Rob

I was going to say well done for identifying it, but I think there might be a trace of ONE to help him.

I took a rare foray onto planet football tonight and have to confess I thought the result was a fair outcome. The most striking thing to me was the near complete inability of England to win a one on one situation. Close ball control doesn't seem to figure much in their repertoire as it seemed they came off second best 8 out of 10 times, which isn't good enough at international level. They were too static when passing the ball, giving no options for incisive distribution.

Was that phoning the US or London office?

So what other emails have you received from them. The only ones I ever seem to receive is their wine evenings. I know there wasn't anything in my inbox, spambox, lunchbox etc, nor was there anything in some other people's boxes that you would expect to be sent them. I had quite a long conversation with GC this morning about said topic and he didn't receive email or catalogue either. Maybe even his money isn't sufficient to make it worthwhile for Spink. I think that the coin dept is disorganised in London since they put a stop on dealing, together with so many people moving on. It may be that coins are going to be organised out of the US, though Jon Mann has just joined them, which suggests they haven't given up entirely on coins. I'm still not convinced about this idea of Spink doing private treaty sales only, given the transparency of the internet.

I think the problem here is not so much checking for overseas auctions but rather the quality of Spink's business marketing. Spink have a database of what? Say 20000 collectors given the client numbers used? Obviously some willbe foreign, but a reasonable guess is that 50% are UK based. So if Spink can't be bothered sending out an email notice about a foreign sale of their own targeted at 10000 people, it begs the question as to whether they want those 10000 collectors business. Is this a portent of things to come as we know they are concentrating on private treaty business and dropping the coins/shop side? Is our collective money not good enough? When they don't give notice even to poeple who spend hundreds of thousands a year and who are UK based, then I suspect it is a case of management failure. Whatever, it certainly isn't going to improve the viability of Spink in the UK if they can't be arsed to give you an opportunity to spend money. $21K hammer for the 1882 penny was cheap and I suspect could well have gone higher if people on this side of the pond were aware of the sale. After all, if a slender 3 can make more, then £21K was peanuts. Baldwins, DNW, St. James', Brocks, Lockdales, London Coins, not to mention a whole stack of provincial auctioneers give regular advance email notice. It isn't even a question of no catalogue, which I can see they might not want to send across the pond, but no notice? The wheels have come off the bus methinks.

Didn't even know about it. That's the second one where they haven't bothered to communicate with their UK customers. Ah well, maybe our money isn't good enough.

I wouldn't recognise a Gouby X unless it was flying a large flag identifying it as such. I've seen lots of pennies with X marks if that helps?

Penny.

I do.

It is hit and miss, but I don't think you should get hung up on the fact that you might attract a large import duty bill. Goods coming into the country attract whatever duties are deemed payable. As the law states that imported coins attract 5% VAT you should assume that you will be charged and view any non-collected charge as a lucky gift rather than the normal state of affairs. Even at £1500 it is only £75 VAT, so in the context of the scale of the purchase not a huge amount, however peeved you feel at having to pay anything at all.

I think it's kosher

Anything's possible if someone breaks the connection between logic and action

Got one Azda, your about 6 months behind on the trend Good, so perhaps you could elucidate. I can see how you will get enough friction to hold it on the front, but how is it anchored at the back? Clenched between the cheeks, or tied down by a tent peg stuck up your a**e?

That's a sweeping statement. Only time will tell if eBay/Paypal are willing to honour that. I wouldn't want to claim as a test case because they would be certain to fight a claim as far as possible in case they set a precedent for paying out. How many times are Paypal or eBAy known to have sided with a seller. We all have examples of where the buyer gets his money, but far more interesting would be those where his claim is rejected. Knowing you are in the right is not the same as getting eBay's support.

Presumably the US cent came free with the other one. I sold an 1818 a few months ago in considerably better condition at nearly VF. It made............just over £2.

I think that's a by-product of the excessive silver output in 1816-7. You often see the large output of a new currency type, followed by a scarce date 2 or 3 years down the line. 1818, 1864 pennies, 1938 G6, 1912 &13 G5, 1954 E2 Cu-Ni. In the case of the G3 recoinage, there had been a shortage of silver throughout the Napoleonic Wars, so only with the introduction of a token currency whereby the value of the silver was below face could they issue sufficient quantities to satisfy demand - which of course they did with a vengeance. 1818 is a pig of a date for mint state shillings in contrast to the previous 2 years which are abundant.

Providing you've got proof of postage and/or the signature obtained upon delivery the only claim would be "Not as described" and I'm not sure how someone could claim it was 179 days before they noticed it wasn't as described without PayPal suspecting something fishy. The concept of retaining evidence for half a year would be mind boggling for the casual seller as opposed to any business which would keep receipts as a matter of course. So the question for them is how they store the evidence of delivery. Does the PO keep signatures for 6 months or is it less? As to the 180 day ruling, Paypal would adopt the same attitude as with something bought the day before - and then decide in favour of the buyer.

I concur. My current asthmatic dog kennel is a Fusion. Quality control was non-existent. All the trims were held on with same polarity magnets - or so it seemed. Driving along minding your own business and the covers between the front and back side windows wold fall off. Performance is terrible. It was cheap in the dealers for a good reason.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds eBay increasingly relegated to the back burner. At £260ish there's still a bit of mileage in it for somebody.

Hi folks. Any thoughts on the best program to buy to create a form based on personal experience. Nothing clever, just a series of irregular size and shape boxes with a title in the top LH corner of each box. Unfortunately a simple grid won't do. Thanks.

Another partner?

There's loads of them out there, because for in house printouts it is the cheapest way of producing them. No need for glossy paper, you can use fairly dusty recycled paper without hassle. Newsagents mostly print off the paper-round sheets on one for example - certainly their software is designed for them and I don't know any who use more sophisticated devices. It's cheap and cheerful when you need a simple list. I've had ink jets, lasers etc since the 90s myself and continue to have one for other printouts, but see no point in changing the accounts computer printer until I run out of 3 part tractor feed invoices. End of year reports are only for me, as are stock lists and valuations etc so it could be printed on bog paper for all I care. Incapable of being b******d by your truly, it's a Star NL-10 which has to be the most robust printer ever made. It was the one I got with the first computer in the 1980s and is almost completely maintenance free as I've only had to clean it out once when it jammed up with paper dust. Not bad for 28 years old.

I've always assumed they start out a new design with a new pair of dies, but then replace each die as it disintegrates. As both don't normally fail at the same time you can build up a sequence to determine which dies were paired and the sequence of that pairing. This works for low mintage issues such as the sequence established for the Guernsey coinage. For longer runs utilising many dies, if they decide to stop producing a denomination then the dies are removed and set aside. Depending on where they are placed would determine whether the old pair were reinserted at a later date or a random pair were used later. I think they would have more than a single die pair, so a later pairing would be what is in the die box. If the obsolete ones were not discarded, this is where they would go and hence be available for later use.

I'm getting fed up with the main parties wringing their hands and giving bland explanations why they didn't do as well as they thought they should in the elections. All say they failed to get their message across. None of them mentioned (or maybe are in denial of) the fact that they ignore anything the public says as a matter of course. Tories and Labour promise a referendum tomorrow (which never comes) when considered expedient to garner votes. Liberals vehemently oppose one. All are afraid of putting something to the public where they can't control the outcome. Little wonder therefore that the largest tranche of voters went for an alternative that has the potential to bypass the parties that promise a vote at some future time (hopefully on someone else's watch when they can't deliver) and give a different party the chance to strive for something the others are afraid of. It's not about little Englanders wanting to keep immigrants out. UKIP or many of those who voted for it are not rascist, something which has backfired on the left wing orchestrated charges of fascism across the continent. Eurocrats in Brussels continue to revel in their padded troughs. The main instigators of environmental legislation, with typical political hypocracy continue to relocate the whole circus to Strasbourg every month and back again. People have been calling for another referendum on Europe for a long time, but each time the party in power defers the problem the less chance there is of the public believing them when they repeat the promise. Chickens have finally come home to roost. As an aside, I was doorstepped on two occasions during the campaign when asked what concerned me most. Managed to come up with a generic stock answer. 'That you might get elected around here'. It saved a lot of wasted time and can be applied to all parties. All they wanted to know of course was whether I was going to vote for them or not. I think it is a good thing the main parties are cra**ing themselves.

Just a note for anyone going tomorrow. We are not in the usual room, but the one to the left where they join two rooms separated by the narrow bit at the emergency exit. Me, Neil and Derek are in the far room from the entrance. Please don't spend all your money before you get to the other side. Thanks.