only wanted £125 for it, as he normally charges top dollar for his stock. So I immediately went for it. I think £125 is a very reasonable price for this coin.

The obverse is very real looking.

Got a new job making plastic Dracula's. There is only two of us on the production line so I have to make every second count.

Michael Gouby put me in touch with a chap called Frank Hulett who's just had published a new A5-sized booklet devoted to the decimal penny 1971-2020. It's an excellent piece of work with superb illustrations and descriptions of the different varieties that he's come across. He's also discovered that the Brilliant Uncirculated specimens issued by the Royal Mint sometimes have characteristics different from the specimens issued for circulation. Frank is happy to supply interested collectors with a copy of his splendid book for the cost of postage. His email address (which he's happy for me to quote) is: frankhulett@hotmail.com I recommend it for collectors of decimal coins.

I don't think it's legit though, that 9 on the reverse looks iffy.

Well this one just gave me a jump! Sorting through an old dealer's box of random coins marked at 50p each (I bought the box of 100+ coins for £5) I was stopped in my tracks by this one. Obviously a fake, but not bad as they go and should give some good banter in the market!

just read "So the Civil War hoard count was at 1028 but has increased some what..... still finding them in the ploughsoil."

It wasnt a corroded hoard. They found 2 buckets worth of civil war coinage. I grabbed a couple of screenshots.

My brother likes to practice cricket on his own, but I sneaked up on him and caught him out.

I'm wondering if this is actually some sort of optical illusion arising from other features of the 2 - when I hold something over the rest of the 2 on the one's touted as possible wavy line examples above, the base of the 2 appears dead straight.

Ok, I have done this now Richard. It actually wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, but I'm pleased that you asked me for this information because I was a little surprised at the results. I had always thought that there were definitely more of the 'Large Numeral' type than the 'Small Numeral' type, but it turns out they were pretty close. I spent about 3 hours zooming in on all the images, and then double checked I had sorted correctly, Any that I was unsure about I did not include in the figures; some ebay pictures are not great! Anyway, 138 over 5 years split as follows:- 21 Could Not Tell / 55 Small Numerals / 62 Large Numerals. Hope that's useful for some members.

Hmm. 10% going to Myeloma - something close to his heart. (90% going to his wallet - infinitely closer ). Could do with someone in Henley on Thames to pop round and have a word.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/us/john-j-ford-jr-81-dies-coin-dealer-and-collector.html

Collection sold at Spink 15/10/1990 (79) and 14/10/1991 (88). Sorry, can't expand on the info required as I don't have either catalogue here any more.