Rob

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.

He could be innocent if he doesn't know his coins. Could have bought it from Saxbys, which would provide a match for the description and coin.

Not necesarily, it might reflect the significance/usefulness of his Johnson. Could be past its sell by date. At least the tat can be resold.

post mint

We've got an open border between Lancashire and Yorkshire.

And there was me wishing I had thought of that one.

The whole saga is rising to a crescendo of scaremongering again, or so it seems. There is much talk of the potential cost of leaving arising from our liabilities - maybe 20bn, or even 40. The point they don't make is that if these are liabilities, then it is money we will have to spend whether in or out. i.e we are b******d either way. It isn't money we would pay in and get back again, it is committed spending which we would lose in any case. Turkey might vote for Christmas, but turkies don't. Same as with the MPs in the commons complaining that they demand a vote on Brexit - we had one on June 23rd. If they missed it because they were too complacent or arrogant to take it seriously, that is not my fault. Unlike the politicians, the average man in the street took the debate very seriously, ignored the diarrhoeic diatribe emanating from the political parties and made his mind up 4 months ago.

At the risk of stating the obvious - if these are not any use to you, then why do you keep acquiring them?

Both? There are 4 catalogues and 3 vols of M&R

He had some coins in that sale and also in sales10/4/74 and 24/3/76, but the main collection was sold at Glens on 8/11/1978. The first ref was noted on a dealer's catalogue as being his. You need Manville and Robertson

More likely corrosion. Any sign of copper with a silver wash, as counterfeiting wasn't very normal in debased silver? And the weight? The 3a3 issue was not the best in terms of quality.

If anyone has a copy of Dowle and Finn's Irish book, please could they scan the pages for the Henry VIII posthumous issues of Ed.VI through to Philip and Mary and send them over. Thanks in advance.

Can't - the defining feature for KH5 is the rusted obverse die which is only known for this die pair. There isn't anything obvious on the reverse to differentiate from other varieties. Anyway, for lewd coin displays you need the nude Britannia reverse.

Not for the first time tact isn't my strongest point. Oops. My idea of stunning is by comparison with its peers.

Shouldn't be the same punch as the Soho punches remained there until they were sold off in the 1848 auction where Taylor acquired them. i.e, the 1825s would have to be restrikes to use the same punches as the mint was already using in house punches.

I'm not belittling anybody. As Azda said, it is a case of taking what is available, even if not perfect. I've even got a badly corroded aluminium specimen of one type because it's probably the only one in existence. The same went for a guy on the PCGS forum who took a P940 slabbed 61. normally he wouldn't look at it being a number chaser, but it is the only one he is likely to encounter. Again, it was another variety that hadn't appeared in a sale over the past half-century. I've never seen one other than that coin. Most patterns come up in really good grade at some point, so patience is the name of the game, but occasionally it is Hobson's Choice.

No it's not. It's probably the worst of the bunch as it has a large thumbprint on the obverse which is something that would normally be a reason for rejection, but given the last example I have recorded is in the Circular for September 1968 (CC4134) given as aEF and Mick Martin couldn't find any examples in the period from 1970 to 2008, buying was a no-brainer. Peck's own example went to Birmingham, and the BM has one (ex-Cuff 1854). That leaves only the Brice/Montagu coin as the other reference I have. Any of the aforementioned may be the same coin, but I can't be certain. The late Soho types KH3 onwards, say P1043 to 1048 are decidedly rare. I only have this one and the silver KH4 (not in Peck). I threw out the P1044 which I couldn't live with, but these aside I've not seen any examples of the others.

Somewhat ironically, it probably is a genuine rarity if the mintage figures of 100K or 200K for the real thing are to be believed. The Chinese will make them to order, and I suspect that levels have not yet reached the 100K mark.