Rob

Thanks all. It wasn't a difficult decision once no.3 took up a teaching job in Berlin and freed the room up. We worked on the principle that it wasn't good to be where they lived - next to an airfield that was flattened a few weeks ago and was now 15 miles inside Russian held territory. A no-brainer really. For anyone thinking of doing the same, the easiest way to find someone is to get in contact with a Ukrainian, or one of their social groups. The wife spoke to someone at work who is Ukrainian and they asked around the local community. You get pot luck because it isn't a beauty contest - they could be 20 or 120. Our application was sorted by a local Ukrainian lawyer, so it took 3 days to find someone and get the visa application filled and submitted. Forget the idea that someone in govt will fill the beds offered via their registration scheme. For your part all you need to give is id plus tick a few boxes such as you have to get a landlord's gas safety certificate, which in my case cost nothing as the guy who does my safety certs, did it for free, but would otherwise cost about £50. You also need a smoke alarm on each floor. They will do a DBS check because there are obvious safeguarding issues around children, and most of the people taken in will be lone women or ones with children. Language issues or not, it will work.

Yes, I know. The wife is trying to use it as I write. Ideally what is required is a program that you speak into and translates. Got a week or two until the govt. gets its backside in gear. We are taking in a 41 year old mother, while her 21 yo daughter is not far away with a family where there is someone of a similar age. They don't speak English or German though, so there might be quite a lot of hovercrafts full of eels

****. It might come back as an Anne farthing. Be careful what you write.

Does anyone have experience of and can recommend any translation software for Russian or Ukrainian? Ta.

The only important one is the lower left quadrant, because everyone else will put themselves in the top right quarter. Bandits will lie about losses to others and helpless people will likely think something they have done for others is beneficial to themselves

Thing is, there were 4 Elias 288s on the list. So unless there is corroborative evidence that it is indeed ex-Elias, you can't use the provenance. In this case, Patrick Finn listed 4 pieces from St. Lo (506-509). The Elias sale (1990) had 3x Elias 288s (lots 417-419), but none of them were the same coins as on the list. So unless there is something else to indicate ex-Elias, I'd ignore it. Some of the Anglo Gallic coins noted in list 18 were ex-Elias, but all were referenced with the corresponding lot number, so can easily be checked.

thanks

The coin indicated is a grand blanc of St. Lo. The Elias ref used refers to 'The Anglo Gallic Coins' with the relevant number given to all the Anglo-Gallic coins in the list and should not be taken as ex-Elias collection. This is an ongoing problem whereby an important collection provides the reference, but gets interpreted as being the coin in question. You always need to cross check this info.

Looks like picture didn't load for some reason.

Thanks for all the above replies. Next. Apologies in advance for any visual offence caused. I know it needs binning, but will at least act as a teaching aid for the time being I assume it ought to be obverse C, but I keep getting a nagging feeling that something isn't quite right. Comparing the distance from B to the back of the head looks closer in Gouby. There is a gap in the beading by the Garter legend which doesn't show up in the Gouby publication images. The gap below the bust to the beads looks to be greater on this coin compared to the book. I don't know if this is due to the die being polished heavily resulting in a loss of angled relief, hence the wider gaps. The reverse is Gouby a, and so Freeman 1 refers? Thoughts please.

And another one. 1864 crosslet. Again a different number of teeth. Given the last digit was added later, surely all dates should have multiple varieties of widths even if they aren't listed? And does anybody care, or is it only for specific dates?

How common or rare is BP1882Ha given it isn't in Freeman or Spink which only list the 2/1? And a second question. How many date widths are there for 1869? I've got an 11.5 here and Gouby only lists 10.5

Still costs you to post the item and it's not as if they will learn from the mistake.

Seems like a waste of money. What are the odds on them getting it right the next time, or a second, third etc time I they disagree with your assessment.

The flaw on the KH23 isn't very prominent. It's more obvious from the rim to the G, but thinner as it leaves the G and heads for the truncation in a gentle arc to the right. That is the only difference between KH22 and KH23 and arguably is just a late stage 22 not worthy of a separate number. To differentiate KH16 & KH22, the first has a flaw under the armpit and SOHO is in line. The second has no flaw and the second O is lower. The flag on the ship is also smaller on the latter die.

I'd go 1244, but would prefer bigger pictures.

Given the fact it is impossible to reconcile some overpunches, even the seemingly impossible/improbable cannot be ruled out. If the wrong punch was used, you could get any possible combination in any year as any punch (including letters) could be used. Most of the time the correct character punch would inevitably be used, but this can't be guaranteed. e.g. a 9 instead of an 8 is only a case of picking a punch from the adjacent bin, or choosing one that was replaced in the wrong bin. All options must be on the table.

I think it is important to keep all options on the table, even the improbable. When you already have 8/2, 8/3, 8/6 and 8/7 as accepted variants, there is nothing to exclude the possibility of 8/4 and 8/5 also coming into the equation. At a time when they were clearly reusing every available die, it is also not inconceivable that an 1840s obverse could have been repurposed if they found one. Probably not relevant if all they wanted to keep was an example of the ww and no ww dies, but FWIW Hocking only lists the 18- die and an 1859.

There is always the option of an 1854 die filled and recut with a 9 punch before the mistake was recognised and corrected with an 8. That would keep everyone happy.

And a comparison between this 8 and a halfpenny 9. It's a very good fit, particularly the distance between the knob and the arc at the top inside the lower loop.

Red lines are commensurate with a 4, purple with a 9.

I was hoping someone might have come to a conclusion since it was last discussed. The first thing I had considered in hand was a 4 as a possibility based on relief, but looking from multiple angles I am on balance still inclined to the halfpenny 9 punch theory. In the absence of the right digital skill set for drawing lines and annotating, I'll print off a picture and mark it up to demonstrate what I mean.

Need a better picture

Thoughts please. There is also a raised line crossing the bottom loop just below half way - just visible. Intriguingly it stops halfway across the left hand section of the loop

A bit left field this, but trying to grope through the murk I wonder if all this was an attempt by Putin to preempt a coup (real or imagined) or similar, as there's an awful lot that doesn't add up militarily. Clearly the invasion of Ukraine was and is an existential problem for that country, but is equally so for Putin. He can't afford to lose or he is toast, so what drove the man to order an attack when it wasn't necessary and carried risks for his entire empire. The question therefore is why did he invade when the army was so obviously unprepared for a war? This is the real conundrum because he might be a psycopath, but he isn't stupid. The accusations of widespread genocide and Ukrainian attacks on ethnic Russians are patently fictitious to all, so what caused him to need a pretext for going in? After all, armies do not decide to invade a neighbour on a whim because these things take weeks and months of meticulous planning, yet here we are with soldiers apparently expecting to go for an afternoon walk and an army with no apparent sensible logistics organisation, this despite the fact they had just been on exercises - which are precisely what you use to iron out problems and join the dots. The whole episode is suggestive of a snap decision by Putin with no input from his generals, two or three of which have been dismissed and arrested in the last month, though I don't know how many are retired in this manner on a regular basis. Whatever the failings of the Russian army in terms of delegating decisions downwards to the man on the ground, it beggars belief that the generals would be collectively blind to the planning necessities of a military campaign. which again points to a decision about which they were not consulted. To paraphrase Lady Bracknell, 'To lose one general may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose seven looks like carelessness.' Estimates of Russian casualties are speculative, but a US estimate says around the 7K mark. Too lose 7 group commanding generals, not to mention a significant number of officers commanding the various constituent units of these groups from such a low total just doesn't make sense. Even if the overall losses were 50% higher, it would still seem like a stitch up. I think something spooked him because the Russians had 7 or 8 years of experience dealing with the Ukrainian military in the east and even with Russian backing on the ground in Donetsk and Luhansk the separatists had ground to a halt. Why did he take the risk that threatened his position?