Rob

It certainly looks like it is muled marks, but could be crown over grapes. For some reason, the legend is often a but squashed in at the mark on a few shillings I've seen, so I think it is probably genuine. The harp strings look a bit crude, but the blocked letters such as the E are often seen in this period and a copy is unlikely to replicate this. Weight is ok.

4 over inverted 3? He'd have the 3 punch to hand.

I bought a mint 1927 for £30. Mind you, didn't have the bagmarks which must have accounted for the premium. The estimate at $60-100 was reasonable, allowing a slight premium for the high grade label.

Dunn could be J Dunn-Gardner, sold at Christies 29/4/1902. Timing is right. Neck's collection was bought en-bloc by Webb in about 1887.

Virtually every dealer is asking where these people paying high prices are. It appears that just as you have people who only buy on ebay or facebook, so there are people who have decided to buy at auction to the exclusion of other outlets. You often see something that you make a mental note is worth £x and it opens above this level. Add in the premium and mark it up as you have to, and you have something that nobody will touch. Selling at fairs, everyone expects you to come down a bit from the ticket price, but these are almost mostly lower than you would have paid at auction in the first place. It's a parallel universe.

Luckily nothing in there for me and given current prices, nothing affordable for stock. I went for a walk, had a thoroughly pleasant day and don't feel I missed out on anything.

3b, IORDAN, Winchester

Which lot?

There's a seller on ebay - daviddexter1, who is selling a copy of the Charles I F3/1 shilling I wrote about in the Circular 10 years or so ago. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275070559449?hash=item400b7ba4d9:g:tycAAOSwQ8thvp0B He's also selling an Elizabeth I shilling which is the cast copy of the holed first issue shilling, i.e. with the pierced hole filled in!! Bleeding obvious to all and sundry except ebay buyers. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275070567171?hash=item400b7bc303:g:hRkAAOSwjChhvqFn Can we have as many people report this as possible, as his get out is that people can always return it if they aren't happy. I suggested that knowingly selling a fake as the genuine article was attempted fraud. We shall see what happens. For future viewers, the first item is another copy of the attached. Obviously cast, the degree of pitting varies, so is not a specific identifier. The original coin has a wavy flan, which when an impression of each side was taken, meant that below the bust the coin didn't extend to the edge, leaving a 'laminated' V-shaped notch when the two sides were joined together. This is specific to the copies. A close up of the area is in the second image. Third and fourth images should convince disbelievers that they really are copies.

Or has the plastic aged over time to a gold colour? That is the normal packaging for a Cu-Ni crown.

Unforeseen problem this morning. I tried to post a catalogue to Germany. Wrong! In their wisdom, Deutsche Post include paper and wood pulp products which includes printed matter on their list of banned substances, so the post office won't accept it. By logical extension, this must therefore include letters and Christmas cards. It's bonkers. And they accuse the UK of being isolationist........ Banned items Paper and paperboard; articles of paper pulp, of paper or of paperboard Printed books, newspapers, pictures and other products of the printing industry; manuscripts, typescripts and plans

I've got the F3/1 which I acquired in 2004. It rings right compared to the dull clunk of the casts and is as the copies except that the sharper detail is narrower in profile as one would expect compared to a cast copy. I didn't bother putting the genuine piece up as it won't help given the profile is the same for the copies. There were quite a lot doing the rounds 10-15 years ago. It was Richard who first alerted us as he questioned whether I had sold the coin which was then on the website - which I hadn't. After that I took it down and kept it. Both this one and the Elizabeth have been mentioned on this forum previously. A mm plume shilling with C R over the oblong shield is another widely available copy. I know who has the original Edward I cl. 9b of Newcastle too, which was around at the same time. Others copies include a 1713 Anne halfcrown. Somewhere there is a thread with a few listed.

Which pretty much makes a cast iron case for having a library. Sorry, don't have a copy here and haven't sold one, so assume it was foreign only and I didn't get the catalogue for whatever reason.

Assume nothing. There were two plume marked 2a halfcrowns in lot 268 (bought by Crowther), one VF and the other nearly so but small. Both had the number of pellets as stops listed, and it doesn't match. We can be reasonably confident the coin was Burstal's despite this inconsistency as the ticket has FOL plus the number and that matches FOL 112 on the two tickets imaged in Eaglen's article. An explanation of what FOL means would be useful with the number change. It's worth noting that one of the tickets in the BNJ with FOL 112 on it was acquired from Seaby in 1948, so this may have been acquired prior to that date. Other disposals noted in Manville & Robertson were made in 1957, but that was milled silver, and 1984 was hammered gold. I don't have old man Burstal's catalogue, so can't check that. On somewhat more solid ground. Hawkins 2a and Francis 2a with mm. plume are the same. Not in Francis is correct. None of the 17 obverse readings used HIBE. The 5 after the lower 2a must refer to the Francis harp type as it is the only flat fronted harp he listed. He doesn't list a plume marked reverse with 5 pellets left/1 pellet right of mark, but notes 2 reverses for the following mark rose. The first has a different harp to that seen, but significantly this harp is used on the second rose marked reverse (Francis 5), with the added bonus of Francis noting that it has a pellet each side of and between C R. I think we can eliminate the 5 as referring to the reverse number as the mark is wrong. It is therefore worth checking any rose marked examples with this pellet feature to see if this is the same die recut with the new mark. If it is, it would probably place the die right at the end of plume. Brooker 301 uses the same harp, but is a different reverse die. He didn't have an obverse reading HIBE either. S2113 places that prior to 1977 when the Seaby references changed. Thinking out loud, I wonder if he passed a number of coins to offspring, as the number of Tower halfcrowns in the '68 sale was little more than a type collection exercise.

That looks filled in hand. The inside edges of the V are not straight, but 'ragged' about half way along - consistent with the A crossbar position.

Another unrecorded variety.

Having looked at this more than a few times, I can't see any trace of either top or bottom arm corresponding to an E so will stick with H. A reasonable question though given the small lump in the image, and the upside down B on the other 2d reverse die. Given the date is 1786 in both instances, it may have been the same engraver responsible for both dies. People are creatures of habit. We could of course compromise and say E over inverted E or H.

It was started in 1421, so late medieval originally, but modified and extended several times. For all the extensions, it is still a bit of a Wendy House compared to most cathedrals, due to the fact it doesn't have such a high vaulted ceiling as per the traditional style. It always feels less imposing internally than it should.

That depends on what was bid as a maximum. You often see it in CNG's online auction for example, where similarly odd numbers (e.g.501) appear as the hammer price. It happens more often in the US than the UK, but a maximum bid is a maximum bid, even if the increments are required in standard steps. Online bidding might not allow it due to a drop down menu of increments, but a postal or email bid can have any number. And the auction house makes a small amount of additional income, so wouldn't turn it down.

But, Paddy's Wigwam notwithstanding, remarkably modern. Strange that an 'old' city such as Liverpool should have 2 modern cathedrals. Most places have to make do with some medieval edifice.

I didn't win one lot. 1594 hammered at 1200 which was way above my max. I was underbidder when it went through LC in 2007 and regretted not bidding higher at the time, but 1500 all in would be too much, as nice as it is .

Could be, I suppose. I was going off what I could see in hand, and the little lump to the left of the E vertical isn't blindingly obvious. The small protrusion below the lower bar of the E, made me conclude it was an H. HIB follows ET, so H instead of E would simply mean the engraver forgot about the ET.

A second 1786 2d reverse die with a corrected error. This time the B of HIB was entered upside down the first time round.

There are few varieties recorded in the Maundy series, so I suspect this is only one of many, but for the record - a reused 1817 3d obverse die. It's clearer in hand.