Rob

Wot about Briot?

I was going to reply to all these but too many to do - I'll give you the task of finding a D&H. Life is so much simpler with one as all the varieties are illustrated. Punctuation, present or missing is important, as is the position of the legend relative to itself or other features as this will determine the die(s) used and hence the variety. For this piece: Milled edge will be D&H 351 - common. 351a edge reads 'AN ASYLUM .......NATIONS' - Rare 351b edge 'BIRMINGHAM OR SWANSEA' - Very Rare. 351c edge 'PAYABLE AT LONDON LIVERPOOL OR BRISTOL.' - Rare. And for any 19th century tokens you might acquire, a good reference you will find is 19the Century Token Coinage, by W J Davis. Sorry, I will lose the will to live if I do many more. I don't have any copies of either in stock, but do have the references in an emergency and if all else fails will help. Every collector added to the list of known people in a certain field helps.

This one is a Coalbrookdale 1/2d token. The birthplace of the industrial revolution. Dalton & Hamer Shropshire 10, identifiable by the position of the obverse legend and the reverse date 1 relative to the K in KETLEY and the 9 being under the limb of L. Obverse is the bottom image. D&H rarity is scarce. If you are interested in tokens, you can get a reprint of the volume. The originals were printed in 1910 and somewhat hard to find.

Similar for me. And if you live within an hour or two of Galata's address, have a day out walking in the area and pick them up. You will probably be offered a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Paul and Bente are nice people.

I think that's what the last person had in mind when I sold a kg or so on ebay last time.

If I get enough, I might put them on ebay as material for an art project. Only the 84s sell individually.

More obviously there is no sign of a quatrefoil on the reverse to make it Irish (or possibly episcopal English). Don't worry about the small flan reference as many coins were clipped, focus on the detail you can see.

And my 1694 upgrade. Quite chuffed. . Thankfully people focussed on the description which said pitted flan, which is due to it being cast rather than rolled as per spec, but as that accounts for half the halfpennies or more of this period, should not be something to worry about.

I still think there is only one die for these, as that was the 4th I'm aware of, and they are definitely the same obverses. There are 2 different reverse dies however, which is probably to be expected (see alignment of 17 and final A). My current example is the third coin, which I picked up in DNW 76, lot 287. My first one came from ebay in 2004 and both cost a tenner. Excuse the GV/B 1694 which was added to keep things neat. That was the discovery piece by Colin Cooke in 2004. I have since upgraded that with the superb example in London Coins 168, lot 1407. I saw it, GV/B not mentioned in the description, compared with mine and promptly put a very large 'must buy' label in my shopping list. Those are the only two I have recorded, but there must more out there.

Not particularly flattering, is it? Having said that, my all time low is probably the 2002 Queen Mother £5 portrait. The first time I saw one of those, I had to do a quick check that it was a Royal Mint product and not some private enterprise output. Give Anne her dues. She is probably the hardest working royal of the 4, and I suspect has a greater sense of duty than the others.

That was the father. He passed away about 4 years ago. I don't think Dennis ever got over it.

Just had an email from Lu Veissid that Dennis Dunkerton died peacefully at home earlier today. Sadly, one of life's casualties to the excesses of alcohol. He has looked like death on legs for the past year and couldn't keep off the pop. Still a nice guy though. RIP Dennis

It's always good to learn. We all do, albeit mostly through mistakes, not having gone to the effort of preparing ourselves adequately for the items in question. It is always helpful to acquire a few higher grade items in your areas of interest as well as being cleanly and clearly struck. If correctly identified, then you can use those as a reference for the various design features you need to check to drill down into the sub-type. Don't be afraid of spending decent money on a good coin. It doesn't suddenly become a 50p lucky dip item worth nothing just because you paid more than you normally would.

If it had liv as the last three characters, it would have been worth a couple hundred pounds, or whatever someone was willing to pay, even in that condition

Anyone with a correctly spelt legend on William III obverses, please make yourselves known now. It seems easier to find an error than a correct legend in this time period. Yet another to add to the list.

I still often get a forbidden answer, even if it is a simple Yes or No. Would that suggest it is something to do with the number of posts made rather than one of size?

Bring them to the Huddersfield Coin Fair tomorrow morning and I will see what you have. Starts at 9:30 at the Cedar Court Hotel at Ainley Top just off the M62, junction 24. Map. Entry is £2. We are in the room looking out through the big window on the front of the building. I'm RP Coins, and my table 24-25 is the last one on the row turning left just before the window. 32 dealers there tomorrow at the last count, so plenty to choose from if you decide to sell elsewhere. Hopefully see you tomorrow. Rob

If in doubt, the first post of call would be weight. You can lose pieces off the flan, but unless obviously half a coin and therefore half the full weight it would almost always be within 5-10% window either side of nominal unless it has serious corrosion issues. Coins were worth their precious metal value, because they defined it. Sure there are exceptions, that's what knowledgeable people are for, but in the main aren't required for basic spadework.

Proof read before posting. A simple answer but a common failing in many publications, think Bull's revision of ESC. And if you are going to proof read, give it to someone else, because if you wrote it, there will be an assumption that you will probably read it as intended and may in fact have a slight dyslexia problem in that area.

Sorry, incorrect answer. Should read it could happen the other way round, all dependent on the metal alloys used. Whatever, the key to having a solidly held central section depends on tight tolerance machining of the two blanks and sufficient temperature divergence from those normally expected to drop the middles into the outer ring, before putting the design on. Nobody is going to align two pieces consistently to make it a plausible mint error. This was demonstrated soon after they came into circulation, with videos to prove so.

If you stick the bimetallic coins into liquid nitrogen or whatever at these typical temperatures, the centres fall out due to different rates of expansion for the two metal alloys. It would work the other way round as well, by increasing the temperature to a few hundred degrees, but would increase the risk of surface oxidation and give the game away.

I get rejected on about 3/4 of the replies I try to post. If it comes to users chipping in to help funding the forum, I'm sure most would be amenable, but then it constitutes a contract, so would require both parties to accept both funding and a prompt fix. Funnily enough, this one posted, but no attachments.

Ah, but you have uncorrected the correction by underlining the 1628-9 anchor mark. Confusingly there are 2 anchor marks in the reign, 1628-9 and 1638-9. You have to go by the style of shield used on the reverse and the bust compared to the larger portraits. The earlier anchor flukes tended to be more rounded at the bottom and less pointed at the joint with the upright, plus the earlier coins still used the bust with the ruff, replaced by lace collar or armour later. Briot was at the mint in 1638-9, hence the use of the second anchor on both his and the tower coins.

Nope, that's a Tower Mint 3a1 halfgroat with mm. anchor. No hammered Briot halfgroats, just the first milled issue S2856 and the pattern listed in Spink S2856A.

Nothing, sorry.