Rob

This is right up my street. The content will be really important if it contains any Royalist York coins as it might help in the dating of the various issues. The local events in 1643 may also help tie down the time it was buried. http://bcw-project.org/military/english-civil-war/midlands-and-east/lincolnshire-1643 Looking forward to the report.

Talking of Wood's patterns, was it you who bought the 6d in Bole?

Everybody knew that before the vote. It was even discussed on here.

Ah, I do that when a caller asks me if I need any windows. I'll just go and check..........................

Grueber & Keary, English Coins in the British Museum, Anglo-Saxon 2 published in 1887 (reprinted 1970) lists a coin with identical readings. That is why I said an image of another example would be useful as they made copies of things in the BM around the turn of the 20th century. The Ready electrotypes of milled coins weighed the same as the original, being identified by an R on the edge - something that is not possible with a flan as thin as a hammered penny. Modern copies of hammered coins tend to be noticeably thicker than the original however. I couldn't find anything doing a past auction search, but that is not altogether surprising given the number of rare to unique examples of a specific die pair.

The full mint reading shouldn't put you off. The shorter the name the more likely it is that the mint signature will be longer, but the whole is dependent on the spacing used by the engraver. IOLA, DORR and SCVLA are often encountered with full readings, but so are longer names such as STIRCOL and ARNCETEL. Examples are also known where the mint reads EOFERPICC, the last letter repeated to ensure there was no vacant space. I don't have any images of a STIRCOL ON EOFERPIC, so can't say if it agrees with an existing die pair, but unless there is something obviously wrong such as weight or thickness, I would think it was ok. Obviously any copy would likely be an exact replica of what is probably a unique die.

One gilt 'Soho pattern' a few years ago was a painted currency Christmas bauble. I told them, they disagreed, I said I was going home. Their minder asked if I wanted to leave any bids. . Silly man. I walked out and bought a York halfcrown from Lloyd Bennett instead.

Perhaps this thread should be deleted given the evidence?

If it was a penny it would have been well known decades ago. Victorian groats don't float many boats.

Looks like a straight 1848 to me. https://www.dnw.co.uk/auction-archive/lot-archive/lot.php?department=Coins&lot_id=227791

I'd melt both

I'm not sure why they continue to list them. I returned it because they were cinquefoil stops. A couple others I have seen advertised as stars were also cinquefoils in hand. Cinquefoils were introduced in 1844, so any stars would have to be old collars used at a later date. I think it is possible that wear or fill has resulted in the misattribution. Hocking doesn't list any collars, so that is unhelpful, but given it would require the collar to be used in conjuction with an 1845 obverse, the regnal date on the edge being VIII in both instances, the best and probably only way of resolving this may be a ruling from the Royal Mint - if the information exists.

That's because general consensus is that they probably don't exist. I've never seen one and have never heard of a legitimate one. I bought one at auction which was returned, not as described. Significantly, Lingford didn't have one.

The same applied to Briot's coinage prior to the Civil War. It appears that getting the weight right was a perennial problem.

The only way people can go against the establishment is to put their money where their mouth is. If you want a healthy local economy (which is what most of the protest votes are about), you have to support it. That means not having strawberries with your Christmas dinner, buying goods produced within your country and not necessarily demanding the cheapest option, i.e. using the five pound shop and not Poundland. Isolationist and protectionist as it is, there aren't enough jobs to go around because of production efficiencies and labour costs, but that is the goal that people want even if they can't articulate it. A truly healthy local economy (and people do mostly live in a local vacuum) has a workforce that is close to full employment. Money generated within communities that can be used by the same people so that nobody feels left behind. In that environment it also defuses the immigration issues because virtually everyone is doing passably well. It is this sense of community that globalisation has largely killed off.

The only one sitting pretty is Putin. Lots of resources and a population that is under control. They don't have mass immigration isues to consider. Corrupt for sure, but the resources/population balance is better there than in any other major country. The one to watch is China which could see a lot of strain on a society that has been offered a significant uptick in living standards built on the export trade. They won't be happy to see further unemployment if Trump sees through a return of US manufacturing. When it all pans out, earth will be fine, if a little less populated.

Correct. I was accosted at Manchester Airport 15 years ago and asked to fill in a survey about the people using it. I answered a few but then saw it was multiple choice questions, so, feeling a little mischievous and getting bored I said put me down for all Es. When I asked about the outcome I was informed I was in sociai group E with an income in the £100-£150K bracket. On a more serious note, I hope Europe is now looking east.

Difficult to say. The toning on the reverse from a fingerprint between H & 1, or within the strings, or around the 7, or just to remove the specks on dust in the outer beading?

Is that the bottom of a toilet bowl I see lurking behind the coin?

The last F5 looks suspect. This harks back to a disagreement I had with Steve Hill when he catalogued lot 350 in Gregory pt.3 as a thick flan 1729 proof silver halfpenny (P834) instead of a thin flan P833. He rejected my argument despite the coin being only 10.87g as opposed to Nicholson's 12.45g on the grounds that the excess metal which had not been filed off was 2-3mm thick at that point. The struck up bit was much thinner. My coin has no excess metal and can be measured as being 2mm thick at the rim (and also has striations from filing, presumably to remove excess metal). Most are thin (1.5mm) flans, with a couple thick (2mm) flans suggesting that blanks were cut from at least two plates. There is no reason why regular shilling/halfcrown/crown thickness plate could not have been employed This leads me to a parallel consideration which might be pertinent to the penny. As the proofs were not part of a production run, there is no requirement for exact specifications when it comes to weight or flan size. Sure they could use regular thickness plate as used for the currency pieces, but they could equally have their own piece of plate (could have been rejected as too thick) for use in the engraving dept. Did they have the ability to strike coins outside the production area? Gut feeling is they did as you get off metal strikes and you also get lead cliches, which could not be done on a production press or similar (e.g Pistrucci's series of strikes showing the stages of engraving on his G3 crowns). To interfere with currency production just to make a coin or two is also unlikely and certainly not cost-effective use of equipment. More likely is a small press which could be used to make what is a small number of samples. My personal instinct is to say that the first 3 F5 blanks were all cut from the same plate, and the same theory (but from a different plate or plates) would apply to closely matched weights in the case of the F4s.

For obvious reasons you do need a minty one

Now Sturgeon's getting involved saying the 5m Scots have to remain whatever, it is looking increasingly like the best option is for her to go for independence again and join her mates in Brussels as a sovereign state. Divide the country's assets pro-rata for the various populations and go our separate ways. The way she is rattling her cage, she might have a greater chance of success if the question of keeping Scotland is put to to the rest of the UK as well. If you accept a majority as the decision, she shouldn't have a leg to stand on. Or maybe she doesn't.

You can get a pretty good idea of how accurate they are by putting a sovereign on then if you don't have a calibrated weight. All the cheap ones seem to have a cal function these days. Anything to within 0.02 or so ought to be acceptable. Otherwise you go down the lab balance route with a closing door to eliminate draughts and a temperature controlled room. You can't get away from the calibrated reference weight though.

But we need the jobs here, otherwise our society collapses.

Yes, well, Sugar has become a celeb too. Pity he didn't devote so much effort to ensuring his manufacturing businesses endured.