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Here's one of mine displaying the same die deterioration. A not uncommon feature on farthings of 1675.

For as long as I have been on this planet and certainly in the past 5 and a half decades, Glastonbury has had more than its fair share of weirdos. From the nobility to the peasantry, it has somehow found itself bound into an annual religious schedule. Just the latest incarnation of the out of mind experience seemingly required by a group of questionable sanity. I blame the son of the then Marquis of Bath for being an integral part of the ensuing chaos, with his wifelets and copious quantities of dope. Those attracted to Stonehenge invariably made their way down to Worthy Farm for the music a couple days after the summer solstice. I could never understand why many didn't wear shoes, given the levels of dogs**t on the pavements in those days. And passing through prime agricultural land, the chance of being hit by a flying cowpat was high. Moving to the current day, you may have dodged a bullet, as it would have been quite possible for Trump to make an appearance too, given his position as President, God, and a total belief in all things narcissistic. I heard he had gained copyright over the word Trump. The strange sounds you could hear was probably his personal choir of disciples, perfecting their flatulence for his appearance as God at this year's non-festival.

I took this pic- got a T adapter so my telescope became my cheap camera's lens. No tracking, quick snap, no stacking software to build up the image. Even though it's not up to the standards you see a lot, I'm chuffed I caught the fact that Jupiter is striped! No moons visible- had to stop it right down...

Amongst the copper and bronze I am sorting through, as mentioned in another thread, is this one little silver piece. Any thoughts? About 15mm diameter at the longest, 1.5mm thick and weighs 3.1g.

I just tried Google's image search for the first time, and here are the results: "This is a medieval "Bull and Horseman" type silver Jital coin, likely from the Kabul Shahi or Saffarid dynasties dating between 850-1000 AD. The coin features a recumbent zebu bull on one side and a horseman holding a lance on the other. These coins were commonly used in regions corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India." ... and some of the visual matches:

Hi there Paddy! Seems to be a Celtic silver quarter stater, unsure which country. Western Europe though, possibly British, Gallic, Belgian etc. Apparently the patterns on the other side have been critiqued as being meaningless but conserved with slight variations, re: a find in Canterbury https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital BNJ/pdfs/1955_BNJ_28_32.pdf You can see from this article that there is indeed a bloke wih a fedora as central motif, possibly a horned head dress in reality. I thought it looked ancient near east but the design of the horse is very Celtic / Etruscan. The horned head dress, chariot with chariot wheel, and spear are a recurrent deity motif. I'm no expert.

Possibly eastern European or a little further east. It should be straightforward though with the rider's hat, which is probably the best indicator of the area being distinctive in style. Say Persia or Turkey. Sorry, it's too hot and can't be ar**d at the moment, but guarantee someone will be into hat detail, given it must be a nerdy topic.

Agreed! I used to spend time and effort trying to debunk this rubbish, particularly when I was dealing part time, but now I have given up. A fool and his money is soon parted.

Yes. I hope he was grateful for my detailed and thorough answer (!). This sort of ebay nonsense, inspired by poor journalism by the tabloids, really gets me going, thus I feel obliged to explain why this sort of thing is NOT an error or valuable. Viz. too "upside down" edges on former pound coins and £2's. As the lettering is done first, it's 50:50 which way up the lettering will be when the two sides are struck!

This was a recent pickup in a USA auction, I like the condition of the piece, it being much better than most farthings of that era - but I enjoy the additional cuds on Charles II's nose and Britannia's right arm from the die breaking down. Also it appears as though the numeral 1 in 1675 was repunched - almost appears to have been repunched over a numeral 5!

that one is very week on charles hair/laurel leaves

The OP has not been back since his query, and I suspect he won't be as he did not get the glowing response he sought!

I try to avoid "slabbed" coins as made by the third party grading services like NGC however this time it's worth it for the verification that it is a genuine coin, even if harshly cleaned. In this case, there is a bit of historical significance to the coin. On the reverse is a small trident to the side of the mint mark of A. "A" signifies the Paris Mint and the trident was the privy mark of Zéphyrin Camélinat, who was the treasurer of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune">Paris Commune of 18 March to 28 May of 1871</a>. Despite the foot dragging of the bankers and the approaching troops of the conservative republican government, he managed to produce, it is believed, about 75,000 5 Franc silver coins, 30,600 of which were in two wagon loads that were taken to the front lines directly from the Paris mint so that the doomed soldiers fighting for the Commune could receive their back pay on May 20 as the final battles began. <a href="The Coins of the Commune">The Coins of the Commune</a> (the term sou survived from pre-revolutionary France as a slang word for 1⁄20 of a franc - thus 100 sou = 5 francs) One in nearly perfect condition recently sold for $9,000 and fakes are all too common. This one, with the damage from the heavy cleaning - the scratches are quite visible even through the slab - was "only" $295 and moves into 5th place in my "you spent how much on a single coin???" list. It is still a classic example of being reminded to grab the best you can afford because that's better than none. Nevertheless this will be the gem of my French coin collection.

These lettering "defects", I'm afraid, are simply the product of how the edge lettering and graining is manufactured: firstly, the blank planchets are incuse lettered by rolling/rotating them under pressure through drums or wheels which contain raised, "mirror" image lettering to impress the correct words into the edge. Then the lettered blanks are struck between regular dies with a plain, grained collar which imparts the "milling". And herein lies the problem - metal flow under the significant pressure of the dies where the milling coincides with the incuse letters can produce these anomalies as metal can fill some of the interstices to some or full degree. On your specimen above, the diagonal downstroke of the R is actually still visible, albeit faint, and even full "Pemember" examples are just where the metal flow has obscured that part of the R. Likewise with the M's - they are not a smaller font, just where metal has encroached on the incuse letter somewhat. A curiosity, yes, but common, yes, and error or variety, no, sorry. And as for value - two pounds, I'm afraid.

It is always worth ignoring die damage on a generally heavily circulated denomination in scarce condition. A few years ago I had an A/R in CAR farthing with weak central areas that I wanted a fair, but full price for on the grounds that I had only traced mine and the Colin Cooke example. Someone I know locally refused to pay so much in the hope one would turn up. Happy to report he's still waiting.........

I had forgotten about this query as I got answers on another forum. It is, sadly, a fake and apparently there are lots in a similar style on Ebay at present. I returned it to the auction house for a full refund.