Peckris 2

First, if you're going to concentrate on silver, you don't need to worry too much about fakes. Gold and - surprisingly - large copper from the early Empire are more liable; copper is very hard to find in good condition and the pieces are quite large. Compare that with small bronze from the later Empire such as Constantine, which survive in enormous quantities. Roman is not hard to find especially silver (denarii and antoniniani) and small bronze, and you can pick up examples in quite high grade for what seems to be modest outlay. For example, imperial denarii of non-rare emperors can be found in EF for often less than £100. Huge numbers were minted and many are found and put up for sale. Hence the lower chances of being faked. These coins are "ancients" rather than "hammered" as such, even though the minting methods were similar. They tend to be quite a lot thicker. Silver quality varies a great deal, and the antoninianus (similar to the denarius but lower denomination) ended up being merely a silver wash over bronze. That does not of course make them less collectable. Then you have the Republic (BC; pre-Augustus) where coins were struck in lower quantities and are consequently pricier. It's almost a separate area of collecting

There's a HUGE difference between 'desirable' and 'necessary'.

I doubt it

I'm not very impressed by their identifying Plautilla (wife of Roman emperor Caracalla) as "Plantilla". It's not even a typo as that's the name consistently used.

I agree with others - COULD be but very very worn.

and don't forget...

I'd say that if you get - say - 4 or 5 right and miss 1, they should accept it. I mean, what are the odds of a bot scoring that high. I can understand if you click one that doesn't contain what's asked for, that's a different story, but missing one: no big deal.

Yes, Wiki suggests it's a myth. I like the idea of punters checking the quality of their ale.

We already had Rolf Harris do Stairway To Heaven and The New Seekers do The Who...

The dimpled and nonic glasses were the 2 commonest a s I recall. However the shaker (yes, SLEEVER or just SLEEVE!) was also featured.

Yes, pre-ME pennies all get a bad press but the shallow head introduced on half the 1921s really did improve reverse strikes.

Damn. Wish I'd spotted it.

Yours Rob, or for sale?

I remember in the early 70s there was a make of speaker (can't remember the name - JBL?) where the actual speaker was mounted near the top, but was then pointed down to a flared 'horn shaped' cavity where the sound was transformed, perhaps even amplified non-electronically, to be louder and deeper. Used by rock bands and DJs.

I'm tempted by the Soho pattern halfpenny of a topless Britannia.

I think you'd go a long way to beat this:

Is that what Gentleman's Choice means?

Explain?

That IS a shocker. Mind you, the winning bidder at £330 deserves all they got if they didn't examine both pictures.

I don't believe they were not intended for circulation, though it's quite possible they got held back. You have to look at the buildup to conversion to bronze. I've read (can't remember where) that the original date for this was to be 1858, but they ran into so many problems it got pushed back, and the sheer number of errors and dies between 1860 and 1862 reinforces that. That would explain a couple of things: 1. the huge number of overdates and varieties for 1858 as they used up dies from previous years; there is no other year in the copper series which contains anywhere near so many varieties. This makes sense if in 1857 they still intended to switch to bronze in 1858, but then decided to postpone the changeover to 1860. This would also explain the relative lack of varieties for 1859 - having made the decision to postpone, possibly late in 1857, they had time to produce dies for 1859. OR, they postponed further from 1859 to 1860 but having done so once, left themselves with enough time to create 1859 dies. 2. the low mintage of 1860 bronze pennies. (5m for a major changeover is low, especially when you look at the vastly higher mintage for 1861, 62, 63). If the problems persisted, only being resolved quite late, then they would have started striking too late in the year to achieve a high mintage. Meanwhile there may have been an emergency issue of pennies required - all they could do in the time was reuse the 1859 dies; however, if the bronze pennies then started to be struck, it may be that the limited number of copper 1860s were never needed and thus didn't get issued? Except perhaps for a few, which either got out unofficially, or a few were released before the Mint could stop them. But what happened in the end to the small 1860 copper strike is anyone's guess. You'd have thought they would be melted down.

That's an absolute corker and would attract a hefty premium IMO.

I would say UNC with nearly full lustre. Selling price? I'd guess between £75 and £90. You'll probably say more, being in a slab! It's probably worth pointing out that slabs didn't appear to affect prices realised in the recent DNW sale, not much anyway.

Very very poignant. Well worth a listen.

I've tried twice to post this, but I get the 403 Forbidden each time. I'm hoping a picture will evade the censors...

I'd rate the second maybe VF or GVF at the most? However, being 1917, it's probably only had the circulation of an EF coin. It's the brown marks that put me right off it.