Sylvester

man ain't this gorgeous? from my fave Queen too. http://www.colincooke.com/graphic/images/g...88vfgvf7950.jpg

Aye but Chris isn't here, or rather maybe he is here as in this country, isn't it about the right time for his radio interview?

Now if Winston Churchill hadn't kissed Roosie's backside so much and let him take Britain for a right fool, then we may well have been still a great power.

she couldn't crack an egg with a spoon.

Well coming from a working class family as i do that relied on heavy industry (and yes there is a steelworks across the road), she destroyed this country's industry, she sold out to abroad. (now we have to buy stuff in from abroad) The age old Conservative Motto - "if it ain't broke don't fix it", Thatcher didn't follow that she tinkered with everything and screwed the whole damn lot up. She was no conservative in the traditional sense, her and her stupid new right, i hate her more than i hate Blair. (As i am of the old right). And she ruined everything by Privatising (If you think that privatisation really improved the railways then you are living in cloud cuckoland), and she was trying her best to destroy the NHS. Higher unemployment, the rich got richer, the poorer got poorer... some improvement!

Hmm problem is like William stated. We're fed up with Blair now, but just remember how many people swore they'd never vote Conservative again after the anti-Chri, erm Thatcher.

amen to that!

i've never heard of IDST before now either...

My feelings entirely i would love that. Nope it's been sold, and even if it hadn't at about £7,000 or whatever it would have been priced up at it's way out of my league, even £700 is out of my league. Most i've ever paid was £450, and i had to part exchange a £110 coin to be able to afford that one, i'm still scraping the rest together.

Well i very rarely use padding, only then for proofs... when i've been daring enought to scan them I dunno if you can, but i find for silver a setting of Brightness 18 and contrast 20 works best. Depending on your program that would work out as a middle range, with contrast just ever so slightly higher than the brightness. Copper and bronze you need the brightness bit higher than the contrast. Gold you want the contrast higher than the brightness. you'll have to experiment a bit though.

nope afraid not...

Pistrucci was very egocentrical, very talented no doubt about that, but very arrogant.

i know what you mean, i've got to finance my hammered coin addiction also, and that slight sixpence problem.

with hammered though it depends on the series what the grade is. (that Geo shilling... i'm always fascinated with how WW hid his initials to start with, very different to BP, who spelt his name out in full!)

A very nice coin too!

it's definately EF.

One sovereign jumps straight to mind (infact two do) 1841 and 1859 Ansell type. Although i'd urge you to be on the look out for a 1858 (i think it was 1858, might have been the normal 1859) The catalogue doesn't show a price difference but one of those years is very scarce. I'm damn sure it's 1858, high grade specimens are a good investment. It was always the one i couldn't get, never had enough cash. Did i mention i used to collect London mint Shield reverse sovereigns?

don't look at the Irish ones or the Netherlands, infact just don't look at any modern Netherlands coin, ever.

see here for some other figures... (near the very bottom) http://www.ecb.int/change/eurobnfaq_en.htm

Denomination Number of euro coins produced (so far to end of 2003, i think...) € 2 coin 330,760 € 1 coin 381,800 50 cent 305,400 20 cent 377,400 10 cent 195,000 5 cent 195,000 2 cent 195,000 1 cent 195,000 Complete mintage 2,175,360 Vatican have 145,000 for each denomination.

pssst, 1905 florins trust me, you don't see them.

yep those are the ones, difficult to get hold of, just like the Vatican sets. I can't believe i'm talking euros here...

I'll agree with Victorian, but if you hope to make some profit on it, do not go beyond 1919, as the silver gets debased from there. Infact i'd say the best thing to invest it on would be high grade Edward VII silver coins, halfcrowns and florins specifically.

i think it was the San Marino ones that i liked, i might be wrong, but it was one of those rare sets.

ah right, i thought you meant Geo III actually, i thought the 1826 was unrelated.