Rob

It's just part of life's general trend. Given there are few easy options that haven't been tried, the only way to stand out is to become ever more eccentric or outlandish. As someone who grew up in an era when a pub crawl involving 15 different breweries' ales meant visiting 15 different establishments, the concept of having 15 variations of the same basic cider on the same shelf seems a bit strange and smacks of the marketing man trying to override the pleasures of trying different companies' products. As cider must have a legal definition, presumably these are just flavoured concoctions? Rhetorical question, but what was wrong with dry, medium or sweet?

Empty barrel.

Probably because the question of reused dies has been addressed here before? Adding a reply along similar lines is akin to a typical academic paper where previously published facts are repackaged and then regurgitated, all from the need to publish a paper in your own name. It is very difficult to continually put a new slant on a topic, and as for adding new material every time then forget it. This is a recurring problem for me at places such as our coin club because I struggle to find sufficient new material to talk about that can't be found elsewhere. There is no way I can do a talk more frequently than every other year without repeating myself - which would bore people. Anyway, to address the question. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that diestock was reused time and again, with perhaps the most obvious example being the Exeter shilling that went through DNW a few years ago which had 2 nearly full reverse designs visible. There is no practical reason why a die would need to be melted after use as it is not a precision piece of engineering, being just a length of bar with a design engraved on the end. Of greater interest would be the identity of the underlying die. A reversed N should be quite easy to find when it comes to narrowing down the die options.

Splendid, another subsidiary living under the corporate iFault banner.

First look I thought it was more a case of copper farthing - no copper. Maybe they are pretend stops?

Copulative omega Thanks for that. Now I can sleep happy !!! Moneyer mark perhaps ? The copulative was issue dependant some have omega and some a bar. The moneyer mark was his name

I could sell you a 1971 set, but I guess you don't want to know that - and a Trinidad and Tobago, and a Bahamas..

Copulative omega

Done that, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I also flagged the daily crap from Photof****t as spam, but that doesn't seem to do anything either. It comes from the 1&1 who host my site, so probably can't do much about it. I have no idea how to block individual addresses.

So you have two happy people - if only it was like that all the time. Some people don't worry about marks, others don't care if a coin has been cleaned, some are paranoid that their coin might have been handled in the past, some are...... you name it, someone will be exercised at the thought. None of us can stand up and categorically state that buying a coin was wrong if the two directly interested parties are happy with the deal. Very true Rob, just surprises me at times! Me too, but it isn't my money.

So you have two happy people - if only it was like that all the time. Some people don't worry about marks, others don't care if a coin has been cleaned, some are paranoid that their coin might have been handled in the past, some are...... you name it, someone will be exercised at the thought. None of us can stand up and categorically state that buying a coin was wrong if the two directly interested parties are happy with the deal.

looks good to me.

We have already communicated. Needless to say there is a divergence of opinions, but hey, that's why these things are so fascinating and the subject of much discussion. I suspect it will be a bit of downer if we ever resolve the issues.

I must be repeating myself too often.

To which can be added, that with letter rate postage which appears to be the maximum that buyers want to pay, it doesn't allow for any protection to be used if you want to keep within the 5mm thickness limit. So small parcel rates (which if signed for to protect your own backside), push the price up to about £2. Add on the VAT if you are registered and that is £2.40. Add on ebay and paypoo fees takes a £1 coin to £4+ for a coin that may or may not be worth a quid assuming you want to realise a return. It does beg the question 'why bother?', but the answer is of course, because you can get free listings and every so often people buy. The only winners are eBay. Royal Mail have also shot themselves in the foot with the 1" limit for large letters.

I have a problem with there being one or two examples known of most denominations in penny increments from 6d upwards. If you are going to have a garrison that needs paying, you will make coins of nominally the same value for the same type of soldier - that's why the majority of provincial coins are shillings and halfcrowns, this being the nominal daily rate for a foot soldier and cavalryman respectively. These sums were not cast in stone as the infantry rates varied from about 8d up to 1s3d per day depending on who was paying and at which point in the war for example. It is not beyond reason to expect that approximately the same size pieces could be produced. i.e. you would expect to see large numbers of one denomination or possibly two to reflect that the garrison was effectively composed of foot soldiers. Of possibly far more interest than the silver is the quantity of CARA copper farthings found at the bottom of the castle well. There isn't a problem with the attested provincial mints, but those with a question mark after them definitely need a lot more investigative work, particularly Ashby(?) and Bridgnorth(?). Boon's theory and attribution to these places I believe will one day be proven to be wrong. B is dependent on A, yet according to the theory, in the month long siege of Bridgnorth you have approaching 30 dies to serve a garrison of 120. The bulk of the garrison (including those who came from Ashby) left Bridgnorth on 12th March 1645/6, a fortnight before the year end and were subsequently defeated at Stow on the Wold on the 21st, so you would expect the 'B' coins to be dated 1645 - but they aren't. You have documentary evidence of coins struck at Aberystwyth mills in March 1645/6 which would fit nicely with the A coins as Aberystwyth fell on the 14th April, and given the die linkage to B, suggests that it must relate to one of only two areas where Royalist troops were concentrated in 1646 - N W Wales on a line drawn from Barmouth up to Denbigh, or at Raglan where there was a garrison of about 1000 and a very wealthy owner. Silver was in short supply at the end of the war.

It's a problem for most sellers. The majority of items don't sell because there are too many listings. As I write there are nearly a quarter of a million listed under coins of which 110,000 are British. There isn't time to look. So unless you find two people searching for the same item you find that most will sell for opening bids at best. That's why so many are on BIN now. Personally, I don't bother looking any more as I don't have the time to plough through hundreds of pages and only look when given a heads up these days. What used to take 20 mins is now a full time job. The fact that most go to the same person suggests that he/she is happy with what you have sold, but as long as they start at £1, then that person will continue to acquire at that price. 10 years ago or more you only had one or two thousand listings and the %age of quality listing was better.

Dream on

Probably die damage. When a letter/number is punched in you have small outlying areas of metal level with the field alongside a significant depression. This would be a preferred place to have bits of metal breaking off. notice that the blocked letter retains its external profile.

Not only the name, but possibly more important was the fact that the material had been off the market for over half a century. There can be very few collectors who were actively collecting at the top end in both 1945 and 2015, so all of this was a refreshing change from the material that goes round on a regular cyclical basis. An 'old' collection almost invariably does well. Look at Chesser, 18 months ago, or the William Boyd sale at Baldwins in 2005. Also the Neville-Rolfe sale went well. The gold patterns at Plymouth in 2008 got the market talking, though the venue probably restricted the final outcome. Wow that's over 70 years of collecting. He has put some serious effort into his collection and it showed yesterday how appreciative the collectors were of his efforts It wasn't one person collecting over 70 years. Looking at the acquisition dates, a bit of digging has showed that it was assembled three generations ago with the collection being passed down to the grandchildren.

I picked up a load of 500 silver sixpences for the pot today. As they were pulled from circulation by a market stall holder at around the time of decimalisation I thought there may be some value in counting the populations before going for melt. The total no of coins is 400. Results as follows 1920 4 1921 11 1922 5 1923 - 1924 3 1925 5 1926 6 1927 6 1928 19 1929 21 1930 18 1931 11 1932 5 1933 15 1934 5 1935 10 1936 27 1937 15 1938 9 1939 20 1940 19 1941 10 1942 36 1943 34 1944 34 1945 27 1946 25 The 925 was nowhere to be found, so figures are unavailable before 1920. The highest grade was a bit better than VF.

Generally speaking it isn't worth keeping 500 in less than EF for the smaller pieces or VF for the larger ones. Even the so called rare dates in low grade need to be melted to get a sensible return, witness the 4000+ 1925 halfcrowns in Noble's sale a few years ago that were bulked up into 10 lots, with only one single coin lot. 500 doesn't easily sell on ebay unless it is labelled unc, so the best way to realise any value is to scrap it, given the hefty chunk that disappears in eBay fees.

looks like it - the hair turns up at the ends.

It's drowning in a sea of blue and too small. Bigger image please.

Which is why it was a no-brainer. £1K for 100k of pennies, weighed in is about £2K profit from the scrapper even after the cost of picking it up. No need to list them, just bin them and cash in. £2K daily income on an annualised basis will buy me that Henry VII sovereign, even after tax.