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During the first week of May I spotted a 'Silver Hammered Penny King Edward I' for sale as a Buy-it-now' on Ebay, £38 total including Ebay insurance and 48hr Royal Mail Tracked delivery. As the coin was in fact an Edward III florin coinage penny of Canterbury, and quite scarce, I bought it and tracking showed that the vendor posted it on 10th May. Over the next 48hrs or so it tracked to the Birmingham MC sorting office - where it stayed. After a fortnight I spoke to the vendor who contacted RM and received an unhelpful reply and no coin. After 3 weeks Ebay gave me my money back within 24hrs of my claim as suggested by the vendor and I wrote the coin off mentally with much regret. It is noteworthy that with the refund Ebay actually state that if the purchase is subsequently found it can be kept and they do not have to be informed. Well, it was delivered out of the blue by postie on Thursday! Only 8 weeks in transit! The vendor and I have exchanged several cheerful emails and I get to keep the coin for nothing! As far as I can tell the coin is S1547, N1122 (VR) and DIG Obv 1 rev Ai. Jerry

Then a decent 1863 'open 3' , £30 at Midland Coin Fair.

Fully functional teapots hollow spouts and removable lids.

I will continue the thread for you 👍. "Sometimes when i am bored i go into the garden, cover myself in soil and think im a potato ".

Here is a pair of 1/12 queen Anne flintlock pistols I made. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JRH-9o-P6sg

Here is all the dies I made with the different collars.

An 1889 F127 narrow date,13.5 teeth £200 on Ebay.

An 1874H F69, £17.10 on Ebay.

Finally, after a month of challenge getting BT/Open Reach to repair my landline I at last have acceptable broadband and can post some recent acquisitions. First an example F10 new obverse 2*, £20 at Ebay auction.

Yes, most certainly a worn die. And a truly shocking price which would be way too high even for a good strike UNC example. Here's a much better example at a reasonable price: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/157378763239?var=0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338946167&toolid=20006&loc=&customid=4581527531114051_710033490_o.9beeaa501cf11ef92efac014f4958c05&msclkid=9beeaa501cf11ef92efac014f4958c05

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’m hoping these links works…sold for over £3000…the number of different Edward VI shillings was surprising @Michael-Roo, as were the Charles I coinage, as well as Elizabeth! Some royalist badges too @TomGoodheart https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalogue/lot/f8c9faa1e5744a62a93836a448951a53/0af8d24542e81eb9357e7ef448a6646f/auction-of-antique-silver-jewellery-paintings-count-lot-237/ https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalogue/lot/819865231486824515681d69c412c4c6/0af8d24542e81eb9357e7ef448a6646f/auction-of-antique-silver-jewellery-paintings-count-lot-236/

Thanks! Some of these I've seen before and some are new to me. Interesting lots. And somewhat silly prices but , .. happy for the vendor!

That’s great, Jerry, many thanks for the offer, I’ll take you up on that next time! I can always reciprocate for The Cotswold, Harper Field (Stroud), and occasional Clevedon Salerooms, if you ever spot anything ☺️ Best, Stuart

Hi, i’m wondering if this is a known variety or just an oddball. The 1 in the date is over another clearly separated 1 and the 4 appears to be both the plain and serif version at the same time. Any insight is much appreciated 🙏

Just to add a bit more: the first few years of the changeover to bronze saw a helluva lot of repunching of date digits and legend letters. Bronze is a harder metal than copper, and the coins were thinner in size, so dies got worn relatively quickly. As well as that, the Mint is reported to have experienced a lot of problems caused by the change of metal, which the huge number of varieties (major, minor, and micro) in the first few years can attest to.

Yes, the groat was nice and very tempting at that price. But the marks were a little more apparent than in the photo and I had my sights elsewhere. The York shilling looked good and was a good buy for someone. If you ever need anything collected I usually go up if there is a significant coin offering. Jerry

Just an oddball. Letters and digits on worn/filled dies were often repaired by re-punching, and not surprisingly these were often slightly misplaced. Of little extra interest unless the wrong punch has been used or the misplacement is extreme. As for the ‘4’ it may just be a die flaw. Jerry

Nice piece Jerry. Glad it turned up in the end. My daughter's birthday card arrived 2 weeks late in April. My Nephews is now also 2 weeks late. Both posted 2 weeks in advance of occasion. I wouldn't mind but the distance it's travelling is a mere 38 miles inside the same county (Lancashire) They really are the pits. Stu.

I think every postal service in the world has been wanting at some point in time. We all have our horror stories to relate. 2 stand out in my case. My worst was following the purchase of the unique F689 (incorrectly slabbed as a P1983) and a P1156 (4 known) in the June 2006 Heritage sale. As you may anticipate the parcel went awol, with nothing heard of it until the following January/February when it reappeared back at Heritage. I had been refunded months before, so the first question they asked was did I still want it given it hadn't been signed for the first time round? A rather silly question given the parcel had just come from the Philippines! And no, I don't live on the outskirts of Manila. However, there was a positive outcome, because I pointed out the error in their shipping policy, which was to only have the parcel tracked in the destination country. I enquired how they could know where it was at any point, and how I could be sure the parcel had in fact been sent out at all and wasn't residing in the collection of a Heritage employee, even if I was trying to keep an open mind at all times. They got a bit miffed at the insinuation, but within a week or so had revised their international shipping policy such that the parcel was tracked at all times, whoever was the carrier. Hooray. Common sense prevailed and persists to this day, but only once they had actually read and absorbed the emails. The coin in question is seen below. It differs from the P1983 which has the oak leaves in the outer circle pointing in the opposite direction. I am not aware of any others, nor a P1983 in private hands, but if anyone knows of one, I'm all ears. A Peck miss given it was illustrated in the Nobleman sale (1922) lot 399. The second involved a parcel of Northumbrian stycas shipped to an address in Paris 10 or 12 years ago. Fully tracked, but nowhere to be seen - until it resurfaced in Tahiti. We know the Vikings got around a bit, but that would have required a major rewriting of Viking history books had the parcel been lost in the South Pacific.

I've had several rather less than commendable experiences with Royal Fail in the past few years. A couple of them stand out, the purchase of a Scottish square £1 note from 1909 that seemingly took a long detour for four months about four years ago - I worked with seller, filed a claim got refunded and the out of the blue the parcel showed up and I paid the seller for the note. Then about a year ago a parcel with some 19th century banking memorabilia dropped off the face of the earth in London - same thing, worked with seller got refunded and then like six months later it showed up. What a contrast - I frequently get several parcels, even large parcels from Ukraine all the time with complete tracking and despite the fact they are at war with Russia - parcels come through with efficiency. Ukrposhta is an enterprise that tries to deliver despite the circumstances - Royal Fail is a sad excuse. Now auction purchases from the London auction houses have to come either DHL or Fedex.

Yes , royal snail do things like this very often now since they started their double digit price increases about five or so years ago , Disgraceful service

We’re just getting ready to fly out to Germany for a wedding, so can’t comment at this point. Interestingly, I hadn’t noticed the DIG Galata guide until your post, another book to buy!

If you look at the bottom image you can see the faint line of the die crack. The coin was listed/sold as having a colon. I'm aware a variety is listed for the 1851 Farthing with a purported colon. Looks like the beginnings of a die crack rather than a colon to me.

Those little pieces are stunning, I’m so impressed! 🙌 Also, aboutfarthings was very active member on here…last time I contacted him, he’d been swamped with work. Around 25 years ago I used to make little refectory tables from dendro-dated Tudor oak. Great fun! And @Paddy really great point re drilling the die…not sure what Colin (from AF) said, I haven’t looked at @absence of uniformity’s link, yet?

I dont own a dollshouse myself but in my spare time I make objects for collectors (I'm amateur jeweller), here is 1/12 scale fully functional padlock.

Here is the pair of dies and the coin I struck with them. This was the largest I made and because I spent a while engraving them I was more gentle with the hammer. The image shows the dies and the coin made using them.

I engraved some coin dies in 1/12 scale for Dolls house money. I used mild steel and after striking 20 coins the mild steel dies deformed. I dont know but would imagine real coin dies are tempered to a certain degree making them less likely to deform like the dies I made. I tried striking gold, silver, bronze and copper all soft metals compared to mild steel, the fact my dies were not tempered they deformed. I quickly understood a highly polished die and more force when striking the dies produced much higher quality strikes. When I try it again I will anneal 01 tool steel engrave my obverse and reverse then temper them in order to harden the metal so I can strike more than 20 coins. There will be a trade off between a soft of a die that deforms with subsequent strikes and tempering the metal too hard the dies crack rather than deform. If a metal cracks rather than deforms it suggests it is tempered or work hardened and with each subsequent strike the metal is probably hardening itself also. At a guess I would think a pair dies slowly harden over the working life of a pair of dies which may lead to crack dies?? I made a steel tube/collar inserted the bottom die into the collar then placed my metal blank into the collar then presented the other die and struck it with a hammer. Initially I was getting weak strikes, then started hitting it harder which produced much nicer strikes but ultimately deformed the dies.

Could be they drilled a small hole in the die to limit the crack. It is a well known technique to drill a small hole at the end of a crack as it reduces the stress at the tip and so makes it less likely the crack will propagate further.

I agree, almost certainly connected with the die crack!

Thanks.Perhaps I should submit one for grading with NGG or PCGS. It's something I have been reluctant to do given potential issues with customs.

I'd say those are more than reasonable!

Last year my wife and I, daughter and grandson drove Route 66 from Vegas to Chicago. While in Vegas I went to an antique store in the Art District.. On looking around among the sporting memorabilia and vintage coke bottles I found a British proof 1950 crown complete with its presentation box for $US30. I was surprised to find such an item. Just goes to show how the unexpected sometimes happens.

His constituency is Newark apparently. I wonder if Kemi Badenoch has reflected on possible anagrams that could be made...?

My posts are about a fictional character named Nikolai Faraginov - a stooge of continental ogre Jamie Crap-TIn - who gets £millions shunted to him via proxy financiers (it's more likely £billions) and with that cash he can ship poor people in on dinghies so as to trigger public outrage and old Problem? ---> Solution, the solution being Faraginov, the rebel stockbroker (isn't that an oxymoron?) who's supposedly going to end the NWO and globalism, by er ... forming a new world order of Crap-tin aligned skinheads around the globe. To foment disorder in rich countries by attacking police and poor people rather than insisting poor people get same money for goods and same wages in their home countries, as in the richer nations. A new order of skinheads doing it all on behalf of billionaire financiers. Who do everything on behalf of Jamie Crap-Tin. It works because nobody in their right minds would want the crappy poor people washing up here in dinghies .... but two wrongs do not make a right. Anyway this is just a novella and no bearing on real events.

That looks like my hat, it fell off yesterday in a gust of wind.

"Leader" is a relative term in that farrago of Freudian mind residuals that is the far right:

Best way is to avoid ebay. Don't feed the beast, as they aren't open minded. By their own admission they don't have enough experts to remove claimed fakes, so have to rely on alternative opinions. Given Barton's metal is a gold leaf bound to a copper substrate, it is virtually impossible to get sufficient metal flow of the gold when cutting the blank from the sheet to completely cover the copper edge as seen above on my halfcrown. The smaller the denomination, the easier it will become due to thickness, but punching equipment isn't renowned for producing perfect blanks, and not required, given the coin with be struck with a collar to stop the metal flowing sideways. It isn't impossible to get some gold on the edge, but perfectly covered? Not in my opinion, though others may choose to differ.

Looks to me like someone standing to the left of the window holding a panama hat beside their bum. Jerry

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...

Sadly you cannot get "rabies" out of "Jenrick"

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.

Almost got excited by that one but "Doesn't post to the United States". I haz a sad.

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.