Nick

I have access to the CGS site, and own a few slabbed coins myself, but wasn't aware that I could view other people's coins without the UIN number. Is this possible? Alternatively you could post a few UINs to look at. I have a some crowns myself but mainly focus on pennies. Well, quite. My thoughts exactly. Even if I went through the hell of registering for CGS (it's not just creating a username and password DM, it's doing it for one single purpose only, and then remembering it if at some unspecified far future date I wanted to go back there. Technology might be your bête noir, but remembering more than around 10 favourite website registrations is mine), I very much doubt they are going to let me look at someone's personal collection. But if you're talking about individual coins that are publicly on show there, how would I know what to look for? What I mean is, having found wreath crowns, how would I know they are your coins, divemaster? The fact that the 'member name' is divemaster is a bit of a giveaway

I have access to the CGS site, and own a few slabbed coins myself, but wasn't aware that I could view other people's coins without the UIN number. Is this possible? Alternatively you could post a few UINs to look at. I have a some crowns myself but mainly focus on pennies. It depends whether the CGS user has submitted their collection to the league tables. If they have, you can view the league tables for each monarch and denomination and then view their coins.

It's more likely that the winner of the first auction received the coin but didn't like it and returned it. The seller then relisted it.

Queen Anne 1711 Sixpence Terrible grading Blimey, that's shocking. Just had a look at his feedback - look at the state of the obverse of the 1917 florin he claimed was FDC.

Surely that would be £1 ?

I reckon that the best way to tell whether it's 1850 over 49 or 46 is to look at the remnants of the 4 under the 5. All 1849's that I have seen have a plain 4 with a short tail, whereas all 1846's have a longer tail with a large serif. Therefore for a 1850/46, there should be some sign of the serif poking out behind the curve of the 5, which I think I can see on the 1st picture that Dave posted.

To be fair, though, the seller does say it is a shilling.

It doesn't. It's a sixpence. I love this forum! I remember innocently entering around a year ago now, just after the debate about whether you could legally smelt English coinage had finally wound down! Without knowing about the fire of the recent bullion debate, I entered enquiring into 'the smelting of English silver'! I always think of you Nick! fondly, of course! You'll be in a minority of one then!

It doesn't. It's a sixpence.

You should ask the seller if it has been cleaned at all, just so we can laugh at the response! He has 'downgraded' it to the totally ambiguous 'High Grade' now, we are getting there! He's probably talking about the grade of sandpaper used.

It could be said that the seller is merely hoping that a newb buyer will pop along with 500 big ones and buy the coin, i assume he obviously knows what it exactly is as he identifies most coins correctly. I did ask about his Halfcrown and got this back regarding it being overgraded from where it was actually bought........... Quite likely, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt - because of the error in the Spink book which suggests that type A4 is ­­­­↑↑.

Here's a well known eBay dealer mistakenly listing a standard coin as a rare variety. It is clearly not the R3 variety (which has the same obverse as 1868), although 1867 is still a scarce year.

Edward VIII's face was not particularly symmetrical and he didn't like the side that should have shown on the coins - so he faced the other way.

If you asked for a Lucky Dip and they sold you an Unlucky one, maybe you could test Camelot's return policy Yeah david! I will get them under the trade descriptions act... there is no way that Dip they sold me was Lucky! It was for them - they are now £2 richer than before.

Spink book price is £300 in EF, so it's in the right ballpark.

The Millionaire raffle that Mongo referred to is only for EuroMillions tickets bought in the UK.

These are given out by Spink with their SCBC. They're good fun. Do you know which years? I have three of their SCBC books (1997, 2004, 2011) and none came with a jigsaw. It was the 2009 edition. Thanks for that. Were they all Henry 8 puzzles or a random selection from a group of puzzles? I believe they were all Henry VIII puzzles as that was the 2009 cover illustration, but I can't be certain.

These are given out by Spink with their SCBC. They're good fun. Do you know which years? I have three of their SCBC books (1997, 2004, 2011) and none came with a jigsaw. It was the 2009 edition.

Had a quick search on the Web and you're not alone with your AVG problem. There are a number of fixes being suggested which may be worth a try.

In Firefox, you can drag the current page icon (at the left hand side of the address bar) on to the 'homepage' button.

Here's an 1873 sixpence (clashed dies) with a couple of weak areas on the ribbon and the oak leaf at 4 o'clock. Is this just normal die clogging? Or is the die unfinished in those areas? How would these weaknesses affect the grade? And which would be the better coin: aUNC with weaknesses or gEF fully struck up?

Don't understand this. The last time someone initiated a PM for me was at the end of May/beginning of June. Don't know what's happened since, but if anyone knows how to reinstate the ability to PM me, please feel free to speak out. If you go to "My Settings" then click on the "Settings" tab on the LHS, then select "Your Notifications". All of your previous PMs are stored here - try deleting a few old ones.

I do like the coin, that's why I bought it. It's just the perennial problem of having two coins of slightly differing grades, but preferring the look of the lower graded coin.

The sixpence reverses of the period are usually pretty well struck. It just seems odd that the oak leaves are generally concave, but this one appears convex. Could that happen with a slight weakness of strike?

Nick, where you can see the underside of Victoria's chin, just left of the S in six, is the bust incuse or in relief, it's one of those optical illusions for me? Also, speaking personally, I'd alway prefer a GEF fully-struck over a aUNC with weaknesses! It's as you would expect, the outline of the bust leaves an incuse impression on the reverse die and then becomes a relief outline on the coin.