Chris Perkins

Absolutely lovely Geoff!

But JMD, regardless of what Saddam was doing or planning on doing (or had done), the whole case for war was based on his weapons of mass dissapearance that were capable of being deployed within 45 mins.

Yes, I was going to say that Mr Bush basically represents the captains of industry, and that while those captains may certainly have the leadership skills, you cannot trust a country to in the hands of any commercial industry, for it would not be a neutral leadership. Tony Blair has his faults, and he did really cock up over the Iraq thing, but who else is there? He'll get a third term, and after that perhaps he can go and become Governor of California and then President of the USA.

If old men need time to think, perhaps they shouldn't be in charge of countries....And he isn't that old. I mean he's naturally ancient compared to all us young spring chickens.

Or maybe he's not human, and is actually falling apart under the pressure, like a stressed out Dalak. The US President is a robot!

Are you implying that the President of the United States of America might possibly be being told what to say, by someone who knows better exactly what to say? Perhaps someone with better geographical knowledge, someone who can prompt Mr Bush when he forgets the names of other world leaders etc? Surely not!

Without consulting any books I can tell you that those are either too new or too common to be of much value if they are all circulated examples. Sell them to 'Unknown', who is actually quite known to me!

Yes I think they're all paperback. Although I do have some kind of dim memory of a hardback, but I either imagined it, or it was a while hence.

Thanks Geoff, I'll print those out and change them when the proof reader has finished. I daren't say to him "Hang on, stop, here's another version with some corrections!", because that's bound to get on his thrupennies. And I'll let him get credit for them!

All the 92 pages are there now, and they're numbered as they will be in the book. There are no circles, no red text, and all that's left to do is run through the prices using the database etc and Mr Marles Prices, which should take a day or 2. Then its off digitally to one of my subscribers who happens to be a coin collecting professional proofreader! (he'll do it half price because of the subject matter!) In the meantime I'm going to take this version to the printers to hopefully get a couple of trial copies done so i know I'll be happy with them. As you can see in another recent post, the cover is completed. It's all coming together, and I must admit I'm a little excited. I also have a message to call the Waterstones buyer tomorrow, so hopefully they want tons of them! Feel free to spot any errors/problems with this if you can, bear in mind it's 8mb now: http://www.rotographic.co.uk/draft1.pdf (if that doesn't work, try copying it into a browser)

If you have a really dirty coin that looks horrible, then use soap and water perhaps. If it still looks awful, then keep it until you can find a better example. If you polish it, it'll be hairlined and worth a fraction of whatever you paid for it. (Which is pretty silly, unless of course all of your coins will be bought for 20p each) Collectors go through many runs of upgrading before they feel comfortable with a particular coin, that's what you need to do. Don't ruin them for future generations, polished coins look awful. They look artificial, they get hairlined and they never get back to how they were. If you want one that looks nice, save up, don't buy rubbish and buy coins that have remained shiny looking from new. You pay a premium for a BU coin because it's escaped being ruined by a bloody idiot in the past. Far be it from me to tell you what to do with any coins you may own, but please, don't be a pleb!

Yes it's a Conder token, a little info here: http://www.predecimal.com/books/condersframed.htm

Yes for British coins, but it's just a book on the last 2500 years of British coins. Each Krause volume contains just 100 years of all World Coins.

Well mainly it covers a lot more, it includes gold coins and goes right back to Celtic times. It's a wonderful book, every serious collector and dealer buys it. Most dealers use it to price their coins too. It's a little worrying that basically Spink control a lot of coin prices, in that dealers charge whatever it says and then Spink put the prices up slightly the next year (maybe that creates a bubble). Sometimes though it's out on some prices. It doesn't go into huge detail with some coin varieties, and if you just collect, or are just likely to encounter non gold coins from 1797 to today, then Collectors Coins GB 2005 will save you over £15.00.

£20's a lot of money though. 11% price increase on last years, I wonder if it contains 11% more pages.

Do you perhaps mean 'politicians' JMD? Politics is generally accepted as being better than the alternatives, whether you agree with the system or not.

I think those are really very general SE England things.

Although from Kent/London myself, when I went to Northern Ireland a while ago they remarked that I sounded like Jamie Oliver. (from Essex..I suppose SE England is the same to them, and there isn't much or a difference) I suppose when on the phone and in formal situations I sound ok, but with friends and in informal situations I can sometimes sound 'as common as mook' (as Sylvester might say) Round here in Germany there are slightly different accents from village to village with certain words.

Biggest in weight overall dimensions, or biggest in diameter? Cos i think you find hammered silver pounds and gold triple unites were bigger in diameter. I have a feeling the triple unites would weight more too. Dunno though, silver pounds were the biggest ever. Ok, perhaps it's the biggest coin that ever circulated from the last 400+ years! I know gold is a dense metal, but hammered coins are always thinner, do you think it would weight more?

I expect the ebay one will go for a good price, it's a good picture. Unfortunatley it's usually not easy to get a real bargain on ebay.

Tut tut JMD, how can you clean a coin from Fine - BU ? Even the 'lustre' on a highly polished fine coin is different to the lustre on a BU coin.

I have a number for sale colliewalker, they are popular but not at all rare, at least not in mid-lower grades. For about £20 you could get quite a decent one. As the biggest coin that ever circulated and one of the first to be struck with steam power they are important numismatically.

Hopefully it should be started next week. I'm not sure how many the printers will be able to turn out this month.

Cheaper Juan, EUR2.00!

I remember having such fun playing Quake 2 on the network at work (www.bromcom.com). My name used to be 'Shania Twain' for some reason, and when I got killed I would exclaim 'That don't impress me much!' much to the amusement of the people around me. When I did something awfully girly I would say 'Man, I feel like a woman'. (in the game of course) I do miss working with other people.