1949threepence

I thought Scott once said he was from Stoke on Trent (nearby) I might be wrong though.

Royal Mail

Yes, it's odd when long standing members abruptly stop posting. Is it sudden loss of interest or has something happened to them? Hopefully the former.

Any further developments Richard?

Possibly. In relation to the differences between reverse D and Reverse E, Freeman said: "the rock above Britannia's foot has a different outline" Of the three pics you provided, discount for comparison purposes the reverse E shown on the F169, which is worn, and merely concentrate on the other two non worn specimens showing reverses D & E respectively. Then compare the rock above Britannia's foot on the 1909 rev D, F168, with the same rock on the 1910 rev E, you'll notice that the downwards gradient from left to right on the F168 rock is gentler than the left to right gradient on the 1910 rev E, which shows a sudden abrupt sharp drop after a short distance. I think that may be what Freeman was alluding to when he said the two rocks had a different outline. At any rate to am impartial observer the upper outline of the two respective rocks does indeed show a variance.

As far as the 169 is concerned, even several years prior to 1971, I reckon you'd have been lucky to find one, given that Court found just 1 in 846 of the 1909 pennies to be F169 (0.12%). So even if you'd changed £100 into pennies (240 x 100 = 24,000), the chances of you finding a F169 amongst them, would still have been slim, given that there probably wouldn't have been more than what.......100 pennies dated 1909 amongst the 24,000. Incidentally, Freeman was correct, the rock above Britannia's foot is a different shape to reverse D, although personally I can't see any obvious differences with the waves and the exergue. However, on mine at least, the sea to the left of Britannia, under high magnification, doesn't appear to reach the linear circle. But it does on my 1910, which is also reverse E. So maybe an optical illusion or wear.

Great minds think alike, Richard ! Do you remember that list of penny articles I made up from the Coin Monthlies? Well I actually overlooked that one at the time (now added), and yesterday was the first time I read it. It's a really good article and like all Freeman's work, very well written. Anyway, hope you found the new larger versions useful, and apologies for not getting it right in the first instance.

Here's the other page also size adjusted. Obviously you always have to keep in mind the size limits of 500kb on the forum, and I deliberately chose a small version yesterday so as to fit both pics onto one post. But obviously the text came out ridiculously small. This should represent an improvement. The page is split, upper part of page on this post, lower part of page on next post:-

Hopefully this is a better pic (size adjusted) and more honed in on that area.

That's how it was printed. It does end abruptly though, and looking again at the article in the magazine itself, there is no full stop after the word "specimen". So I do think something has been inadvertently omitted from Freeman's article, even if just, perhaps, the word "nonetheless".

I've got it, Pete. Here's the article in its entirety. Again, apologies for the quality, but magazine pages are not the easiest things to get a photo of, as the pages tend to corrugate with age, and the glossy finish glares in light. I photographed these in natural daylight a few minutes ago.

Interesting, thanks.

....and nearly all at the bargain basement price of just 99p. Another interesting thing I've just noticed is that the negatives have reduced from 51 to 50, and the first one, which I noticed earlier as it was quite animated, and referred to a fake, has vanished. The "coin" fetched £326.57.

I think there may be a problem with CGS. I'm a member from some years ago (even though I never had any slabbing done). When I go to the link it comes up with the message "you need to be logged in to use this feature". When I log in using the auto remembered username and password, it comes up with the same message.

He's got 51 negatives, some of which also allude to fakes. Many of the negatives, somewhat curiously, have no comment at all. Not sure what that's all about.

Hopefully the dentist will acquire wisdom in due course. Otherwise might be looking at a huge cavity of depression. The scale of the problem is immense, but with dedication they will develop the polish that is needed to succeed. Sorry, sorry.....

Stylistically similar, but there are obvious marked differences. So definitely not the same punch.

Oh well you know the drill by now. Filling in the wasted time. Hopefully you'll be able to extract yourself from the situation.

Just been texting a mate of mine, and he tells me you can use "chinkie", as in ordering a Chinese meal, as he did so just a couple of weeks ago with no problem - yet that has a more obvious racist overtone (even though not meant that way) than "chink", which is a real dictionary word, as in "chink of light", or my example above. They really haven't put a lot of intelligent thought into this. What about Taffy, Jock or Paddy? (two of them are actual first names). Or are there gradations of racial offensiveness with some counting and some not, but none of us actually knowing which. How do they manage with other languages? Presumably they have national moderators or algorithms/bots (whatever they're called). .

What's the betting that in a year or so's time he'll be invited back into the ministerial fold? You'll wake up one morning and the news will be "following the resignation of xxxxx, the new minister for xxxxxxxx is Matt Hancock. Mr Hancock resigned as Health Minister in 2021 following controversy over not following social distancing rules".

My immediate thought was to give you a laughing emoji, but actually, you're probably right. That wouldn't surprise me at all.

Thanks Chris - I kind of thought that might be the case, and you've kindly confirmed it for me. These bans, for genuine posts, inhibit the free flow of conversation.

Quite apart from the lack of intelligent discernment, the other problem is that as posters we don't really know what's allowable and what's not - there's no handbook of specifics. Just a long winded set of somewhat rambling, very generically written rules. Also, it's virtually impossible to get in touch with facebook and dispute their decision. Not worth it for me anyway, as I'll be out of the ban in 2 days.