Rob

Pity it has been dropped at some point, o/w I might have been interested.

Rather more interestingly, neither the post office address/postcode finder, nor Google maps are able to find the address given. Chapeltown, up by Turton reservoirs, is not the centre of the universe, nor did the road name ring a bell as it should given we frequently do the circular walk around Wayoh and Entwistle reservoirs followed by a pint in the Strawbury Duck. The house number 65 implied a fairly long road with houses, but didn't match the two main roads heading towards Darwen/Blackburn, nor the cross road linking the two. All in all, more than a little suspect.

Even when kept in a bank, it is up to the depositor to insure their own goods unless specifically insured under the T&Cs of the bank. I suspect a good number of deposited items are not insured for whatever reason.

A lot (all?) of the High St banks have stopped offering a safe deposit facility, which given most branches are still open seems a rather strange business decision. A clearly defined area of a building occupied by little boxes that people were quite happy to pay rent for in my mind is a no brainer. It has recurring profits year on year written in big letters. All the overheads are known, so matching these costs to the available space and renting it out allowing for a predefined profit margin isn't rocket science. It's essentially a utility.

They might as well not have bothered advertising them as I've never seen one. Thankfully the fact the designs are by 'The Royal Mint Team' and Jody Clark and not a new named designer means I won't need to tick any boxes here. That's a bonus after the Olympic 50ps.

No, but impex transactions may give rise to a tax liability, so it is simply ensuring that taxable goods are accounted for. Without any paperwork, anybody could claim an item was their property originally and avoid paying any taxes due. Yes it is ball-ache for the individual, but for a business, the directors have a legal responsibility to trade within the law. Any business transaction has tax implications. The paperwork is just recognition of the fact that not everyone has a moral compass, plus it simplifies the aggregation of data for financial transfers between countries via the banking system. It would be impossible to operate if all the info was only held individually.

4th November 2017.

No, you have answered your own question. The first copper penny sized coin was the first copper penny. Other diameters are available and have been/are/will be used for both medals and coins. Any apparent links are entirely coincidental. Nice medal though.

Kronos hasn't posted on the forum for 8 years.

Does anyone have any literature which gives the names of any Dutch engravers in 1640 or thereabouts, or have knowledge of any names. We are talking in the middle of the 30 years war here, so the reference material might be about coins, or something military and related. They would be active in the protestant United Provinces, i.e the coastal regions. I'm trying to think laterally. The reference to coins struck at Hereford in the Civil War mention a 'Rude the Coyner', but given Prince Rupert came from Holland to support Charles I, it is possible that he brought a Dutch mint worker or two with him. Ruud is a Dutch name, and the style of the early W/SA coins is odd in that you get two letters separated by colons. In other words, exactly the same as seen on continental issues such as contemporary ducats etc. when there a number of titles to incorporate. It is clear from this layout that the engraver wasn't completely au fait with this country's obverse legends. Ta.

Thanks. Any Rudigers in there? That's another possibility because it would naturally be shortened to Rude. Sorry, no immediately accessible umlauts

Auction houses will accept anything they can make money on, just as any other business would. The odd one might reject it on image grounds, but most would be ok given the quantity of coins involved IMO. The known valuable single pieces will remain so, but the remainder would need a significant amount of bulking in order to raise the lot value to a sensible level. A handful of VIP proofs of each reign and denomination would have helped attract the money because they sell for a hundreds/thousands compared to a few tens of pounds at best. Even a single VIP proof of each denomination/type from G5 & G6 would attract the person looking for just an example. Although there are a handful of later pieces, it would make the collection appear 'complete' if a representative was available of each type from 1926 on. You could sell to a dealer either acting on commission or as a straight sale. The fact that you have already imaged the collection might be a good selling point as it would alleviate a lot of work re-imaging for little gain. A handful with the odd colours could be redone, but the majority look ok. One downside to the dealer route is the prevalence of 20th century material on eBay with which you will be competing. For common pieces the main audience will be found on eBay as opposed to people who scour dealers' lists or sites and these mostly expect to get everything for 99p with free P&P. The decision will in large part be determined by how quickly you want to sell.

Get one of these. It doesn't need winding up - ever. https://www.google.com/search?q=sundial&client=firefox-b&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiR4sbb5cjfAhVoTxUIHXH9Dy0Q_AUIDigB&biw=1920&bih=916#imgrc=R7IOVYmbtg93cM:

Thanks Paul. Was Francois Rude from the right period and location? It could be that Rude the Coyner was the correct spelling. I threw Ruud in as an Anglicised version of a foreign name to broaden the number of possibilities. If Rude is French, there is also the possibility that Queen Henrietta 'borrowed' him, being of French Royal blood. As for the van Loon book, my Dutch ability is zero, so unless there is a translated version, I'm b*****d. Rude the Coyner was mentioned as being at Hereford in October 1644, which by my reckoning was the same time as Gerard's troops returned from west Wales for the winter recess. I also think he was the person responsible for the initial SA coins and the Tower marked W coins together with halfcrown obverse C plus a number of reverses. Also the early W/SA shilling obv. B and the tower marked 6d. I also think he followed Rupert to Bristol in Sept. 1644, but was sent to Hereford later that month or in early October as Prince Rupert was still President of Wales at this point, and so responsible for all things in Wales and the Marches.

A trial would be from a run of strikings that were used to test out a particular feature. An example of this would be my trial halfcrown struck from halfpenny dies. See below. However, during a conversation with Graham Dyer a few months ago, I learned that they were not interested in either halfpennies or halfcrowns, but rather the metal (steel). Therefore, trials can be unrelated to the die size or design. An alternative would be a striking of a single die in lead or tin in order to assess the state of work in progress, an example of which would be the Moore penny uniface below. This is probably made from the P2135 obverse die, which developed a major crack and would have been reworked. This die was not to be found when Shorthouse visited Moore's workshop following his demise, but combined with the known die breaks and a hint of undertype on this obverse, is likely to mean this was the same piece of diestock. It is struck in >90% tin, with the balance mostly lead. Anomalies could be things such as coins struck on the wrong blank, or the wrong coin struck on a particular blank depending on viewpoint.

Given the condition, nobody would pay over melt for it, so surely the best result would be to cut out the eBay middleman and scrap it. Fees on eBay must be more than the discount to spot offered in many places.

I like oddball things which are not usually investments, but bought for interest's sake. Acquisitions in the past couple years include an icon and some books.

Everybody else had one, as did the workplace, the pub, the TV schedule gave an approximation, the car probably had one, bedside alarm, church spires, bus and railway stations etc. I'm not saying there wasn't any means of telling the time, just that I didn't have to carry it around on my wrist because other alternatives were available - just as they are today. You have to remember that we used to walk and look around at our surroundings because there was no desperate need to glue your eyes to the mobile screen, to the exclusion of life around you.

Davies records die no. 37 as the highest with obverse 4, but that doesn't exclude higher numbers found at a later date.

Stopped wearing a watch in 1980 when the option was inadvertently shorting out HV electrics with me as the earthing rod, or living happily ever after.

The two obverses for 1867 are the I of VICT to bead and the other to a space. The 1868 is I to space. There are two reverses for 1867, one with a smaller and the other with a larger gap between the LLs. The smaller gap is up to die 18, the larger gap is up to die 37. This all based on Davies p.60

So should politicians

This is a good starting point. As you can see, the known examples whilst sometimes similarly grotty are nevertheless clearly different to your coin. The Brooker coin and description added for completion's sake, this now in NMW. https://www.dnw.co.uk/auction-archive/lot-archive/lot.php?department=Coins&lot_id=273764 https://www.dnw.co.uk/auction-archive/lot-archive/lot.php?department=Coins&lot_id=269614 https://www.dnw.co.uk/auction-archive/lot-archive/lot.php?department=Coins&lot_id=159160

Tastes as bad here as it does there or anywhere else. I can however recommend the Coopers if you are in Adelaide.

And another 18th century book worth acquiring given the chance. The Pembroke plates (1746) acted as the illustrations for the Sotheby auction catalogue when the collection was sold in 1848. 100 copies were originally printed, but some of these will have been cut up or lost down the years. Chips and fragments are faithfully reproduced meaning it is possible to identify the less than perfect coins.