Rob

I'm assuming the building was split up into businesses even then, because the card I illustrated reads ENT STA HALL after his name, which I would take to mean Entrance Stairs Hallway, i.e. by the front door. In the 50 years leading up to WW1, Higher Broughton was quite a well to do area, so a lot of people living close by would have had their pictures taken there.

Searching the address gives a visiting card ca1880 for the Corps Dramatique. Knoll Street goes off Bury New Road. I'm pretty certain the large house at the top of the road looking down it to the left used to be called Knoll or Knolls House. Now it is split into a textile importer and Orthodox Jewish School. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=pellstrand+ltd&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=1msEWon4HanS8AfPwaboAQ Follow the link and it will give a view and a map.

I don't think it is a case of repairs, rather one of using the punches available. Throughout the centuries engrvers have been adept at making up complex designs from a series of small punches. If you have an I with a missing serif, it is easy to invert the punch to make a full character. It is certainly easier than making a new punch. Time and money, I think. Other examples include making a composite G from a C with the upright added, or entering two Is with a crossbar added to make an H. An A was usually made from a V punch with the crossbar added, which is why they are frequently weak and so you need a top grade example to confirm that the crossbar was never present in order to claim an inverted V for A variety.

Just go through Spink and find the cheapest option. If you only want them in fair, then only Williams 1 & 2, Henry IV, Edward V (unless you only want crowned monarchs) and Richard 3 will cost much. The rest could be done for tens of pounds each. Say up to £2K, or add 3 to 5K if you include a grotty Ed 5 which would have to be gold.

It's difficult to see what they could be used for as there is no value assigned. You could have them made for advertising purposes, but nobody would thank you for giving them a little disc with your name on that was otherwise useless. Alternatively, you could possibly have a scenario like the Charlie Chaplin theatre tokens which advertised the show and were dropped in the streets around the theatre for the public to pick up. But that was for a transient event, not a permanent business. My best offer would be a token for use in a local bar if it served a practical purpose.

The RRITT 1817 shilling has always been considered a filled or broken B. I don't consider it a case of him making an unreasonable claim, rather a case of the wrong attribution having become accepted fact by virtue of the description, because collectors are the source of many 'errors'. It's no different to say a missing something which are clearly die fill and certainly not engraved on purpose. Pemember the 2005 £2?

Your bad semi-colon zero closing parenthesis? There's a doctor for that somewhere.......

Looks modern.

I still think the image is blurred for a reason. This also has good sharp legend. The M is completely different on the bright one. Maybe this has been dipped/etched to destruction given the lettering is uniformly narrower. Obviously can't say if not in hand.

The problem is that there is precious little material to work with. I guess the situation was so fluid that much was done by word of mouth, and anything written down could be captured and troops intercepted. There was a series of letters to the Commissioners of Array to provide Charles with ammunition sent to Chester 24th Sept 1642, Shrewsbury 29th Sept and Hawarden and Flint on 4th October. The full series of letters to and fro between Michael Earnely et al and the Parliamentary garrison at Hawarden showing how the surrender negotiations progressed over the period 22nd November to the 3rd December are held in the office. Various records of donations to the Royalists. There is also a note that £100 was payable to Col. Marrow for armies and ammunition out of the money received or to be received from the loan money of Denbigh and Flint and used by Sir William Neale for the victualising and furnishing of Hawarden Castle. Unfortunately this is not dated, but in any case has to be after the 3 day window shown earlier because there was insufficient time to arrange matters. It could even be as late as the following Spring prior to the York March, as Col. Marrow was killed on 21st August at Tarvin in Cheshire. He was a good commander and a serious loss to the Royalists. The Mostyn papers have an undated note of Royalist horses sent to Bangor, presumably late in the war following the fall of Chester. (Possible 'B' mint location(?), along with Beaumaris and Raglan). There are also notes to the effect that Chester was provided with money and ammunition in the months prior to its surrender. Apart from that it is mostly letters of social history interest. Need to revisit the Chester Office.

I spent a day at Hawarden (Flintshire) Record Office last week, trying to dig up some info about the workings of Hawarden in 1643 and a possible link to the HC half crowns, but wasn't particularly successful. All I gleaned from the visit was a letter from Lord Capell at Chester to Sir William Neale who was in charge of Hawarden Castle to house the troops at the castle and in and around the village, such that they could be assembled in Chester at no more than a day's notice. At least this positively places the Irish troops at Hawarden between the 3rd and the 6th December 1643 because Capell was replaced at Chester by Lord Byron effective from the 6th, and Hawarden Castle was only recaptured from Parliament on the 3rd. The castle had earlier been commanded by Ravenscroft, who surrendered it previously on the 22nd November. No mention of any provision for paying them however.

Put it into a proper auction where the trust lies with the auction house and not the dodgy vendor on eBay. There will be a mechanism for transferring restricted goods abroad, you just need to ascertain the paperwork required. An added bonus is that the premiums will stay in the UK as opposed to sending 15% abroad through ebay and Paypoo fees. Those two businesses account for a lot of unnecessary capital transfers abroad. £7.7m profit made by eBay last year in the UK? My a**e. This country needs to keep its money circulating internally, not shipped abroad never to return.

The one on the left has slanted sides to the lettering which would be of assistence if casting. As you say, a blurry picture doesn't help, but I get that when auto-focus doesn't, so isn't a reason to condemn on that one point. The key is to find punch links with their idiosyncratic detail. If you could find a little dimple here and there which match on both coins it would help. One has vertical sided letters whilst the other had slanted sides, so I would start looking a bit closer. In the case of the nose it is definitely different as appears to be the ear lobe, so would want to find something matching that I also knew to be genuine. I think the left one could well be a bit iffy.

It is what it is. It isn't a direct copy of anything that circulated, nor is it a documented official product. Sure I think it is a modern concoction, just as everybody else does, but in the absence of a genuine product that it is copying, I can't see how you can fake a hypothetical item. It is like everything else you are uncomfortable with - if in doubt, leave it out. You can't hold the hands of the whole world.

Cancellation cuts done at the mint to ensure it didn't get into circulation. Sometimes they cut a chunk out, sometimes it is just mutilated. I'm not waiting for a better one to come along

I know nothing about them, which is why I didn't offer an opinion about authenticity. I have no idea if these are widely copied or not, but the ebay one just looks wrong. The image above came off coin archives.

Frankly, that looks dodgy to me. The hair has a 'modern' look with too little fine detail and what there is, struck in high relief. If you compare with this piece which also has an F on the truncation, the portrait looks ok. It doesn't guarantee the authenticity of either, but if I had to choose, it wouldn't be the one listed on eBay

And if you want proof that you shouldn't take everything I say as gospel too, attached is the EDX I ran in 2009. The important column is the last one, which shows the margin of error in the measurement - this is important as I couldn't justify the expense of a certified standard with which to compare the coin's composition, so the 87% iron etc has to be taken as a ballpark figure only. 090902-Halfcrown Sample Analysis.doc

As I said earlier, size bears no relation to denomination when it comes to patterns. Look at the multitude of decimal pennies and halfpennies produced by the mint in 1857-9, some of which are only half the size of others. This halfpenny size halfcrown bears testament to that. And is also a good example of why you shouldn't accept all that is written down as gospel. This 'cupro-nickel' Royal Mint trial half-crown as described in the Adams sale catalogue is in fact approx. 87% iron, just over 12% chromium and the balance manganese. It was an early RM experiment with steel blanks, and presumably contemporary with Freeman 791A (modified Eliz II farthing 3+B dies) which is a 'Sample Farthing' listed by Freeman as in Stainless Iron, but probably the same metal composition as the one illustrated.

But the price is coming down with each new find

Not sure where the Edward VI reference comes in unless he has corrected it. However- I think we are all being a bit presumptuous here. Maybe it is crown sized, maybe florin sized - who knows? He hasn't put any dimensions on the description, so you have to go with the vendor's take on it unless you know better. Reverse design doesn't come into it, as there are well documented cases of a 'standard' die being adopted for other denominations, such as the 1950 pattern double florin which has a George & Dragon reverse, or my RM trial halfcrown which used modified ship halfpenny dies. There are others which are used susequently, even if not adopted at the time. Furthermore, diameter is no guarantee of denomination. I still wouldn't buy this though.....

Good job I scrolled down. I was about to ask if it was used in conjunction with a Roman catapult.

The point I am making is that so many things are described as UNC and people will bid on them because they are so described. If you don't put unc in the title virtually nobody will look at it, but the truth is that UNC coins make up a tiny fraction of one percent of the total population. Some are aware of this but many aren't. This thread exists in large part because of delusional sellers and buyers alike. It is like 'rare' on ebay. About 8 or 10 years ago in this thread I took the first 25 'rare' coins and separated out the rarities. There was a 1934 halfcrown, which is scarce in high grade, and an 1853/2 halfpenny which is at least verging on rare. The rest were 1967 penny type material. Descriptions are best ignored. The volume of listings is such that I believe it has conditioned people to expect most things to cost 99p or not much above because there are too few eyeballs for widespread competitive bidding. I usually list some piece of junk that has a chance of selling even at a quid, just to get a card out and advertise the site and so open eyes to the fact that there is a world outside ebay. I would also like to add that it is not a very successful method, but hope springs eternal. Ebay is just another place to buy, not the only place. Most dealers do not make 50% + VAT. 20% is closer to the mark for a typical sale, (and the VAT is applied to the margin, not the full price), though clearly some things slip under the radar and are acquired cheaply. Whether you buy on ebay or from a dealer, you will have researched the coin just in establishing what you want. Investing is buying cheap and selling dear, just as it is for everything else.

It's easier to throw them away. Last year I listed nearly 2kg of pennies with an 1871 and a few more 1860s deliberately placed on top - which didn't sell, probably because I started it at a tenner and not the obligatory 99p. Took the 1871 out and it sold for over a tenner as a stand alone listing. Took the rest down to the scrapper when I next passed him. Just over 35kg of bronze pennies and halfpennies have gone that way in the past year because it isn't worth the hassle of listing (& relisting). I'd lose the will to live if ebay was the only outlet.

Silly. It's all that is wrong with eBay, or at least the people who buy there. Rhetorical question, but how can some thing blatantly not as described reach £12.50, when a halfcrown in the same grade sells for melt, and a couple of other things sell for a third of melt? Answer, on a rare foray onto ebay via the wife's account, they weren't mis-described. The other things that didn't sell for below melt will go in the pot tomorrow. There has to be too much material listed to achieve a reasonable price by listing as an auction.