Nick

It's true that you won't ever pay more than your maximum, but it could mean you would pay much nearer to it. If I were being mean spirited, I could see your 5 bids and bid the current highest bid plus the current bid increment minus one penny and continue to do so until I've outbid your second highest bid. Granted this wouldn't be painful in the 15, 16, 17, 100 case but does anybody actually bid like that? But if it were 15, 25, 35, 45 then it becomes more costly. One early low bid followed by a last minute snipe is the safest option, as long as you have a reliable reminder mechanism.

Multiple bids in advance is not a sensible policy. By doing so, you may cause yourself to pay nearer your maximum bid rather than something lower. For example, if there was an item starting at £15 and I enter 5 bids, those bids have to adhere to eBay bid increments - therefore those bids have to be at the very least 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. So an uncharitable fellow might see those bids and bid £18.99 knowing for certain that I'll still be the highest bidder and be £3.99 worse off into the bargain.

It must be an easy mistake to make. Same office, same people, same job... PS. Loving your signature tag line Matt.

Lovely toning, especially on the 1893 6d. Shame the plastic of the slab on the 1911 3d makes the obverse rim look messy. It also obscures the beads, which variety is it?

There is no preferred way of cleaning coins. They are almost always better left alone. If you do find it necessary, a rinse in acetone followed by patting dry with a non-abrasive cloth will do no harm.

Excuse me for being dense, but Bill set up the CGS Collectors Facebook Group. Or are you really asking why CGS itself is no longer?

You could PM Bill Pugsley. You never know, he might reply.

Bet they won't get the same offer though. Unless the BBC gets involved again.

Rip Off Britain Series 8 Episode 14 Coins section starts at 14:50.

I think the 'broken I' variety is just an alternative description for the 2nd I in VICTORIA with the missing lower left serif.

The G is slightly smaller and lower. Variations in the letters and numbers are not unusual for this era of coin.

Looks like all the barcodes are the same. I would expect no two slabs to have the same barcode.

I suspect that many people may be fooled into thinking that a slabbed "reject" wouldn't be faked.

I once received my coins on the very next day after a DNW auction, having paid mid-afternoon. It doesn't get any better than that if you can't attend.

There could be an underlying letter, although quite a few of the letters are doubled up.

JEB are the initials of the designer of the Jubilee coinage portrait, Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm. The initials appear on the truncation of Victoria's neck.

Ah yes, that would explain it.

I have seen before on DNW that a positive account balance has remained (incorrectly) after a previous transaction. Thus when you next receive an amount due, that previous balance is also included in the total.

I don't know how the rotation occurs. If it were possible for the dies to rotate during use, I would expect to see examples of die clashes with many imprints of the opposite die, but I think 3 or 4 is the maximum I've seen. There is nothing obvious on the examples with the largest rotations to suggest that the collar has opened. Here is an image of the shilling with the largest rotation (+27 degrees).

Quite a while ago I did a small survey (sample size 65) of Victoria YH shillings looking at die axis rotation. The results were (roughly) normally distributed about a notional zero rotation with the range being approximately +/- 15 degrees. Histogram as below.

Don't think I've ever seen a colourfully toned Churchill Crown before.

Looks like a die clash, with almost a 20 degree rotation between obverse and reverse.