Peckris

Ah, the great days of Communist cameras! I began with a Russian made Zorki 4 (virtual exact reproduction of a prewar Leica IIIb) for which I got 3 lenses - I still have the camera and standard lens and I bet it works if I got a film for it. I also briefly used a Lubitel (TLR) but it was a hassle getting 120 roll film processed; I did my own D&P of black and white 35mm film back then. And a Leningrad light meter (the Zorki and Lubitel had nothing electronic anywhere in them, not even a light meter) which was pretty good. Now I slum it with a Lumix superzoom FZ camera. Ok, it has a tiny tiny sensor (makes 110 film look like medium format ) but as long as I am aware of its limitations it takes some good pictures...

Happy Noo Year, people!

You mean the South Koreans accept bank transfers then? I meant OUR building warships for OURSELVES! But wouldn't we need a shipyard for that? Precisely - I'm assuming the Clyde or similar would be used is which an existing asset. (If built in S Korea, it would be part of our balance of payments deficit - eventually we would have to pay up but not in the form of coins, banknotes or cheques!). Money is of course involved in the not inconsiderable costs of materials, fees, and salaries, but they were not exactly a big consideration in Anglo-Saxon times. You were a warleader - you wanted a longboat - you got your serfs to cut down a few trees on your land - you might have paid an expert shipbuilder but that might have been an ingot of gold or silver, or a prime farm, or your daughter's hand in marriage, or an oxen or two - then your ship would have been crewed by your own indentured warriors who were paid handsomely by not having their heads lopped off Ok, some jesting there, but in truth there was only fractional use for money back then compared to now. It was the rise of towns and the middle classes that stimulated the money economy.

If you want to go down the stereotype road, how about the even smugger 'we know best', luvvy, trendy-lefty, Guardian-subscribed, liberals of Notting Hill with huge, often publicly funded (think BBC exec) salaries and fat bottomed pensions? Then we could talk about that multi-multi-millionaire socialist, Tony Blair…. Stereotypes don't work, there are good and bad examples of everything out there. Then you should, in all honesty, also apply that ethic to Rob's parallel argument to which I was responding.

I agree Dave, trouble is they would f*ck it up! Look what the French have done to Roty's beautiful Sower Geez that looks like a Lowry. The only recent Design i like was the 1997 £2 Britannia REV design, they must of sacked that engraver because nothing has come up to scratch since and i can't remember what was great previous to that, i think we're talking decades. They don't seem to have any artistic flair at the mint anymore.Was that the standing Britannia in a warship with flowing hair and robes? That was a cracking design!

Erm, haven't they missed the Maklouf bust out???

You mean the South Koreans accept bank transfers then? I meant OUR building warships for OURSELVES!

We're never going to agree on this. It's just a shame - to me - that the wider British public seems to have had its natural insularity reinforced over the decades by outsiders such as the egregious Rupert who promote xenophobia. For once, he is not the main culprit in my eyes. The seeds of anti-European rhetoric were sown long before he became the owner of the gutter press. It goes back to the decision to join the Common Market, which in a short time morphed into the European Union. That is not what people signed up to. At the moment we have a group of politicians that are self serving. The vast bulk of European citizens are nationals, not Europeans. The system cannot work until someone from Paris or Rome or wherever stands up and says that people elsewhere are being severely disadvantaged to the benefit of their home town/area/country(which should have been abolished by this point). It could even be argued that the same people in the best areas of the EU should be proactive in simultaneously lowering their own conditions whilst raising others'. It ain't going to work because nobody wants it. Exactly the same argument could be applied to the smug fat-cat inhabitants of the stockbroker belt, vis à vis places like Burnley or Teesside!

Yes, to my shame I can't remember the names of the principal WW1 graveyards in Flanders.

We're never going to agree on this. It's just a shame - to me - that the wider British public seems to have had its natural insularity reinforced over the decades by outsiders such as the egregious Rupert who promote xenophobia.

Yes, that doesn't make sense to me. CGS must be grading proofs according to the same criteria as currency pieces. As they are IMO superior artefacts, they should either have their own separate scale (like F1 drivers' times when they drive Top Gear's 'reasonably priced car' around the track), or - which I think a better solution - they should reserve the top 10% of the grading scale and only sink below it when they are sufficiently impaired that describing them as proofs is no longer tenable.

As I said earlier, such a thing might have been paid for in terms of raw silver - either as ingots, hacksilver or coin - alternatively there are other commodities to be used for payment/trade. If the sale of a farm did not involve any coin then I'm doubtful that a longboat would have been much different. Exactly. Money was not the be-all and end-all of economic activity in Anglo Saxon times. Far less in fact, than it was in Roman times. I imagine that one powerful reason for the existence of the silver penny was its political statement with the name or even effigy of the king on one side - what more efficacious way would there be for someone like Offa to have his subjects see that he was the ruler and commanded the sources of wealth? Also, bear in mind that longboats weren't built or owned by individuals, just as tanks and aircraft carriers aren't today. No bars of gold or banknotes or even cheques are handed over when a warship is built today - it's simply a deficit in the Ministry of Defence's budget, no actual money changes hands.

1. We are not in the Euro, and never have been. That was our government's free choice. Personally I'm all in favour of that, as the Euro itself has been the biggest unmitigated disaster of the EU. 2. Speaking as a citizen of the oldest federated union in Europe (over more than 1000 years, Yorkshiremen and Cornishmen have not lost their individual identities), the EU is hardly the recipe for the feared 'loss of national identity'. Germans, French, Spanish, and Italians, are no less German, French, Spanish, or Italian through being members of the EU. Nor are they clamouring for independence from it, apart from their own equivalents of UKIP. 1. We both agree about the Euro then. 2. You misquote me. I didn't talk about loss of 'national identity' (whatever that is? Certainly rich material for a different debate on another day), I said national democracy. How could anyone argue that wasn't being eroded by the EU? Oh, you think you have democratic power, do you? You can choose what your taxes are spent on? You can curb the powers of a minority government elected by not much more than a third of the population? You can prevent the sell off of the GPO? You have even the tiniest influence on what happens in Afghanistan? You can prevent the DWP from causing such harassment of disabled people that some commit suicide? You can tell the American president "Hey, we don't have to jump to YOUR call, we're a free country"? You can stop Starbucks and McDonalds opening new branches on every high street? That's just a few fr'instances off the top of my head. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'national democracy', but in the big wide world where America, China, yes and Russia too, and increasingly India, and the Gulf States, call the shots, how much real power do you think our government actually has? And at home, how much power do you really think YOU have against the politicians and mandarins of Whitehall? At least the EU forms a powerful enough bloc to enable European voices - united yet still independent - to still be heard in the world. Where do you think Britain would be outside it? Alone. Or the 51st state of the USA.

And that's the RM all over. One BIG anniversary (WW1) - you'd think that would be enough on its own and rightly deserving of its own £2 commem. But no, they have to add another much smaller one, Trinity House, and give IT its own (undeserved) £2. Plus the Commonwealth Games on a 50p, and two distinctly naff £1 reverses compared to previous offerings. And is the Kitchener recruiting poster REALLY the best way to mark WW1? With the vast, tragic and unnecessary loss of life, a simple anonymous grave from Normandy would be far more appropriate than that jingoistic piece of cr*p.

1. We are not in the Euro, and never have been. That was our government's free choice. Personally I'm all in favour of that, as the Euro itself has been the biggest unmitigated disaster of the EU. 2. Speaking as a citizen of the oldest federated union in Europe (over more than 1000 years, Yorkshiremen and Cornishmen have not lost their individual identities), the EU is hardly the recipe for the feared 'loss of national identity'. Germans, French, Spanish, and Italians, are no less German, French, Spanish, or Italian through being members of the EU. Nor are they clamouring for independence from it, apart from their own equivalents of UKIP.

I'm not sure I agree. I think a proof - being double struck on a specially prepared blank using specially polished dies - should be treated as the FDC (literally) that it is. They should be in numeric grades 91 - 100, UNLESS they've circulated, in which case they should be regarded the same way as early currency strikes and graded according to how much wear exists. Minor impairments would place a proof somewhere between 91 and 99, whereas bigger impairments would place it lower among currency strikes. On the other hand, an 'as struck' currency piece, early strike with no flaws, would be 90, taking into account that no special blanks, dies, or edge collars were used and that therefore the coin - almost by definition - has a degree of inferiority. So I would say that a proof coin, with a minor impairment bordering on something bigger, could be rated 90, the same as a perfect currency strike ... accepting that the currency coin lacks the absolute precision (edge, detail, strike) of the proof.

Brilliant. Mind you, you don't need to understand Chinese, as the commentary seems to consist entirely of "Hwaaaaaar aaaaaaaah. Innonaaaaaaa hwaaaaaa." Which is presumably Chinese for "That reminds me - I've got 2,500 Northumberland shillings to roll out before Friday"

Your Gerald Ratner moment, Chris? No. The BOOK's good, even if the products therein are total cr*p!

Well that is what is I hoped someone would say, otherwise what is the point of a 1-100 scale if only the top grades can be achieved by proof coins, while proof is not a grade?Does anyone have an example of a non-proof CGS 'fdc' coin? Still feels like a bit of an oxymoron ... Edit: our posts crossed Nick, do you have a take as to how an fdc description can apply to a non-proof coin? I'm sure special dies were not created for the 20thC VIP proofs, more likely first strikes on prepared flans and PROOF is NOT A GRADE - grade by definition is a measure of wear And as we've been told by the likes of Michael Gouby, nor is UNC a grade - it's a state, of a currency coin that shows no sign of circulation. The year doesn't matter. No-one is going to judge a coin solely on the comparative state of the year digits. On the other hand,, there is nearly always a proof for that denomination type, that an UNC coin of another year can be judged against. I would suggest that the top levels of the scale should be reserved only for proofs, along with the term FDC. A currency strike using proof dies might creep into the bottom of the proof scale but no higher. 'Impaired' proofs should no longer be judged as proofs (unless still markedly superior), especially if they've circulated, in which case they should be judged as currency pieces.

It seems pretty odd to me that the absolute pinnacle that is FDC can manage to span 6 grade numbers at the top of the table. So that's FDC, FDC and a bit, FDC and some, FDC with knobs on, ... What's more, their top 4 numbers all equate to Sheldon 70 - would the Americans accept their absolute pinnacle can be further subdivided by 4? And strictly, should only be applied to proofs. The highest grade for a non-proof is BU or UNC.

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...and The Daily Mail, which does all the European thinking for a vast swathe of the population. At least they do slightly more thinking on Europe than the 3 'main' parties So you say. I vehemently disagree. The likes of the Mail have turned this country into a nation of Euro-phobes since 1975 (when we collectively voted to stay in), fed by a swathe of urban myths typified by the famous Yes, Minister episode about the 'traditional British sausage'. Just to throw one single fact at you : we, in this supposedly enlightened economy, have the lowest proportion of retirement pension compared to average wage, of any EU member. That makes you happy? It doesn't me. Nor do pro-Murdoch rants from the red-tops. In 1975 we voted to remain in the 'Common Market', what we have nearly 40 years later is something very different. We have the EU, as the name implies, a Union. I certainly don't glean my facts from the likes of the Mail and I can't see how the pension arrangements of this country have anything whatsoever to do with our being inside or outside of the EU. I'm not saying our pensions are good (they're not), just that I don't want this country ruled by Brussels. I'm not alone in that. The mere fact you think we are 'ruled from Brussels' is one of the misconceptions that really get my goat. Did you know, by the way, that in the recent food bank thing (which itself is scandalous > ) we were offered a lot of money by the EU in aid, which the Tories turned down ... "we can manage without your help thank you". Yeah, right.

Sorry Peck, I meant BU-Bright in colour, not grade! Ah, got you

BU? There are definite signs of wear there, or did you add them too?

...and The Daily Mail, which does all the European thinking for a vast swathe of the population. At least they do slightly more thinking on Europe than the 3 'main' parties So you say. I vehemently disagree. The likes of the Mail have turned this country into a nation of Euro-phobes since 1975 (when we collectively voted to stay in), fed by a swathe of urban myths typified by the famous Yes, Minister episode about the 'traditional British sausage'. Just to throw one single fact at you : we, in this supposedly enlightened economy, have the lowest proportion of retirement pension compared to average wage, of any EU member. That makes you happy? It doesn't me. Nor do pro-Murdoch rants from the red-tops.