Paddy

100% fake and not even a good one.

There are people here who know a lot more about pennies than me, but as an amateur I can see immediately that this is wrong. The hair is too coarse, the features on the bust are crudely executed - I describe it as "cartoon-like". The toning is unnatural and clearly modern and artificial. That is before you get into the actual errors - the shield should be more convex and the line spacing looks wrong. The date numerals look too large and possibly the wrong font - but there are so many errors that the overall effect is dreadful.

Senility and fawning flunkies will do that - just look at our current batch of dictators - Trump, Putin, Kim, whatever the Chinese guy is called....

Yes, definitely an Indian Temple token for the Hindu religion. If you know anyone that reads Hindi they should be able to translate the writing for you. You can find many examples to compare with here: http://indiannumismatics.com/products.php?id=152

Important Government Notice: When using old brassieres to make your own face masks, it is vital that you use only the left hand cup. Otherwise you will look a right tit!

Just thought it might be a distraction to share any intriguing news about the Coronavirus from around the world. This article from Bangkok triggered the idea: https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1891715/shenzhen-bans-eating-of-cats-and-dogs-after-coronavirus Seems the Chinese are finally cracking down on the wild food markets, including cats and dogs. Long overdue!

I can't claim any expertise here, and I had never looked that closely at mine, but it does have a plain edge with incised writing, as shown. The only other comment is that yours seems to had a thicker, and possibly irregular rim? Whether that is part of the same mint blunder or poor fakery, I don't know.

I have heard them mention "Saleroom" on Bargain Hunt several times, so I assume this is Saleroom.com. The choice is up to the auctioneer, so I imagine some also use Easylive. I know a lot of auctions now have both going independently, with room bidding, phone bids and commission bids it gets quite complicated for the auctioneer!

Interesting subject and one I know nothing about. A few pictures of some of them would help the ignorant (like me) to know what to look out for. (I would not be competing and would be happy to offer any I found here for you enthusiasts!)

To clarify further, and slightly bad news I fear. There are 3 auction types on Easylive: 1. "Live" Auctions - here you can get live audio and sometimes video of the auction in progress, bids are immediate and truly "live" as if you were in the room. 2. "Timed" Auctions - this is a bit more like Ebay. Bids are accepted in advance and the system processes these and bids on your behalf. The lots end at fixed intervals from the auction start time onward. No audio or video. 3. "Catalogue" Auctions. Here the bids are passed to the auctioneer to use on the day. Quoting from the Easylive website: "This auction will not be broadcast live. You'll still be able to leave absentee bids that will be sent through to the auctioneer to use on the day of the sale." Surprise surprise, LCA has gone for the latter, so it sounds like they will have a list of maximum bids in front of them, with the potential for misuse still there. I will no longer be bidding.

Question from the Daily Mail "Answers to Correspondents" section today: "Just before decimalisation, what was the oldest coin that was still legal tender?" I thought it ought to be easy and jumped straight to the first milled coins of Charles II and even Oliver Cromwell, but then I began to wonder if the hammered coins from earlier would still have been legal tender, no matter how unlikely that someone would have tried to use them as such? And then one could get drawn into the debate of the interpretation of "legal tender" - we have the daft situation now where the £5 coins are legal tender, but not even the banks have to accept them...

I have not bid at LCA for several years. The way that lots always seem to go at a maximum bid has put me off - I feel I am being taken for a mug. I may bid through Easylive as at least that way the auctioneer has no knowledge of the limit of my bids until executed live in the auction.

Well is this the answer? London Coins have appeared on Easylive platform: https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalogue/619f7266ac134db2d8ebd1b3dadfc099/0af8d24542e81eb9357e7ef448a6646f/london-coins-a169-june-2020/?utm_source=ela&utm_medium=email&utm_content=auction_update&utm_campaign=londoncoins-030620

Yes - I often wonder who bids these things up so high. Early UK sets I struggle to get £10 for, let alone £20+. I can usually pick them up at local auctions for £3 to £6. The only hammered I wanted was the Harold I penny to tick off another Saxon monarch for me - but it went further than I was prepared to go. I think I have won a couple of other lots so far - Indian and French for onward sale.

Ebay's detection system is automated and not fool proof. As far as I understand it detects the "@" sign in any attempt to send a personal email address through their messaging system. Giving an email as "joe_bloggs at hotmail.com" seems to get through. (I have used this when wanting t stay in contact with someone met through Ebay - but not to cheat!)

I agree using Ebay as an advertising means, then stopping the show to sell direct is immoral - I don't do that and I get as frustrated as any other buyer when sellers do that with items I have been watching. When I sell at auction, I would not end an item early because a regular visitor had offered me a price for it. When I list at auction it is because I do not know really how high it will go, and so I like to let it run and find out. If I have things at BIN and a visitor is prepared to buy it at that price, then I am happy to end the item and sell it to him. When I auction things I do get people asking for a BIN price. Occasionally, if it is really generous, I may accept, but more usually I tell them just to bid like everyone else. If I do decide to take their offer, I do it through Ebay.

Yes - when the seller ends an item early he effectively cancels all bids, so the count will show as zero. As suggested I suspect someone made him an offer to deal outside of Ebay, which he accepted. Whilst this is frustrating for other buyers, and he may have done it just to avoid Ebay fees, it can be for other reasons. I have (had) a number of regular visitors looking at coins and sometimes they would want to buy a coin I had up on Ebay - in which case I am not going to turn them down and insist they buy online, so I will end the item early and deal direct. Also some Ebay sellers also have a website and sell through that as well, in which case they would also need to end items early, though these don't usually list at auction, but rather as Buy it Now.

Just been sent this one - series of wacky adverts for "Japp" bar ( a bit like Mars?). Very funny!

I hope so! I hope I never have to move again as that would be a pig to dismantle and I can barely lift one end as it is!

As a slight detour from gardens, I have spent a chunk of this week building a work bench for myself in the garage. (Previous owner, understandably, took his bench with him.) I have been longing to share it with anyone, so here it is! Made entirely from 4x2 cheap timber and about 8 foot long - designed to take a substantial wood-turning lathe:

Thrushes have been almost wiped out in more urban areas by slug pellets. Apparently they find them irresistible and they kill them quickly and painfully. One garden "essential" that should be banned! Hedgehogs are also killed by them. The local woodland here has quite a few thrushes - amongst many other species of wildlife - but they don't venture into the back gardens much anymore.

Agreed. I also have a couple of Bay trees, a gooseberry bush and pots with mint, chillies and chives in - all useful in the kitchen. The only new thing I have planted this year is a globe artichoke - my favourite vegetable and almost unobtainable in the local supermarkets and greengrocers. I may not get any heads this year, but by next year - here's hoping. Steamed whole and eaten as a starter with lashings of butter!

Wow! A lot of work gone on there! I don't think I could get into half that much... Most of what's in my garden was left there by the previous owner. Very old cob-stone walls abound, which give it great potential for roses and espaliered trees. Every ground surface is either paving slabs or concrete, so no lawn (a bonus) but nowhere to plant anything new (a slight disadvantage).

I don't have a garden half as large or grand as some shared here - this is how mine looks this evening. The tubs in the foreground have strawberries, behind that is a fig tree, and at the back mixed in the the rose are two apple trees, You get the idea that productive plants are more interesting to me?!

They look different positions to me. The dot is 3 1/2 teeth over from E, whereas the apostrophe is 4 1/2 teeth over.