Rob

BINs automatically relist, so it makes sense as a seller to put them up and just let them go round and round. Listing is a pain in the ****. Also, competitive bidding is virtually non-existent, so why sell as an auction and only get the opening bid price, assuming it gets even one bid? You basically have to set the opening price at a level you would be willing to sell at given eBay take a fee for setting a reserve. With regard to the number of items listed on eBay, they long passed the level at which it was possible to view most of the offerings. 15-20 years ago the average number of listings in the Britsh section was around the 3000 mark with a significant percentage selling. As I write, this number stands at 424,780, which further reinforces the rationale for listing as a BIN - eventually someone will view it, and one day someone might even buy it! What is certain is that relatively few people will see it when listed for 7 days, but furthermore be willing to bid it up. You need a few interested parties to generate a good price. Given the advances in computers, storage, processing speed and general all round capability, it is only likely to provide facilities for an even greater number of listings. If the capacity is there it will be used.

Food isn't a problem at the moment, but might be by summer if we can't raise enough enthusiasm amongst the locals to start picking. There's no reason for a shortage of food in the fridge as long as supplies to supermarkets hold up. I'm surprised that electricity use has apparently increased with the lockdown. Fewer buildings used in industrial production and dramatically fewer train journeys, trams etc I would have expected to exceed increased home computer, TV and other uses. Judging by the prices at DNW yesterday, money is not an issue. In fact the prices would suggest that what would be normally spent on leisure, was being diverted into coins. Some of those were eye watering for what was a fairly mundane selection of numismatic items.

The real uplift in house prices was in the 1970s when inflation was rampant and prices moved up pretty much in line with the inflation figures, and the 1980s when inflation was markedly lower than the previous decade. When we bought our house in 1982 it cost 22k. Seven years later it was priced at four times that (inflation over the 7 years would have increased it from 22k to 31k instead of the market value 90k). The early 90s saw a fall of 20-30% in places, with a subsequent pickup from the lower base making the market appear stronger, but house price inflation has been relatively benign since the turn of the millennium. Obviously there will be local differences. So for those with a job and a decent income, I don't think a great deal will change, though there might be more choice.

I've had these too. The major flaw in the system is that I don't have a webcam. Now I know technology is clever, but I'm fairly certain it hasn't mastered the art of hooking up an unpowered webcam on the shelf in PC World or wherever to my computer and capturing images of me from afar. What happens if the packaging is facing the wrong way? How does it cope with the store shutters being down due to the virus?

In my view the minimal wear to the lions' faces is at odds with the smoothness of the obverse. That's why I said I thought it had been lightly cleaned.

US slabbed values are in the main hypothetical in this country. Conversely, the US will price according to the local market just as everywhere else does, irrespective of what anyone else thinks. In the case of number chasers, the coin appears to be secondary. That's why an MS65 (or was it 66?) 1901 penny sold for a few hundred dollars in the US being the only example on the TPG list with that label, but would only make a local price of a few tens of pounds. And using the above table, I would be over the moon to get £180 for a double florin in a 50 slab. You struggle getting that for a real gem unless it is the flawed 1 (which is in itself mis-priced, not being a true error).

Perish the thought. I don't bid any more either. Pity really, as they do have the odd thing that you wondered where it was for years.

But to what end? The penny die is much bigger compared to the shillings or sixpences and the coins are in different metals and thicknesses. I'm not sure what you could compare. Maybe if they had used die numbers on the halfcrowns it might have stood comparison.

The obverse looks to have been lightly polished.

The sparrows were nest building this morning as were the resident blackbirds. A mouse was noted pilfering the seed we put out for the birds six weeks ago. One hedgehog has reappeared, though I suspect mum and dad didn't make it as one was found rotted away in next door's garden when the lawn was cut and the other appeared on a neighbour's patio a month or more ago having been shredded by a strimmer(?). Last year we had 6 in total.

I do like pennies - they just have to be a thousand years old

Just buy plenty of bulk lots of pennies. They might be low grade, but will give you the info you need. I've got 15 or 20 kgs here just waiting for the lockdown to lift, and absolutely no desire to check for miniscule variations in tooth pointings.

Lovely crisp hair detail - looks like it could have been made yesterday. Sorry, last month given shipping and listing delays..

J G Brooker 321, Rodney Smith (Lord Smith of Marlow) and H H Snellenburg. The latter is likely to have bought it during the 1950s, but could be one of many collections.

Daily challenges? Ebay. Q. What's the best you can do this for? A. £20 and price sent. Best offer received £12 Replied with £20 - again. Best offer received £15. Replied with £20 - again. Item purchased for, you guessed it - £20 Why do people ask the question, then ignore the answer?

Try syzygy for most consonants?

Rainfall?

If you want to get something done - ask a busy man.

Three important variables here - the temperature of the ice and surroundings and the amount of salt used. Adding salt to ice or water will depress the melting point with a higher salt concentration depressing the melting point further, so adding a little salt to the top of an ice cube will cause it to melt at the surface. The concentration will depend on the amount of salt added together with the amount of liquid water produced. To get this water to refreeze will depend on whether you can get a greater heat transfer from the solution into the ice cube than from the surrounding air into the salt solution, sufficient to reduce the temperature of the solution below the freezing point. Therefore, ice at a lower temperature than the freezing point of the salt solution will cause the latter to freeze around the string as long as the thermal conductivity is greater from the liquid to the ice compared to the surroundings (water or air) to the salt solution. The colder the ice, water and air, the better. Thermal conductivity is better from liquid to solid than gas to solid, so doing the experiment in air should be easier, reducing draughts will assist this.

There's no shortage of ebay sellers cleaning their coins prior to infection

Special Delivery and Signed For items are now being pushed through the door to avoid close contact (signing their machine). I'm not sure how this will affect various parties' liability. I guess the message is, if you are happy the postman will deliver, OK, but if you are worried about them going missing, ask the seller to delay posting. I had my Lockdales lots arrive today, no problem.

My post office is open as is Hermes drop-off, so shipping is still an option. Royal Mail delivers, or at least did so this morning and Hermes dropped something off yesterday. i.e. it is possible to function. I'm spending the time not going to fairs by listing some of the many things on the website that I haven't got around to doing so far, putting some things on eBay and sorting out the numerous storage boxes of coins in the pending pile. I think most dealers have a lot of things not listed on their sites, so stock is not necessarily going to be a problem. Prices must take a hit somewhere assuming some people will have lost their disposable income, but at the top end, money is not a problem with only a bunker mentality inhibiting spending. The world unlikely to run out of people on ebay buying things for a quid, so this offers probably the strongest market for selling into. Stock markets coming off 20% will have made a few people switch into alternatives. Unusually, gold has not spiked to any degree, so either people are sitting on loads of cash, or they are buying alternative assets. Property isn't an option as viewing/surveying etc is problematic, so it boils down to assets you can buy over the internet. Good for coins, or at least relative to some of the alternatives.

I was doing something similar by trying to add two segments with similar chord length but differing radii. It all went t*ts up when it dawned that I had a second variable (the angle) in the equations - at which point I realised I had forgotten about integrals.

Given the number of ships noted and the ability to count the number of dies used per ship type, it should be possible to work out a fairly close estimate of the number of dies employed in total and the number of coins made per die pair. At one ounce of copper per penny, that's 35840 penny equivalents per ton of copper and a shedload of dies. Let's test the dedication of some of you penny collectors to destruction.

But on the other hand, they are going to lose over £30 in fees and shipping. A bigger negative is the absence of pictures of the other side of the coins. At that point the price becomes irrelevant.