Rob

I do a mixture. I will happily accept a cheque, and today paid for the table at the Midland with one. They work fine for many businesses as some business accounts do free cheques where others charge. Have 2 or 3 accounts and your bank charges can be seriously reduced, even as a business.

Yes, but the short run of marks is not 25-32 inclusive as this would include intervening marks not used during James 1's reign - 26 pierced mullet (Ed. VI), 27 eglantine (Eliz.I), 28 sun (Ed. IV), 29 mullet (Henry V), 30 pansy (Ed. IV), 31 heraldic cinquefoil (Henry VII). Rather it refers to the numbers given to the various marks in the Seaby list which is shown on p.645 in the 2013 edition, or p.659 in the current volume. 25 - 32 means 25 (mullet) followed by 71 (tower) followed by 45 (trefoil) followed by 32 (cinquefoil) which are the marks covering the chronological period 1611-1615. They are the marks used for each of the pyx trials in this period.

If you look at say the J1 spur ryals on p.264, you will see that the mms are 33, 79, 74, 25-32, 132. i.e. rose, scallop, then missing out grapes, crown, missing out key & bell, then mullet to cinquefoil which includes tower and trefoil, and finally book having missed out tun in between. So two marks will be separated by a comma, whilst a run of 3 or more consecutive marks are hyphenated.

Never knew that, thanks Stuart! You're not the first person to say that, so obviously there is a minor issue with interpreting the information laid out. As Stuart described it is as it is. How do you interpret the mms employed?

Bust 5A. S2563. This mark and bust are illustrated in Spink 2013 (p.256)

Seems too light, even for a worn piece. A 1% weight loss would still be over 7.9g and would be quite obviously worn. 0.16g down is a lot of gold to lose. If in doubt, ignore. You can always buy one that isn't suspect elsewhere. Given the grade as described, it isn't rare enough to be a must have piece at any price.

Presumably your nephew. Never heard of Oly Mers and they didn't come up on google either. Famous in their own lunchtime? Someone you need to tell us about? Male or female given the androgenous name? Greek? His initial is P. He was briefly the lead singer of The Molecules, who nearly had a smash record release on the Paint label. Ah. I was wondering if it was someone with a plastic fetish, who dropped the P on the grounds of gender.

Brilliant. http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=6&threadid=904709

Presumably your nephew. Never heard of Oly Mers and they didn't come up on google either. Famous in their own lunchtime? Someone you need to tell us about? Male or female given the androgenous name? Greek?

Never met (or sought for that matter) any celebrity. No claims to fame here.

The thing is that although it is tempting to say that they are just filler, on some dies the dots have to be squeezed in where a single stop would be adequate. This must be done for a reason. It could be date related, decorative or it could be an individual, but the overwhelming case is for the latter.

I have thought about this quite a lot. Using the evidence from the marks employed in the Cary commission area, it appears that there were an initial 5 engravers employed. As they all had their personal mark, which accompanied coins using the same punches on the whole it is possible to build up a picture of their movement (which had to be associated with troop concentrations as paying these was their sole purpose). A reasonable assumption is that existing working practices were continued wherever possible as it would not require a new set of rules, hence my belief that the various stop arrangements reflected the work of different individuals. Within the Cary commission area, one engraver used the 3 pellets mark. I think he came from York towards the end of 1643 but before the fall of the city. The idea that an identifying mark can be assigned to an individual based on the above can be extended to Oxford where it is possible to identify dies cut by a couple of individuals who subsequently moved to the Cary area and continued to cut dies using the same punches. I can therefore assign certain stops to certain individuals and believe these to be their personal privy marks. As the set of rules of the provincial mints would likely mirror that existing at the Tower prior to Parkhurst moving to Oxford, I confidently believe that the decorative stop marks used on some of the Tower coinage was similarly used to identify the engravers.

How about an alternative theory? Maybe the person who made them was a perfectionist and that what we are looking at is the output of a particular person. It may be the main engraver or the main under-engraver working in conjuction with a specific team of co-workers. They may well be special presentation pieces, but as a rule of thumb, rightly or wrongly I typically see better quality pieces with arrangements of pellets than without. I see that both the Hunterian and your piece have a 4 pellet stop before the i.m. which has to mean something. You get the introduction of multi-pellet contraction stops during Plume (June 1630 - June 1631). Prior to that everything appears to be either single pellets, stop/apostrophe, or no stops. The two periods prior to Plume were Heart and before that Anchor. During this time there was little silver coming into the mint and consequently very little leaving it. Output of silver at the mint increased 15-fold during Plume to a level not previously seen during the reign, which must have meant that there were more workers employed than previously. 4 pellets, 5 pellets (or whatever) coincided with the introduction of the oval shield which replaced the square topped one. There is also a profusion of pellets in the fields on some reverse dies. Multi-pellets stops are then seen all the way through to Anchor (alongside single stops etc). I also note that the latest 'Fine Work' shilling noted by sharp is the F5/1. Brooker 529 is not from the same dies, but is the only anchor shilling in Brooker apart from 522 that has more than single pellet stops. 522 has a 4 pellet arrangement, 529 has 2 pellet stops by the i.m. Whilst the 4 pellets mark disappears from shilling dies in Anchor, it first appears in Plume and Rose on the crown dies and then after a change to a 'tadpole' like set of stop punches, re-emerges in Crown (obv) and subsequently Tun and Anchor. The crown reverses however are all marked with 4 pellets from Tun right through to the end of the reign. I think the 4 pellets is an individual's mark. I've long thought that there ought to be some way of identifying the person responsible for individual dies because you see this in the provincial civil war pieces and here we are only a few years before with the anchor mark. I would assume that an existing state of affairs would carry over into the civil war arena simply because that is what people were accustomed to. It's a case of keys fitting locks. People would be on autopilot as that was the way they usually worked.

The legend would suggest yes as it is well cut but the rest no because it is too weak. If you are going to have a presentation piece or a specimen strike, it seems unlikely to me that the centres would be so weak relatively.

F1/1 & F5/1 fine work shillings are mentioned, the former i.m. Tun, the latter i.m. Anchor with flukes right.

The road from Stonehenge across to Heytesbury was always a decent road to take.

You're still better off going up the A303 to the east than going westbound. Too many single carriageway sections with limited overtaking between Stonehenge and Mere, then again around the Somerset/Devon border.

I wonder why George instead of William? Historical Williams are: 1 a French b*****d and conqueror, 2 dies hunting in the New Forest and lets the coinage go to pot, 3 a Dutch import who nonetheless probably did a reasonable job and 4 the Sailor king who made the best of a bad job following the excesses of G4 and in all probability rescued the monarchy. Georges? 1 became King because the Stuart line ended, but never took to this country and stayed most of the time in Germany, 2 did ok and even fought a battle in Germany, 3 was off his trolley, 4 was attended by the cake trolley, 5 did ok and so did 6, again in less than easy circumstances. I think they should all have to use their first name. Nothing wrong with Charles III or William V, though a quick check on wikipedia does say that other contenders for Charles III over time include Charles the Fat (832-888) and Charles the Simple (879-929), neither of whom he will be relieved to find are likely ancestors.

Gold 1791 pattern halfpenny. sold slabbed without gouge 6 months after I disposed of it with gouge. I can't find the post with images now, but it was some time in 2011(?)

And http://coins.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=3030&lotNo=24259 is an interesting one from the unsold lots from yesterday. I was going to bid on this in the W&W sale 20/6/2012 where it was lot 455, but declined on the basis of two parallel hairlines above Anne's left shoulder. Now polished out (the dark thin patch), it of course became possible to give it a PF63 grade which always sells better than unc details scratched Ex-Brunning 35 (Sotheby 18th March 1908) where described as a perfect and brilliant example of this rare variety, it had no trace of the hairlines a century ago. The catalogue image (below) did however show the little bead of wax in the angle where the trident shaft meets Britannia's drapery, which combined with the shape detail confirms the provenance. Shame really, as otherwise it was a nice coin.

1798 guinea? As common as they come for the issue. 8/7 is scarcer and also eliminates the forgeries for this date, but 7500 is silly.

Red, George is one of Charles' names, and I also heard the same thing...that he wants to Crowned as George. There are rumors that he may "pass" in favor of his son...what do you think? Pass what? Wind? That is not how it works. Charlie will just have to have a short reign, assuming he outlives his mum

It's the only one you'll find. £15K+ is not too much and no different to the prices paid for gold halfpennies. I thought you would go for it.

Photos? You can include the bags too. I don't want to see your truncheon. Alternatively you may start a members' wives/baggage thread.

Hi. Please can somebody post a close-up image of the overdate if they have an example. Thanks.