Rob

No idea, but given he wrote it there's a good chance. I presume they were distributed via the RM.

Probably one of three London second reign pennies in lot 141, but the lot not illustrated.

Agreed. I picked up a few kgs of scrap Vicky pennies a week ago and the person I bought from was expecting to get about £3/kg for them. 10p either way won't affect the fundamentals.

Examples? Are they recently dug or from old collections?

Thanks, all. I didn't think I had a problem, but when the statistics came back with a score of 3/100, I assumed there might be issues not visible at this end. When Google said they were the main 3rd party offender slowing down access times, I did wonder if it was April 1st or just an attempt to blackmail me into paying them to advertise - or something? I think it is best ignored.

Possible problem with the website and somewhat confused, so if anyone can shed any light on the subject it would be appreciated. For a long time, something called Google Analytics has sent me a monthly report on how the site is apparently performing. Page loading speeds seemed to be reasonable and haven't changed appreciably over the past year, but this month Google's 'Lighthouse' report provided PageSpeed Insights which informed me that the site was scoring 23 out of 100 for mobile use and a depth plumbing 3 out of 100 for desktops. The former has more than halved in a couple of months and I have no idea what the other figure was as I've only just discovered it. Helpfully it breaks down the information into areas, one of which was 'Reduce the impact of third-party code - Third-party code blocked the main thread for 3,810 ms'. In an example of superb irony, it also informs me that the bulk of the impediment to speed and a good score is Google, with a contribution of 3346ms or almost 88% of the problem. Has anyone had any difficulty accessing pages? Or given the low traffic in the past couple of weeks has anyone actually looked? Does anyone look on a regular basis? So, the question is what to do? Obviously Google thinks the site is crap, but I can't block Google as it crawls the net at will and if it doesn't find my site, then it can't tell anyone else about it. Is there any way to partially block Google? Is it important, or just a red herring? Is it giving me a low ranking because I don't spend any money with them? i.e. blackmailing me? Anyone understand how these things work?

I'm not convinced it is genuine. The shape of the truncation is more akin to the penny, the weight is 0.4g below the 8g spec of the halfpenny, the tie ribbon area behind the bust doesn't match either penny or halfpenny very well, with the bottom curl detail as for a penny and the bit above reaching almost to the G, whereas on all the pictures I have available both are quite wispy. Compare with my halfpenny. Apologies for the scan and crap on the scanner.

I like the broccoli and bilberry toned ones best.

Maybe it is a woman in that case. Not sure it would stretch to 16 or 18 - it's managing all of 2 at the moment.

Why would anyone who claims to know nothing about coins find one in a slab lying around the house? You might find a loose coin here and there, even if the coin in question is stretching things a bit, but not a slab. I suspect he genuinely knows nothing about coins, or would have realised the incongruity of what he is saying.

The back end of 1983, I installed a piece of kit at the Bulgarian doping control labs in Sofia. Drugs in sport were already an issue, so needless to say opinions this end were given that they were looking for chemicals that didn't give a good response, or at least an ambiguous one. Weird place.

Maybe the buyer only uses ebay for whatever reason. I've sold things to a couple buyers on ebay who promptly disregarded the business card included with the order, preferring to pay at least 15% more for something available on the website. You can only do so much to direct them. There are many people who will only use ebay/facebook/preferred dealer etc for purchases. There is a distinct correlation between ease of purchase on ebay and a reluctance to explore beyond the site, and presumably the same applies to members of facebook. The buyer could of course be taking a punt on something rumoured to be valuable - just like the numerous invitations to buy I receive of rare 50ps. Never underestimate the herd mentality of the general populace. Andrex anyone?

Based on a mintage of 100K and a clear excess of demand over supply, it would place humans just below 20th in the British sheep populations by breed using industry statistics.

I'm going to hazard a guess and say nobody important in numismatic terms. 'Very Rare Ancient British Coin' suggests a person who doesn't know too much about coins given the numbers known even in the 19th century, though I suppose the individual die pair is probably relatively rare

With nearly 6000 George V pennies listed on eBay at the moment, someone has a lot of time on their hands.

Correct. Postal services the world over operate in mysterious ways. I had a letter returned to me as address unknown. I don't think the 30-odd thousand staff and students of Southampton University would have been too chuffed when they realised they worked/studied at a fictitious institution.

It is a disappointment, but by the time I pop my clogs there will still be plenty more unfilled gaps in the collection, so in that context not a disaster. However, some good came out of the 2006 debacle because I played devil's advocate and queried whether the coin had been shipped at all. At the time they used USPS which was tracked only within the UK. As it hadn't arrived in the UK, I queried how I could be certain it had left Heritage - after all, tracked should mean you know where it is at any point in the journey and not have to rely on hoping it reaches a point where tracking starts. After that they only used fully tracked Fedex or UPS, which although more expensive, did at least provide a chain of responsibility. I call that a win for common sense.

Yep, just like the parcel of Northumbrian stycas I sent to France that went awol for 10 days before turning up in Tahiti. Still, I suppose it is French, so close............

Presumably there is, but I've never seen it. It's reasonable to say based on his English that it will be comprehensive with a mixture of choice and low grade examples. I don't know how many coins are involved, but presumably sufficient and varied enough to make disposal problematic.

Coins have always been lost to the collecting community. The mint has been melting demonetised coins throughout its existence, or in the case of current coppers is trying to withdraw as many bronze coins as they can. Burglaries such as Willis in the 1970s it must be assumed have resulted in a number of unique gold coins being melted for scrap because they haven't appeared in the market in the ensuing 45 years. Stewartby's Scottish collection is still missing, which although destined for a museum still constitutes a loss. It's a fact of life that many bequests are made to museums, thus saving the coins in question for posterity, but in the case of many, safe from the public. I would like to assemble a full run of Somerset mints, but thanks to the only Petherton in private hands (the Lockett coin) being donated to Somerset Museum, this is no longer possible. I have to live with it because I certainly can't do anything about it. On a personal level, as per your above point, the unique Freeman 689A did a 7 month tour of the world's postal system before finally returning to Heritage in 2007. It was accompanied by a Peck 1156, so a potential loss where there were 1 and 4 known respectively, but the money was reclaimed following their non-arrival and the coins subsequently repurchased at the prevailing exchange rate once they had reappeared. That is the only unique example I have that has gone awol in the past.

I've had 4 or 5 things go awol in the 6 months prior to lockdown and had no issue getting my money back whether itemised and accountable to the penny or not. Values were anything from a fiver to about £100

Things are not normal as far as the PO is concerned as for some reason they continue to be in panic mode. A lot of things are not documented on track and trace at present, which is not altogether too surprising given they aren't asking for a signature on delivery. Although this is an internal shipment, there is no clear pattern as to how they are providing their service. I have had several items take an eternity where track and trace just said received at the post office, but then the next day something arrives quicker than the last half dozen shipments. When people ask me when it can be expected to arrive, I usually say any time in the next few weeks. For all the delayed items, nothing has gone missing with Royal Mail in recent times because even when you think something is lost it has turned up eventually. At the end of the day, it is insured, so nobody loses out.

They don't always enter the transfers in a timely manner, though have to say that Special Delivery has been the only part of the postal service that has functioned reasonably normally. I've had everything from a second class to somewhere south of John O' Groats taking one day, to a tracked to Liverpool taking 3 weeks. It is a genuine lottery. If it has unintentionally gone astray then it could go anywhere, including worldwide which might take a week or two to appear (from wherever) on the tracking. If it entered the international chain it is safe to say it will take a minimum of a couple weeks to reappear as most of my tracked international shipments have taken 2 weeks to be registered as leaving the country. Even though it went Special Delivery, I wouldn't panic yet.

Yeh. Get a grip on it and put it back in its place.

The date of Mr T's post is a bit of a giveaway too.