Peckris 2

I hadn't realised that Jerry. Not sure what is the way round that, except to do a normal quote and then adding more annotations in yet another different colour. In another forum I'm in, each level of quoted reply is in a different colour anyway (black, then quoted level 1 = red, level 2 = green, and so on). That can make conversations increasingly lengthy and unmanageable, so I guess there is no perfect method.

Thank you Mike. It's just commonsense.

Is that from the weight? It certainly looks ok.

Or even just after, for a few years. "The sick man of Europe" we were known as. What with devaluations, strikes, rampant inflation, frequent power cuts, a 3-day week, etc etc. It's most unlikely we'll be back there, but we certainly wouldn't be at all if we Remained. The EU wouldn't want to prevent us rescinding A50 - they fear No Deal nearly as much as we do.

Funnily enough, I was thinking of writing an article on those! But Richard will have the photos of course.

Verhoefstadt spoke passionately from the heart, albeit with a large degree of impatience. Farage spoke his usual quota of lies. One small advantage of Brexit is that we won't have to see odious little toad again.

You could always claim it was William Wyon as a child!

I'm guessing a lot were melted in 1971 as they were not generally known as a 'key date' variety back then. High grade examples would have been rare even then.

Sorry, but I think she deserves everything she's got. She's put Party ahead of nation, stuck stubbornly to her red lines, refused to engage in proper cross-Party talks, ignored pleas for indicative votes, and when challenged she simply trots out the well worn soundbite about 'the people asked us to deliver Brexit so that's what we are going to do" rather than engage properly with the question. You listen to reasonable people like Hilary Benn, Dominic Grieve, etc, and she just comes across as stubborn, blinkered, and totally unyielding.

Makes you wonder just why Baldwins kept schtum about such a rarity?

Thanks! That's where I went wrong - I Googled him and found markrasmussennumismatist-betchworth.co.uk/ which I think is his old website? It's still there but nothing is active on it apart from the three main buttons (Home, Coin..Service, Contact).

How did you get to his stock? He has various buttons on his home page, but they're unclickable, i.e. they don't go anywhere.

Wasn't Mark Rasmussen the first to publicly offer the 1952? If so, he should know where it came from. (His website doesn't feature his stock strangely, but the photograph on his home page - when you zoom in - I'm sure shows the 1952 at the bottom.)

Who told us that - Farage? It must be true then..

However, it's a proof. Perhaps a few VIP proofs were struck but only one (?) was actually issued before the King died so the rest were melted? I'm guessing the 1954 was a pattern - with no pennies planned perhaps they just wanted to test out the new obverse?

Yes. Already minted I believe, unless Theresa May asks for an extension.

According to the official site https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/whatsinthebasketofgoods70yearsofshoppinghistory/2016-07-21 the "basket of goods" to measure inflation has been used for seven decades. It's reviewed regularly and some items taken out and new ones added as fashions change, but it's still the most reliable indicator for CPI inflation. Apparently the measurement dates from January each year, so that doesn't account for March to April. The spreadsheet I've got shows monthly inflation from 1962 to 1973. In every year bar one, the increase from March to April is the biggest; the exception being 1963 where the increase is modest, but then it begins to reduce for the rest of the year. The other possibility is that buyers (private and / or commercial) were using up their budgets and allowances before the new tax year started and that high demand generally results in higher prices. However, I can't see that applying to the sort of everyday items that would be in the 'basket of goods'. So it's a bit of a mystery. Edit: mystery solved! Traditionally the date of the Chancellor's Budget was March, so as duties would get added immediately on things like alcohol, tobacco, and fuel, those would have seen a big increase in inflation for a month.

Interestingly, there's only ever been one 52 halfcrown found. It had been well circulated so it begs the question whether it had started out life as a proof, like the penny? However, there were obviously no plans for any UK pennies after 49 (1961 was the next regular normal mintage) so possibly a VIP proof or, more likely, a striking for the Museum.* It's unlikely there are any records or we'd have known about this penny and wondered where it was hiding. *revised: if it was for the Museum it would still be there.. AND we'd have known about it!

I think the last two images are the best - they show the coin in its natural tone and are a sufficient size. (Probably didn't really need most of the others.) Nice farthing.

This one was 18!

Yet they seem to be "old fogeys" who claim to have been there at the time, but they seem to have very short memories for anything except urban myths! Mind you, they weren't numismatists so they had no special interest in the subject as we did.

Yes - and the biggest jump in 1971 was March to April (nearly 3%) which seems to point the finger squarely at decimalisation. However, when you look at the equivalent figures in 1969, 1970, and 1972, again the biggest jump is March to April, which seems more to point the finger at the end/start of a tax year than anything else.

Got it in one. Plus all the usual "biggest con inflicted on the British public" "some prices doubled overnight" "someone charged 16p for something that was 1/6 before" nonsense!! Amazingly, more than 3/4 of the posts are to that effect. Talk about urban myths.