Chris Perkins

What amazing pictures! I couldn't even recognise any of that as a Cartwheel coin! Condition is king, so, value is probably low. Perhaps it's a fake Cartwheel coin, generally the real ones stay circular.

I have a later dated 'gold' Spanish forgery that is copper plated with a gold wash, and I know that Spain was another country plagued with forgery. If it's gold coloured, i'd say it's either gold, or gold coin forgery!

I think perhaps there is still a general stigma attached to coin collecting/dealing. People think it's boring and well, perhaps even a bit nerdy. I'm lucky enough to have a girlfriend that really seems to like helping me sort through coins and she even puts them on eBay using her id in German for me. People that are not interested in coins are always very nice and creepy to us when they find a coin they want to know about!

Please do, I know it's hard to scan something that isn't flat though.

Very dodgy ground, I had a GVF 1821 Half Crown once with 2 huge brooch marks on the back. If they are lead, you may be able to melt them off, but anything you do will affect the coin adversely. (Heating it up will probably speed up oxidisation and turn it unnaturally dark). The value with that kind of thing depends exactly what it looks like, and basically how much the potential owners want it.

A Chinese chap once contacted me, keen to show me the results of ultrasonic cleaning. He worked in the jewellery trade and showed me some interesting before and after pictures of a Chinese coin (that I can't find now!). It certainly looked more pleasing than if it had been polished/whizzed/cleaned, but it still look kind of artificial. Saying that though, I don't really know how high grade natural toned Chinese coins are supposed to look. He suggested I could send him some coins for him to clean. I believe he was genuine, but he said that the post where he was was very insecure, so nothing became of it.

It absolutely is Coin collecting! Pretty much anything made of metal that could be spent somewhere at some stage, is a coin. The Sheffield tokens you are refering to are know as either just 19th Century regional tokens or 'Condor tokens'. They were issued by factories, merchants, rich people etc to be used locally as small change, and when you'd saved enough you could usually exchange them at a certain place (often stated on them) for regal 'proper' money. Small change was very short at that time and the issuers got free advertising out of it, as well as making a profit on the ones that never found their way back! They didn't actually contain metal to the value of one penny/halfpenny/farthing. After the so called Great recoinage in 1816 they were phased out and made illegal not long after. In fact they were never actually legal, they just were not illegal!

Hello EVII, Well done you deserve a medal for being my first member!!! What do you collect? Where are you?

Coin Manage 2003 UK is a piece of software available from Liberty Street, a canadian based data base producer. In it's current form the software is good and has many useful features, but because it was originally designed for US/Canadian coin collectors there are perhaps some improvements that could be made to make it easier to use for British collectors. I have established this forum to collect points of view about the software and will submit them to the makers in the hope that the next version will be more useful (and sell more!) to British coin collectors. I encourage you to download the 30 day trial product here: ftp://libertystreet.com/pub/CoinMngUK.exe Play around with it and make your feelings known in this forum. It will be beneficial to us all if the next release in more British coin collector friendly. The download is however quite large at 39mb, so if you just email me, and assuming it breaks no copyright rules I don't mind sending it to you on CD for free. The producers main site is here: http://www.libertystreet.com/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Trying it out myself the main problems I have noticed are that the full range of GB coin grades is not selectable when adding a coin to the database and the quoted catalogue values are out of date. Thanks, Chris.

Looks brass to me! And the portraits were always awful, but that one looks especially crude.

Yes of course it is!

Oh yes, thought I recognised it, that's the one with the fingerprint isn't it.

How many of those have you got?

Ok, remind me when I get back next week and I'll specify Round/Sharp on my Brass Threepence listings.

Alright alright! ABU 1926 and a nice UNC 1922? How about the 1953 proof?

I have a stunning ABU 1925 Farthing with just a darker area near the edge, and I have a wonderful 1943. Do you have those? William: I have 2 JH groats at the moment, however one has a small loop welded to it and the other has a die flaw on the back. Both are around Fine.

I expect legions of little Roman children went to your Primary School Olli

Good idea Olli, I ammended the title a bit to make it more obvious what it contains for people browsing. I have a stunning 1951 Farthing, I'll call it ABU because it has a couple on tiny weeny pin prick dark spots on the rev. Obv is perfect. It'll be in my next newsletter, unless you want it for £4.00. You's be hard pressed to find better.

That's a very long time for a primary school, any of the original teachers still teach there?

I'll PM you, I don't want to clutter up this area any further.

William, I have lots of Victorian 1887 Half Crowns, Florins, shillings and sixpences. Priced from a couple of pounds upwards. I can't remember if you have all that series? They are not on the website yet.

Only our ancient forefathers communicated using Latin, no one speaks or writes with it now. It used to be taught quite widely in British schools, but nowadays is important only for Biologists at A Level and above. Should Latin be part of the national curriculum, so that kids can enrich their lingual skills and get an idea about where many modern English words derive from? Or is it a complete waste of time, with no possible use in later life whatsoever? Your votes and opinions please.....

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on what way you look at it) English really is the global language, and although other languages are very important, and to learn them certainly broadens horizons...If English is your first language you perhaps have less need to learn another. I'm finding German very difficult, I suppose partly because of lack of time, and not actually needing to speak German every day. I'm also not very disciplined, and like George I, I just can't be bothered even though I know it has to be done!

I hope you knocked his lights out for that.

Very sensible I suppose. I can never keep anything to myself, especially when I'm excited about something!