Peckris

That's something I've never watched, so your joke is [mimes hand going over head] Yeah maybe, but it wasn't me who suggested it could be binary!!!

I doubt it, we are talking almost immediately post war here. He retired in the late 70s or 80s(?). Tsk tsk. The first computer was invented in the 1930s, and was originally intended to be an electronic calculator. Addition and subtraction machines had been long used - analogue decimal machines - but the only way they could get multiplication and division automated was by using binary (in binary, both processes are essentially achieved by adding and subtracting). So he COULD have used binary, especially as the rush to patent occurred immediately post-war. I know what you're thinking : "It's all Geek to me" I know what you are saying, but for the masses binary wasn't common knowledge. Most people of his generation left school at 14, and binary didn't come into their maths lessons.True enough, but we don't know that he wasn't also a bit of a techie buff on the side, keeping up with all the - well publicised - advances and to-ing and fro-ing in the fledgling computer industry. Remember, it was the height of the sci-fi era back then, and more people than you'd think were interested in all that, with popular magazines devoted to radio, electronics, science, etc.

I doubt it, we are talking almost immediately post war here. He retired in the late 70s or 80s(?).Tsk tsk. The first computer was invented in the 1930s, and was originally intended to be an electronic calculator. Addition and subtraction machines had been long used - analogue decimal machines - but the only way they could get multiplication and division automated was by using binary (in binary, both processes are essentially achieved by adding and subtracting). So he COULD have used binary, especially as the rush to patent occurred immediately post-war. I know what you're thinking : "It's all Geek to me"

Just a guess, but a buyer looking through a box of envelopes marked "EH/Z/Z" "BEE/Z/Z" "SEE/Z/Z" "DEE/Z/Z" ... etc, might soon crack the code

a***d clearly wants to win that one! That one is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!!! WHY on earth would someone, with over a day to go, revise his maximum bid TEN TIMES IN TWO MINUTES with no other bidding going on?

The problem is that dealers who use a price coding (as I did), kept the code a tight secret for obvious reasons. If you had access to a statistically large enough sample, you could probably work out the coding, but from a single example it's virtually impossible.

It may be someone totally lacking a sense of humour.

I'm sure you're right. However, do be aware that pretty much all of these will be what we call 'micro varieties', of which there are only a relatively small number of collectors / interest.

The 1967 brass 3d can be bought in huge quantities pretty cheap. The same goes for 1967 sixpences, and 1966 shillings (no shillings in 1967). Larger silver - for example - florins and halfcrowns - are more expensive, but there again, 1967 is your year for both. For really big coins, the 1965 Churchill Crown should be available very cheaply. The best bet for 000's of coins is to buy a "Mint-sealed" bag of the denomination(s) of your choice. For glut years like 1967, these can be bought for only a few multiples of face value. Others will advise where these can be bought. Bun pennies are now very expensive and are, in any case, bronze. They don't meet your brass / silver-look requirement.

Yeah, but if it was going too cheap, why wouldn't the seller just withdraw it from sale? An over-enthusiastic shiller would cost more in the long run. It would depend on how much time is left Peck. I think if there's 12hrs or less you cannot pull an auction Yes but it's still Hobson's Choice - either you have to let it go cheap, or you end up buying your own coin. In both cases you lose.

Yours is the common variety. I'm not going on pointings or anything like that, simply on my own personal experience over many years. You see, the 1922 & 26 wear differently to the the earlier one, and they are also less 'rounded' (edge-to-middle). From the wear pattern on yours, and the roundedness of it, I'd have no hesitation saying it's the normal obverse. But as has been said, there are many varieties of other dates, and those are far from unique like the 1920! so keep looking and have fun.

It's absolutely essential you post a picture of the obverse. The 1920 penny you speak of, is so rare that to date, only one specimen is known (in the British Museum) and no others have come to light despite much searching. To satisfy your own curiosity, get yourself a high grade penny dated between 1914 and 1919, and another dated 1922. Then compare your penny with both. You will probably find that it corresponds to the pre-1920 example. The difference between the two very roughly correspond to the differences between large silver pre-1920, and that between 1921 and 1926 (not Modified Effigy). Of course not precisely, as the legend is not the same on the bronze as it is on the silver, but the reducing of the height of the bust profile is the same, and the consequent 'shallowing' of the hair detail. But if you'd like us to comment, please post a picture of the obverse.

Yeah, but if it was going too cheap, why wouldn't the seller just withdraw it from sale? An over-enthusiastic shiller would cost more in the long run.

I'd say EF without a doubt. The elements in question are : Victoria's hair strands and bodice detailing, Britannia's breasts and fingers, the shield, and the ship. All pass muster in my book

It happens a lot. I think it's called bid stacking and is somehow supposed to deter other bidders from trying to beat the current high bid.That's the opposite effect that a shiller would want! Exactly my thought too! A shiller would NOT want to win the item.

This is what I don't understand about eBay. Here you have: j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:39:55 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:39:12 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:25:11 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:22:57 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:22:37 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:03:25 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:01:15 BST e***r £850.00 28-Jul-13 20:00:04 BST Now, e***r has an unsuccessful bid of £850 at 8 PM. In the next 39 minutes he (or someone) seems to have had seven attempts to outbid j***e. Yet there aren't seven increments of £5 between £850 and £870!! How do you explain that? On the coin itself, I wouldn't rate it as a £870 example. The hair detail of the strike just isn't strong enough, though it's good in all other respects. Nobody has tried to outbid j***e, the additional seven bids were all made by j***e, probably to ensure a bit of headroom to cover any last minute bids. Then why are they all for the same amount?

That's a shame - took me quite a while in photoshop. But to summarise, the CGS photo looks elongated in the vertical plane, which would make the bust look comparatively narrow ('squashed'). That would also account for the broader harp in the 'fake'. None of this is to say it ISN'T a fake, just that the comparison with the CGS photo probably isn't much of a case.

To the right, underneath your post Rob, was this : Back to Forum technical help and support If there were still unread posts in this forum's topics, it would show Back to Enquiries about Non British coins · Next Unread Topic → and it would continue to show that until I'd read all the topics since my last visit. ~~~~~ As for going to the first unread topic in any particular forum, I'd see this : and I'd click 'Sterling Copies Book' and go from there.

This is what I don't understand about eBay. Here you have: j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:39:55 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:39:12 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:25:11 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:22:57 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:22:37 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:03:25 BST j***e £870.00 28-Jul-13 20:01:15 BST e***r £850.00 28-Jul-13 20:00:04 BST Now, e***r has an unsuccessful bid of £850 at 8 PM. In the next 39 minutes he (or someone) seems to have had seven attempts to outbid j***e. Yet there aren't seven increments of £5 between £850 and £870!! How do you explain that? On the coin itself, I wouldn't rate it as a £870 example. The hair detail of the strike just isn't strong enough, though it's good in all other respects.

The problem here is that the photos are not to scale, not exactly to the same plane, have different colour balance and tone, use totally different backgrounds, etc. I've tried to demonstrate this by drawing lines in Photoshop to illustrate how this affects the obverses : You will see that aligning on the left and top, the CGS coin is a BIT wider, but it is a LOT deeper. If they were true circles, this would be impossible. The only way to explain it is the distorting effect of photographing a coin that's not absolutely in a parallel plane to the lens (which would not be a problem comparing two scans). Yet interestingly, if you place the two busts side by side and rotate one slightly so it's in line with the other, the width of them is exactly the same, however it appears on the two photos. For me, the suspicious element is the complete lack of hatching in the shield quarters, top left and bottom right, on the non-CGS coin.

I've never seen 'First unread post' even on the old forum. I'm not sure this particular forum software features it as a particular button. And 'Next unread topic' is still there - next to the forum name and 'Go' button near the bottom (but above the Reply box). That works a lot better than the old software's button which would take you to the next topic UP, which was a 'mare if you'd started with the latest post in the top topic. So, click the 'Latest topic' button next to the forum name, which gets you the latest post since you last read it, then click 'Next unread topic', which takes you to the latest unread post in the next topic DOWN. It works so much better than the old system. When there's no 'Next unread topic' button anymore, you've read all the unread topics in that forum, and you can click back out to the main forum listings.

That's quite convincing - where do you get that it's a fake?

Well there you go! I hadn't even seen that - typical of an erstwhile programmer : all complaints and no eyesight And I can even switch back mid-reply to get the formatting stuff back again.

How did you highlight the box? I just tried and all I could highlight was the text inside the box. I managed to delete that ok. However, when I tried one more backspace (all the text had gone) it did delete the box alright, PLUS my reply, PLUS my presence in the topic, returning me to the previous topic I'd been in!!!! I'm not trying that again! It wasn't a momentary glitch - every time I try the same thing, the same weirdness happens. I'll just have to live with unremovable boxes. I simply REFUSE to use Firefox.

1870 used to be one of the scarcer dates, but now it seems to have been overtaken by (e.g.) 1867.