Rob

To get an example of a coin struck in Barton's metal of course, like this half crown.

...... or slab any 1910 1d that was identifiable as ok without needing an alternative opinion. Going off on a slight tangent, in the States I have noticed that big names or seriously large bulk submissions (such as whole collections for auction) appear to have more favourable treatment when the grading is done. Given that every business on the planet treats it biggest customers more favourably than a casual user of the service, I would be gobsmacked if this didn't also apply to CGS.

It has probably just been encapsulated without grading, which I know is a service they offer. It has to be better to get some DIY slabs if the reason is to protect the coin.

Given the technique requires that you have to scrape the surface to get down to bare metal for the circuit to function, I hope you include a warning not use this on decent coins. Whilst it will obviously work on any piece of metal once you have connected the lead to the original fabric of the object, the fact that it works by removing a layer of metal means that this method ought to be used with extreme caution. If you have an area of thick encrustaion whereas another part of the item has none, you will be removing the surface preferentially at the already clean metal as this will readily go into solution whilst the encrustation will protect the surface at the point where you need the action most of all. As I see it, this would be ok for low grade or fairly undesirable items, but you would need to seriously think whether to treat a quality piece in this manner.

£60 for a 2p. Trading Standards might have to get involved here as the picture is wrong - you have posted a 1797 coin. I will pay 2p.

10. The tie points down, whereas on the 11 it points horizontally outwards. You remember that big blue book that smells nice, that you don't use very often...........?

It looked cleaned on one of the original sellers pics, the rest appeared to have a coating of genuine 140 year old dust. The lightened pictures in the second sale just served to enhance the cleaned effect.

Am I the only one who thinks it looks cleaned and retoned in the ebay listing? This begs the question why anyone would want to pay Spink book prices on an impaired item. It might be reasonably difficult to get hold of in top grade, but you see quite a lot of low to mid grade pieces.

Most auction houses will let you submit bids up with a set maximum total value of winnings.

None of the crap belongs to you. It is entirely the property of Spink. Today was better than the sale 3 months ago. Then the system kept halting intermittently and updates were in the form of rapidly scrolling lots (say 10 or so). Consequently in that sale I was unable to bid on a coin that sold for about £150 less than I was prepared to pay not to mention a whole raft of tokens that I wanted, which p'd me off no end. Today was much better, though as you say, still with the dire audio. Video I can do without, but hearing the auctioneer makes life a lot easier. To eliminate the problem, I submitted a bid in advance for the piece I specifically wanted and it even demonstrated that the system was coherent as it told viewers that I was winning by giving my geographical location as part of the feed. First time I've seen that.

There isn't anything that stands out as being valuable. I see an 1854 halfpenny, but that is the commomest date in the series. The picture is too dark to see the date on the copper farthing. The holed ones won't have any value either. All, or nearly all of the pennies will be worth scrap. As a rule of thumb, just about everything from the 20th century has to be in top grade to have any value. There are scarce dates for most denomiinations, say 1946, 49 and 51 for the brass 3ds for example, or the 1903 open 3 or 1926ME for example. Some varieties of pennies can be quite valuable, but you would have to look closely to identify some of them as they are mostly identified by colons in the legend pointing to teeth or gaps in the border. That isn't something that can be easily seen in the pictures, and by definition they are rare, so you are less likely to have them.

There are definite parallels with provenance here. e.g. The ex Lockett provenanced pieces in Spink's sale this morning went for way over a pro-rata increase above admittedly slightly inferior grades, but otherwise similar coins. In the case of the 6 Eliz.I 2nd issue pennies, lots 673-678 went as follows. 673 ex RCL gVF 340, 674 creased VF passed, 675 ex RCL gVF 340, 676 VF 50, 677 edge chip Fine 20, 678 ex RCL VF 260. All +24% premium. So a provenance added 100-200ish. I've not had any joy yet. Came second to a man with much deeper pockets as I discovered I would at the weekend.

An inverted die axis is normal for these issues. It is only from 1887 onwards that coins are consistently struck with an upright (en-medaille) die axis.

Meaning? Please post a picture.

A couple of weeks ago I went into the second hand shop in Ramsbottom feeling optimistic that there might just be something to find. All I found was a tub containing lots of tatty bronze pennies, halfpennies and farthings together with the odd brass 3d in fine. An enquiry to the person manning the counter pointed me in the direction of the better items - a vast selection of 1965, 1972, 1977 and 1981 crowns, all at £3-5 each . I suspect they may still be there in a few years time too. I left feeling fairly depressed.

That's his normal routine. He attends all the London area sales but has been seen as far north as Corbitts in Newcastle and everything ends up on ebay at a significant premium to the purchase price. The problem is that his (and others') ebay listings are starting from too high a price to cover both ebay and Paypal fees and make a decent profit. Auction prices can be a bargain, but rarely are. Consequently the prices asked can only be realised if bought by ebay bidders who frequently put their common sense to one side when deciding on the price they are willing to pay. Many coins end up being recycled to other dealers, continually relisted on ebay, resubmitted to other auctions with a reserve that is too high, or a combination of these. All dealers suffer these problems because if buying on spec, there is no guarantee that anybody wants a coin for more than you were willing to pay.

Both Saxons are Cnut. The first one is York, and the second Dover.

We all know that coins from William II through to the short cross series are scarce or worse, but the problem is that quality deteriorated over that 100 year period. William II's first issue wasn't too bad, but quality progressively deteriorated from thereon. By the time you get to the Tealbys, they are quite frankly, dire, except for the odd nice one. When serious collectors of the series are having to identify the rare mints by die links in order to fill the gap, that becomes unappealing. I can see the attraction of trying to establish where a particular Tealby is from given the effort required, but if you wanted to parade the portraits it would be a paper bag job. From a personal point of view, I would like 3 Tealbys for the collection - a round one (Carlisle), a square one (probably Ipswich) and a typical one (any mint except for the first two, but top grade). I don't have any yet because they need to cross a 75% or greater legibility threshold for the legend and have a portrait. I'm not holding my breath.

Probably me given our proximity then, as part of a collection I acquired had a load of earlier decimals with lots of lustre which for obvious reasons I recycled via the economy.

I have shillings of 1758 with both clear and blundered 8s of a similar form. I wonder whether there was only one 8 punch which if not easily found resulted in making up an 8 from other punches.

Initial thoughts are that the rims aren't wide enough and the detail not sufficiently crisp. It looks to have been cleaned as there are wipe marks in front of the bust.

I'm not sure the dot is from an underlying 7. The top right side of the upper loop of the 8 has a couple of lines on it which would be in the correct position for an underlying 7, but the coin's grade would count against this or anything so obvious as the dot being part of an underlying digit. The 3 different 8/7s I sent you were all punched slightly low in relation to the 8 whereas this is positioned correctly relative to where the 8 is.

I think it could be 8/7. From the image there is a slightly descending feature across the top loop of the 8 which is aligned with the top LHS protrusion. There is also a (slightly raised?) feature on the bottom of the lower loop of the 8 which would be commensurate with the tail of a 7 if the die had been filled and recut.

This P1379 from UBS sale 74 is another example of the collar slipping. The edge had half a dozen straight lines across the edge covering a distance approximately equal to the limits of the double striking seen below where the legend is clearly multiply struck and in fact there are at least two of everything. The coin also demonstrates Taylor's hit and miss efforts at bronzing which often resulted in a mottled effect.

The reverse shows up a recurring feature of Taylor's restrikes. Frequently you will see the design ghosted, but rotated by a few degrees. This appears to be due to the state of the collars as purchased by Taylor at the Soho Mint sale, or of others that were used. It is known that the RENDER edge was seriously delapidated as an early restrike has metal protruding from the gaps in the joints to produce a quite spectacular piece. You also find that his plain collar was liable to open up, resulting in a series of vertical lines across the edge and multiply struck designs which are rotated by varying amounts. The reverse here shows two tridents and a selection of letters are also seen in duplicate.