Rob

Too damned right. What is the point of having a referendum if our elected MPs don't abide by the vote of the electorate. Parliament could have had a sensible debate on whether we should stay or leave before the vote and actively campaigned by putting forward the arguments in a meaningful way, but instead chose to play their silly games while the rest of the country had many rational discussions and formulated an opinion based on what emanates from the Commission and the indifference paid to ALL the European electorate. If they didn't consider themselves above accountability and stuck to the original terms of entry they could have had at least two-thirds of the country behind them. However disorganised it is, UKIP is going to do very well at the next election if the arrogant t**ts at Westminster block article 50.

So if you know they are only worth £5, why don't you just put them on at a price sufficient to cover your fees and costs and see where they go? Any premium is unjustifible for a bog standard note, so anything received above face plus costs is a winner. No need to be greedy, so if it doesn't sell it has cost you nothing. Just stick a bit of food into the pond and watch the feeding frenzy. eBay is THE place to go for a large pool of mindless buyers intent on paying huge premiums for 'collectibles' they are unlikely ever to recoup. They might go up in value eventually once obsolete, but I wouldn't recommend buying them with that in mind.

I get numerous daily calls asking how much the new £5 notes are worth. I don't understand why people don't get it. There are a million AK47s out there, not to mention a million AK46s and AK48s, a million AA01s, a million AA02s etc. With the exception of the first run, there is absolutely no reason for any premium unless they are errors. I had one guy phone who said he had been offered £200 for an AK47 ending in 007. I asked him why he didn't take it and replied he didn't want to get ripped off!!!!! I suggested putting it on ebay and if he got £5.01 or more he was quids in. Sorry, I have better things to do.

Does it automatically do so or is there an additional charge for inclusion on foreign ebay sites? I thought there used to be an added cost for worldwide exposure. Plus, ebay doesn't default to worldwide searches, so you only see national listings.

The first on the list is a seller with a feedback of 13 compared to the different seller with 13000 on the last two, and has different contact details. Could be that's his private address because one is in Boulogne, and the other in Lille, or maybe the business is re-locating, or maybe a disgruntled employee. Second is priced in £, the third in $. The coin itself looks ok though at first glance, albeit with a couple ugly marks on the neck.

I would question the sanity of anyone who feels the need to spend £1-3K on a computer just because it's an Apple product. My last one cost me about £500. Leaving aside the Brexit argument, consumer goods allegedly exhibit falling price trends, not exponentially expanding ones. At the end of the day it is just a computer.

Surely this would be madness on the part of the saleroom, not to mention illegal as it would amount to deliberate misrepresentation of a lot they were selling. A VIGO 5 guineas would sell irrespective of the source (unless it was nicked). The Mail is a different story however as they can only push sales by publishing hyperbole. Accuracy of report has never been their (or other tabloids') strong point.

Political union is not going to happen. Tell the French they can't be French any more, or ditto the Italians or Greeks. Given that is not a possibility, the only other alternative is for the Commission to go backwards - something it has never done because that would require an admission that something had gone wrong. Better the whole thing fails for them than a rational decision based on the reality. The trouble is, many Europeans really believe it could work. When we picked up our wine this summer, the winzer couldn't understand why we voted to leave. Their comprehension was that everything was about immigration and why was that Europe's fault? They couldn't seem to get their heads around the fact that many people here resented the unaccountability of the Commission and that all people wanted was control of their borders, not to kick all the foreigners out. They didn't understand that we joined Europe for trade, not to create a super-state. They couldn't understand why I was happy at having a meaningful vote for the first time in 41 years. It's very easy to accept the status quo when you are not under any particular economic pressure. Ask the Greeks or any other country that hasn't made any attempt at reform. A single currency and a single EU wide interest rate require a single, united political framework, Europe-wide taxation and that national interests be rendered irrelevant. Ain't gonna happen.

This has been said from the outset. Currency union without political control can never work as a permanent solution because the politicians are always going to play to the people who vote for them, not the unaccountable people who tell you to use this or that currency, set your rules and dictate policy going forward. It should have been blindingly obvious to the whole of Europe that unrelievable tensions are the result of tying a country's economy to a fixed rate of exchange following the situation in 1992 after this country had to leave the ERM, or maybe they just put their heads in the sand and said that we fell out the ERM because we weren't good enough Europeans. It is only slightly different now. The main one being that there is absolutely no flexibility in the system following the removal of the ability to set independent interest rates according to the various national requirements and (probably more importantly), take steps to adjust your economy by strengthening/weakening the currency. Germany needs to strengthen the rate, most of the rest of Europe needs it to weaken. Impotence rules.

One group was headed up valley from the fishpond below Phillips park towards the motorway roundabout. They could use the bridge over to the rugby club. By the time they get to the school it isn't a million miles away

i.e. You mean your ballsack is waffer-thin (sic).My wallet is on life support at the moment and currently in receipt of benefits from a kind Sudanese gentleman - absolutely skint.

A bit theatrical. Bizarre. He could have said the same in a more calm and collected manner and come across as a balanced human being. About as excitable as today's crop of phone calls from people who have 50ps in their purse and plastic fivers in their wallets. First time I've been able to look at anything on facebook as well. The site's a bit cluttered and for some reason this time it allowed me to view without registering despite asking me to do so. Previously I haven't been allowed to view without registering - not that I'll be doing so.

Put it on and find out. I don't have a crystal ball, nor does anyone else. Could go for 99p or £99. It's a lottery.

10 months ago we saw two parties of three in Drinkwater Park. Not bad for 3 miles from the city centre.

Depends on the coin. Some things tick boxes but are generally uninspiring, both in condition and interest, such as the numerous varieties of long cross pennies, some of which are only available in VF or worse. Others in that category are really nice coins in themselves, mint state but boring - such as 20th century bronze or most other modern milled for example. Others are difficult to find, so buying them becomes a priority such as some patterns where there are no more than one or two known there is a thrill in establishing the best example acceptable and then finding it. General appreciation is enhanced when you can add a bit of historical info such as provenance, or where you have waited for years to find a specific coin. It also has to be said that some things just appear, so the enjoyment is solely having been in the right place at the right time. Just as with the question, 'What is your favoiurite coin?', this shifts from day to day, week to week. It might surprise you, but the attached gives me satisfaction. As a coin it's a real dog, but given the only other known example (VF) had sold 3 or 4 years before for £2K plus juice, the appearance of this in 2003 and the recognition that it was an opportunity not to be missed, made a sensible bid the only real option. Sod placing a low bid on ebay in the hope that the vendor will offer it cheaper in the future. You may not, indeed are unlikely to get the opportunity to revisit the coin on a relisting, so putting in a proper bid at market value made complete sense. The underbidder was nearly £400 below me and obviously hoping for a bargain at a basement price. 13 years on, I still like it for what it is. I like it for the minutiae you can extract, such as the person who set the dies in the press obviously aligned them by putting the French arms against the top of the obverse - clearly the case as it is the only set of arms in the correct location with the die axis as seen. http://

I get a thrill out of both. Firstly the work done in chasing down the acceptable examples for the collection, then the highs and lows of winning it or not, followed by a the buzz of having acquired a good looking coin that you had pursued, maybe for years before getting your hands on it. A roller-coaster ride that provides satisfaction with each successful step in the process.

No. TPGs seem not to worry too much if a coin is dipped. It isn't the same as polishing as all it does is remove the naturl toning, but can leave a washed out appearance if done for any length of time. The coin will go dull if over-dipped and lose any natural brilliance

Uniformity of colour is usually a good indicator. Silver will tone down over time if untouched, with a degree of mottling in the toning from past handling residues. That is why 200 year old or whatever silver should look the real thing. The only way for silver not to tone (as it is a natural reaction with airborne contaminants) is for it to be hermetically sealed. Anything else is suspect. e.g. http://www.predecimal.com/forum/topic/2315-1731-shilling-t-over-e-in-a-t/ this was liberated from the bottom of a broken Georgian drinking vessel in 2006, but even here we have a bit of toning present. Maybe as a result of heating the glass when it was sealed in, but otherwise there is no appreciable toning. Long term, any silver that is 100 years old you would expect to show some signs.

When Montagu sold his Geo. I onwards in 1888, the sale contained most of the Victorian decimal patterns along with all the proofs and private patterns. It is clear that the law wouldn't act retrospectively, as any attempt to reclaim these could have been made on numerous occasions, not least the Saward collection, which was sold in 1910 and contained a large number of patterns and proofs. He was a long standing employee of the mint. I'm sure most of us have an example or two of items that would fall into this category, but I wouldn't be losing any sleep over it.

The key to all this is the fact that they are going to introduce coins to the precise specification of the trials. All the previous patterns and trials were markedly different to the adopted designs. Even the 1994 £2 is not circulating, so an irrelevance. The ability to drop hundreds of dud pounds into an automatic change counting machine is a different matter

It's a sign of the times. Everybody is trying to maximise the value of the junk in their house. A dozen pennies and halfpennies found will result in a call to a dealer. They also cost the owner nothing. 10 minutes ago I was offered a WWF 50p - third rarest 50p, super rare etc. I referred him to eBay as the place with the largest wallets attached to the least common sense, explaining to him that rare in Daily Mail terms is usually a limited edition of millions.

I think the main reason is to counteract any propective private issues. If they hadn't acted, you could have had the counterfeits circulating on the street before the real thing. It can't be a policy of never letting out the trial pieces because there are the 1994 £2 sets issued by themselves. The patterns must have been ok to release because they have been in private hands pretty much since made with some but not all examples in the RM museum.

It's all wind. All the western countries suffer from the same problem which is that as mature economies they are uncompetitive relative to the developing world. That's as true in the US as it is in Europe. That's why jobs are moved overseas and people feel the politicians don't care. It actually wouldn't matter who is in charge as the situation is outside their control, but the populist rhetoric wins through with the man in the street which is why we see Trump in the position he is at. These pressures will continue until the developing world has mostly caught up with the west, or alternatively our living standards have dropped to meet their advancing ones, as only then will it be economically feasible to relocate a lot of manufacturing back home. That's the price you pay for demanding cheap goods. The US is in a unique position as the World's reserve currency and has been so ever since the gold standard was dropped, but that still doesn't mean that local economies in the US are strong, just that other foreign countries have stashed their vaults full of greenbacks - China anyone? That keeps the dollar high and means jobs are exported, so in a way, what is demanded by the electorate is diametrically opposed to the rhetoric of making a country strong again, whoever the claimant is. For the world's future problems, look east (or from a US perspective west), as China will be the key to world stability. With a sixth of the world's population and an economy reliant on exporting to the west, mass unemployment in that country or region will have huge repercussions if not controlled, with possibly a revolution. Unemployment is already a problem as I understand. Do I have a solution on a global level? No. At a national level I can see a renewed round of competitive devaluation of currencies, but the world wouldn't stomach a 10%+ Rmb/$ devaluation, and this would further exacerbate national tensions in the US, because America would be a little less great in the aftermath. Ultimately there is a limit to what politicians can offer in realistic terms, so the sooner electorates accept this, the earlier countries can take steps to sort out their local problems. Both Trump and Clinton are local problems.

Can of worms here. Pictures can be purchased, however the cost will probably put you off. When I wanted images of their Weyl patterns in 2009 I was offered a picture of each side at £50 a pop. The collection holds 7 coins, so understandably I didn't bother spending £700 on a few images when those for the other 85 coins I had pictures of came for free. I offered to take the images and let them have a copy to save someone doing the job, but that wasn't acceptable as they were trying to raise money to do the job I offered to do for free. This all stemmed from the fact that I had acquired an 1860 Weyl penny in 'aluminium' at the Adams sale, but it weighed over 10g, which was 3 times too much. I was able to book an appointment to view their examples, but not just turn up on the day. They were a lot twitchy because I wanted to take my coin in for comparison with theirs. However, we negotiated a compromise, but someone was watching over at all times like a hawk. It really feels like the collection is saved from rather than for the public. Until a few years ago there were more coin images uploaded, but it appears that a lot of these have been removed. To summarise, the person responsible should should not have been. After Brady, I was trying to establish the pecking order for the remaining available Ed. VI profile groats. A quick perusal of the museum collection informed me that they had a couple hundred Ed.VI groats - from a surviving population of a dozen or so. Somebody had listed all the Ed.IV facing bust groats as Ed.VI!! Anyway, to cap it off, when I did finally extract the few profile groats from the 10 pages or so of Ed.IV it also transpired that the accession details were screwed up too. They had managed to allocate the image for the Montagu coin to a later date. The Clarke-Thornhill bequest (1935) coin was given the Montagu accession details (1896). I pointed out that the 'Montagu' referenced coin was illustrated in the Huth catalogue (1927), so their online info was crap. I went through the images and gave them a list of what the provenances should read together with those listed as Ed.VI which were in fact Ed.IV, but no thanks were forthcoming. Nor were they willing to give me an image (even a scan) of their Oxford 1644 F-2 groat (the other known example to the one I have) as a thank you. On the plus side, the BM did at least answer my enquiry as to how many they had in their possession, unlike the 6 or 7 other museums that didn't even bother replying. They must hate the public. Good luck.

It could also be due to silver dip. I have seen fairly rapid toning build up on some dipped coins over a period of a few years, which I have assumed was due to residual chemical deposits on the surface. This is noteworthy because the TPGs don't seem to view dipping as cleaning, but there is no reason to assume that encapsulation would inhibit the reaction.