Chris Perkins

You should also be able to post in the forum like you did before. Do you get an error message?

You may have noticed the new style forum! It's still in it's default state at the moment, so I'll to predecimalise it will be the next job.

Those are Chinese. They looked like that up until about the begininning half of the last century. The writing will tell a Chinese reader the province name and the ruler. Most are very common and have very little value.

No doubt the Royal Mint are taking in the bronze coins as quickly as possible, selling the metal and replacing them with copper plated steel examples as we speak!

Taking Russia and a few other selected nations completely offline would probably reduce it by about 80%

It ruins it for the millions of normal non spamming people doesn't it! I seriously think that it's a problem governments need to address. All the spam traffic uses up so much world bandwidth, and it's always the same nation culprits (mainly Russia in my case).

It's a right pain isn't it! I think I might have to switch over to only allowing registered users to post but only when they've been manually approved...Which is a shame because that will discourage a lot of people.

Have you got a bag or 2 of 1966 halfpennies?

Just to let people know that I have recently purchased (yes, more money spent!) the latest version of the Invision forum software. It'll have new features and it will look better! Hopefully I can make it more spam proof too. I'll also be installing an add on which will alow users to setup their own coin photo gallery! Much like what is done on another site that you probably all know about! You'll be able to easily share pictures of your coins with all the forum users in your own sort of coin photo album. The forum upgrade will go on over the weekend at some point (I hope) and the photo add on will be added once that first stage has gone smoothly. There are a few unknown variables, so while I'll try to make sure there is very little down time during the switch, you'll understand if the forum doesn't run well or is not available over the weekend.

Is it! I wish I'd sourced these before the Chinese got hungry for copper! Ok, then £72 per bag is what I'll pay!

Has anyone got one or two mint £5 face value bags of 1966 halfpennies? Or a large quantity of that date? I've got 2 bags but I need 4 for promotional purposes. I'll pay an outrageous £60 per mint bag!

It's only illegal to melt down current coins (so I heard, basically to allow people to melt down pre 47 silver) so theoretically you could sell your bronze old pennies to the scrap man!

No, not really but I do have to keep my wits about me, and an eye on it a few times a day at least.

I've blocked another 2 people from registering today already....Someone with a .ru (Russian) email address and someone who's email address started 'cheat-casino' (we get a lot of Casino spam too, but I delete it very quickly)!

All the ones I've seen have been 8/7 and I've always been led to believe that was the case for all of them.

After all the dodgy links to porn, medications and various other spam commodities by new members, I have now set up the forum to email me each time a new member joins. I then have to manually approve the account before they can start posting. Any accounts originating in Russia, China, or the usual spam server countries will not be approved by default unless the user can demonstate over email a genuine interest in coins! It's such a shame people abuse the freedoms of this forum.

I knew who that would be before looking at the link! Nice enough chap, but he does try his luck sometimes with grading, and he really should know better.

I hope that was you Mr Peter!

This is strictly professional Peter! I was simply putting some ideas on paper and I sort of stumbled upon her. And I like the idea of using a female face somewhere...(probably the first ever inside a coin book! But why not, lets break new ground). I didn't want a 20's something beauty (like my own girlfriend ), I wanted a woman that looks womanly. Pretty, but also raw somehow. Someone that could be someone's mother/wife etc but with a bit extra, a woman that has made an effort and turned out alright! Perhaps nothing will come of it, but somehow I simply must get a female face into a coin book, even if it's just on a buried ad somewhere!

Yes, that had crossed my mind too actually! (but there's not much chance she would ever have heard of Myra Hindley) How about this one, she's almost smiling, except of course it has not a lot of comedy value....

I think it was posed. I have others where she looks more cheerful.

I think she has a beautiful distinct face. Big eyes with lots of makeup, classic lipstick, high cheek bones. She does look pretty glum which doesn't do any favours. She has nothing to do with the forum or any of it's members but she is a real person that I am in contact with!

Alright, here it is as a jpg...

http://www.rotographic.co.uk/Funad.pdf The lady is actually modern, despite the 1950's look (helped by the old photo kind of toning). And then I thought, what about a new title "Collector's Wives GB 2007". Collectors can submit pictures of glum looking wives. And readers can vote them into different grades or something! I'd love to do a concept book with nothing to do with collectables, but in a Rotographic style. I'm still thinking.

And the other sides...