Rob

Right. I'm p'ing in the wind having spent all day trying to rectify this and got nowhere. Only being able to access the last page of everything is unworkable as even past PMs can't be opened. It appears to be specific to this forum, as others allow me to view past pages. I'll ask one of the kids to look at it at Christmas when they come home. In the meantime, if anyone wants to contact me, please use either the contact link on my website or email me if you have the address as forum notifications of any messages may or may not work.

If you try to type a page number in it gives a message 'This form is not secure. Autofill has been turned off'. Presumably the issue is with google rather than me. If so, that's a shot in the foot as they can't track my wanderings - there not being any. Every cloud etc.....

Must be something wrong with my end then. Not to worry, as it will eliminate wandering through previous posts and make me more productive.

More likely polished

Does anyone know why the page buttons aren't working on any threads? Have we had a software change because I had a couple of random request asking if I would accept notifications? I blocked it because they come through automatically as far as I'm aware, or at least have up to now, so either gremlins or someone phishing.

I thought you'd ask for that - the original image is 551K, so had to reduce it. There's potentially something to ponder here, namely is 29 a knackered 26? The lis are not well struck up, but overall is somewhere between 26 and 29 - say 27.5! The top lis have full arms, so are 26, but the bottom ones show some sign of degradation, but not a full 29 as yours.

I bought the 1566 dated coin with the two different lions in the Comber sale (ex RCCB) which uses the same obverse die. Thus it is reasonable to assume that this obverse die was in use at the turn of the year and your reverse may well be the first 1567 die.

Not in English either. Why are so many people bi-lingual? Something purporting to be English as their first language, with occasional diversions into English.

Have you come into some money? They aren't exactly cheap. Nor are they the sort of thing that you have duplicates of. There can't be too many types/specific marks with multiple examples available. I've been looking for a couple of overmarks for more than 10 years and am still waiting

I don't - they stopped selling bread a few years ago, and bread is the primary reason I walk to the shops every few days, with additional items purchased subject to the limit imposed by the backpack size.

Hooray! Good news here. Just having a few days in Norfolk and the hotel says in its welcome pack that payment in cash is welcome and preferred - to avoid paying card fees. (Paying in cash has a lower charge and provides support for retaining the only local bank). They also recommend future bookings be made by direct contact or via their website to save having to pay the £7 a night booking site fee. I might come back for a few days fishing if all goes well.

Morrieson took the view that as they were issued as a result of the indenture dated 22nd Feb 1637-8 and have an inner circle, this means the inner circle can be taken to have been adopted around this date. (The early coins had no inner circle as per the group E shillings at the tower mint which were struck during tun). Morrieson was unable to allocate the two lace collar busts to a specific period, and confessed to finding it odd that the two appeared to be concurrent. So it would appear to be for a 2 year period from around the beginning of 1638 to the turn of 1640, but possibly a bit later. Based on the style of bands/plumes, he believed the small bust paired with a reverse similar to his sixpence no.3 was issued around Christmas 1639. The legend reading MAG he concluded was produced around the same time as the corresponding shilling, i.e.1639-40. The armoured bust is known paired with the Oxford reverse, so must have been last. Morrieson dates this 1640 to September 1642 when the mint moved away. The whole issue would probably benefit from a review of the evidence. There are images of groats in spades thanks to the internet, so it might be possible to corroborate or refute Morrieson's assertions with relative ease because hi-res images allow you to see punch degradation and die wear. With £13069 face produced at Aberystwyth over the 4 years, there should be no shortage of research material.

Go with your original attribution. Bull does say 4?, so presumably the example he examined was fairly dire. Don't lose any sleep over the number of strings as they can easily get filled. My 1697B halfcrown for example has 1 & 1/2 harp strings, and I'm absolutely certain the die didn't start out with that number. Another reason for not getting too attached to the number of harp strings is that Jackson-Kent did a 10 year study from 1955-1965 on the harp strings of William III coins and concluded at the end of 10 years that you couldn't conclude anything. Just take the number of strings indicated by Bull to be what he saw and nothing more. He didn't see every coin, so all options are available.

The problem is that a majority of collectors like a number to assign to a particular variety. It allows them to tick it off once acquired. Date collectors already have it on their coins and as a result many don't feel the need for a reference at all. That's why I keep being asked for 1947 brass threepences, 1923-5 pennies and 1961 halfpennies. Collecting by type or date whatever the condition can also exclude identification of varieties due to the lack of detail. However, a more specialised collection such as a denomination or reign will almost certainly be based on one or more of the major references with the varieties researched. I have to say that when I published my article on the Weyl patterns in the BNJ over 10 years ago, the first comment from the referee was 'Pearce numbers?' Like your 1878 1/2d, they were easily identified as being what they were and most types appeared to be unique, so I didn't feel the need for yet another list of arbitrary numbers. Unfortunately, a result of not giving numbers is the near total disregard of the article despite having shown the existence of new metal types, the individual rarities of a particular variety and an assigned provenance to each of the coins extant. I feel that had I given each a number, then the reference would likely be used. Referring to the article would also help curtail the diarrhoeic marketing blurb such as that in the last St. James's Premier sale when an 1860 farthing was described as 3-5 known (show me a duplicate), was struck in 1904 (there were examples in Clarkson 1901 and Cholmley 1902).

I thought long and hard about this. The conclusion I came to is that no update to any volume can be complete as new varieties come to light, meaning that whatever numbering system for an existing reference is used, is going to become overly complicated with suffixes to existing numbers that are unlikely to be in any rational order starting with the first few recorded additions to the published list. This led me to a very deep rabbit hole. Rationalising what people need, I realised that any reference cannot be logically organised on a 1, 2, 3, 4 etc numbering system, however simple this might be because of the above problem. A better alternative would be a longer reference along the lines of Gouby's numbering, starting with the date as the root, and finding a logical numbering system for an extension to this to account for the various varieties as they come to light. Just considering Davies and ESC, the former doesn't assign a different number to currency, proof, edge or off-metal strikes of a given denomination and date, whilst the latter is now just a mess, given the issues with proof-like being assigned a different number, despite being a regular currency coin and the obvious lack of proof-reading which has now consigned to print a large number of glaring inconsistencies. Both leave no room for later inclusions. A date ordered system would necessarily lead to long reference numbers, hence the need for intuitive extension references, but I do think it would appeal to the completist mentality inherent in most of us. It would not solve the problem of what some consider varieties such as the listing of various dots on pennies whilst others don't for example. Whatever system is adopted, it will have its critics. Given the complication involved, anything along the lines of the above would probably be best served as a number of publications, each done for a specific denomination. Some would be large, others a single page. The next issue would then be how too deal with undated coins in a systematic way. A disadvantage of any comprehensive detailed reference is the limited number of people to which it would appeal. Collectors are a diverse bunch, with relatively few interested in any particular sphere, even allowing for the disproportionate number of penny collectors on this forum. Any printed published reference has to have sufficient prospective buyers to justify the costs, though obviously a digital database is infinitely updatable. Another option that might be worth considering is a concordance of references. Whilst that would not help with unrecorded varieties, it would bring the various references under one roof, including those of relatively obscure specialist studies, but even this would be a considerable volume. Taken to its logical conclusion, what all this leads to is a register of all identifiable individual dies based on the observations of every contributor.

Should be possible. Only 2 of the 9 on my list are definitely in museums - the BM and Hunterian, though one or more could have slipped under the radar since their last appearance at auction.

That Sanders coin is one that I can't reconcile with those on my list. Peck examined 6 - the BM (ex Devonshire), the Hunterian, the Foster coin (ex Pembroke, Nicholson, Alderley and mine), his own which went to Norweb, Rogers (ex Alderley with a distinctive flaw) and Parsons (ex Weightman). There was a pierced example in Baldwin's 44 from the basement (lot 589) and the Wilkinson coin (DNW 114 lot 1253) making this a 9th example on my list. Anyway, just for you.

That description is completely screwed up. First line says 1 of only 2 known. Last line says almost a certainly a one-off. OK. And the provenance descriptions say brilliant; brilliant; and Peck says mint state. This will be the A H F Baldwin coin. The last one is right, though not helped by the Baldwin 77 sale provenance given as all the wrong ones. A saleroom notice is required, methinks.

That person is a bit iffy - full of BS. Ask Azda who called him out.

Don't think it is die fill, as there's no sign of it on my example.

Yes please, when you're done with it.

Although the loss of physical evidence is unfortunate, it wouldn't be so bad if there was a mechanism for retaining the provenance on the slab - but they rarely do and half the time get it wrong. I bought the original silver strike with the wide raised rim reverse in DNW a year ago which as far as I am aware is the Moore piece with the longest provenance, being ex Carter, Peck, Magnay, Adams and a few anonymous sales since then. Unfortunately for the documentation, it's a superb example, so lost all its tickets once slabbed, which included a Carter ticket when Colin had the coin. Anyway, it's now out of a slab again with a ticket that records all the info. Still looking for a gilt obverse C with the no legend reverse if anyone knows where the Adams 186 coin is? I haven't seen it since 2013.

Pity. It had mine, 2 x Adams and a Seaby from 1980 for £375.

And ex me. I bought it in the Adams sale and sold it off the website in September 2009. Did it come with the tickets? It left me with 4.

I think they would be given to each member of the committee who took the decision which designs to put forward for adoption, together with some for Victoria. It's illogical to assume a wider circulation for the public given they would not be privy to prospective designs, so IMO the ESC rating of R2 for most varieties is hopelessly out. The R5 rating for the double reverses is probably about right for the number of people involved in the decision.