1949threepence

Very reasonable indeed.

Same here - the grease from hands can cause damage. On a worn coin it's not an issue, but on a superb UNC specimen like the one shown, it's sacrilege IMO. Should hold the edges, preferably wearing a cotton glove in case the coin slips into the hand.

I don't know. I'd imagine so, in case of disputes. Whether a legal requirement or not, it would certainly be best practice to do so. The last 2 successful bids I made, with DNW, were absolutely above board. I'd advance bid £1000 on the F25, and you can tell the bid is still yours, when bidding is still under your limit, as the auctioneer will say things like "bid is still with me" "my bidder" or "still against you on line". The as soon as your limit is passed he will say "now on the internet/on line". The bids passed £1000 so I had to make an on line bid to finally secure the coin. With the F46, I'd advance bid £3000, and this limit was never reached before the bidding stopped. I'd say it's far more likely that any shenanigans are going to be at auctions held offline.

Yes, I think I got shafted like that on one occasion. Unfortunately, can't prove anything. With the live streaming auctions, if there's one I've bid on/or will live bid. I video it on my phone so if there's any argument, I have back up evidence.

The problem is that we always were, and still remain, totally clueless as to what the actual reasons were, and will continue as such until, and if (seems highly improbable), some document is discovered which throws light on the matter. Clearly the issue is not one of any great importance, was no doubt very quickly forgotten by all involved, and the reasons never passed on to succeeding generations of mint workers - or anybody else for that matter. As for mintage possibly around 10k of each reached circulation, given the tiny numbers now extant. Can't see there being many more for the simple reason that none were collected in the early days, and if the mintage had been higher, they would have reached a wider cohort of the public, and been noticed by collectors of the time. We know that because none are in especially high grade. It was obviously much later when the first specimens were identified and put aside. Not sure when that was either - pre Peck, but no clear indication of roughly when.

You mean in a sort of "Try them out in a limited dummy run on the bronze first" type of way?

Obviously we have no real idea at this stage whether (and indeed to what extent) the lockdown will have been eased by early June. I suspect probably not sufficiently to allow crowded public rooms. So unless they do it all via prior e mail bids and post, they'll have to arrange live bidding, probably via a third party.

Found an interesting article by M. Mapleton in the February 1971 edition of Coin Monthly, on the general topic of die No's under dates. Specifically mentioned at points in the article are the die numbers under 1863 pennies and die letters on 1862 halfpennies. These remain as big a mystery today as they were nearly 50 years ago. According to the article, the Royal Mint kept no records as to why the die numbers were used, and we are just left with the theories of either experimentation to test die wear or a means of identifying an individual operative. Anyway, here is the article in its entirety for anyone interested. They're not brilliant photos, so apologies for that, but they are readable:-

I think the 1898 bisect is interesting because it is intentional. Although why one eight would be altered and not the other, is a mystery. Possibly built that way by a mint member of staff without proper regard to the usual eight, when the 1898 dies were built. Then (maybe) noticed later on and scrapped. Or was it just one or two dies that were either never noticed, or noticed and the difference regarded as so minor that it was ignored? Incidentally, I'd also include 1864 in the final numeral discrepancies of 1861 to 63. The crosslet 4 is often seen well to the right, and badly struck (faint).

The steps themselves aren't intellectually challenging, but the time wasting lengths you would probably have to go to, are. In my opinion anyway. Plus as you say, you might also sustain some loss of money overall.

Indeed, good luck with that one.

To be honest, I've had more luck with the seller deciding to withdraw after I've contacted them, than with e bay themselves. As with any large organisation, their contact methods have become long, arduous and over complicated with, as you say Jerry, no guarantee of any action being taken anyway. My contacts have mainly been to "alert" the vendor to a wrongly attributed variety of an otherwise genuine coin. Invariably a common coin described as rare. Although in strict fairness, on the very few occasions when any of us have seen a rare item as a buy it now for £2.50, how many of us would alert the vendor then?

I suppose the most probable reason e bay appear powerless, is that their staff don't know real from fake. They rely on experts to pro-actively alert them to fakery, and even then can only deal with the specific items reported.

I've heard about 2 months or so, although as I've never sent one off for slabbing myself, others will no doubt give you a more precise timeframe. At any rate it's not a 5 minute job, so you can expect your coins to be away for a little while.

Wasn't Burberry considered to be the choice of "chavs", when that word was fashionable a few years back? I remember going to the pub with a mate about 2005, and when we came out there was a sticker on his car which said "oi chav, your car is shit".

Here's my not so landscaped garden, and the grass needs mowing again. But at the moment I feel damn fortunate to have a garden I can sit in for as long as I like, especially nice in the good weather we've currently got.

It's a source of great curiosity to me - for the simple reason that the dot itself is so perfectly symmetrical. Its non random look might lend weight to the theory that it was placed there deliberately for some unknown reason. Set against that, of course, is Freeman's notion, that specimens have been seen similar to Jerry's at either the beginning or end of the dot's "life cycle".

Ah, thanks Jerry. I'd not seen any example before this one. So you think this was when the "dot" was disintegrating, as opposed to forming?

"Attic find" would suggest that the attic dated from the 17th century, and your average attic does not. With regard to the second link, that tin looks amazingly new and fresh. I have actually, in reality, discovered a genuine "old tin" full of various bits of junk, including a few worthless coins, in the loft of my house when I moved in. But the tin, which looked a bit like an army one, was lacklustre, dirty and partly rusted. Not new off an ASDA shelf. ETA: looking through the rest of his items, how many tins has he supposedly found?

Made it look as though somebody found the tin with the coins in it. Although they cover themselves nicely. As you say, a pure scam. All junk. Yet people fall for it, such is their naivety.

They've stopped describing the N over sideways N (Z) as an F10A, at least for this auction. Now they just include the Gouby reference, which is wrong anyway. They were right last time with JA - link

Well you say that, but scanning through facebook yesterday I came across a thread in the "British pre-decimal milled coin collectors(1649-1970)" private group, where someone in about their mid 20's was looking for a number of Victorian Freeman types, including the F20 & F25, which I was able to sell to him as I've bought upgrades since. That's just an example of a whole new cohort of young coin collectors on the internet, quite a few of them foreign, but most from the UK. I let them go for a modest price as it's very encouraging to see this surge in interest, and over the past year or so, I've noticed that the level of knowledge in such groups has become more in depth and sophisticated.

The following is a list of those who fall into the extremely vulnerable category. It does include those on immunosuppressive drugs, but appears to be conditional:-

I am literally speechless that MS doesn't count. Beyond belief.

Me too. Very much so.