Geoff T

The latest edition of Coincraft's "The Phoenix" freesheet describes the Gillick head as being the Machin head several times in one section (but then it does appear to be written by people who wouldn't get through GSCE English).

Yes you would, but ESC gives R2 to the 1930 half crown, which had a mintage of 809,510, and which in my experience isn't as difficult to come by as is often made out. At the same time it grades the 1925, which is also a low mintage, as no different from 1919-1924, ie. all S. ESC's R2 must be a pretty broad range if R4 is "eleven to twenty examples known" and R2 can go as low as 932 for the 1934 wreath crown and still take in the 1930 2/6d. That would make R3 something like 21-931 at the outside. It would be great if ESC gave mintages as well, but you can cross check them in Marles.

Spend £800 on a bottle of wine and once it's drunk it's gone. Spend it on your dream coin and you've got it for ever. G

The recoinage was 1816, but there were no sovereigns or half sovereigns until 1817. Maybe we should celebrate both. I wonder if (when?) we adopt the euro, we'll still produce sovereigns - and britannias - as bullion? Geoff

Looking at my 2004 alongside the 2000/2001/2003 I find considerable differences. The horse - There is barely any definition between the ridge of the horse's rump and the field. It's just about there to the left of the sword but hardly exists to the right. The same is also noticeable under the horse's head, above the rein, and there is poor definition in the upper part of the right hind leg (the one further away). The dragon - The edges of the inner wing are hardly discernable, as are the scales on the upper part of the wings. As you say, they're so damn shiny it makes the job of examinin them so much more awkward. The 2000 and 2001 are starting to tone slightly, with great improvement. Geoff

Gotcha. The one to go for is the 2002, which revived the shield-back as a one-off for the Queen's golden jubilee. If you buy them from the Mint, you pay for the packaging, but I get mine elsewhere (clue, Blackpool) and they just arrive in a capsule. Geoff

Wearing my wine buff hat, if I were to spend £500 on a single bottle (as if) I'd go to a wine dealer and not to a pretentious restaurant where it's undoubtedly something much cheaper with a hefty mark-up. Wearing my musician's hat, I'd generally avoid restaurants with piped muzak anyway, Pachelbel or otherwise. There's a great organisation called Pipedown, which campaigns for a reduction of extraneous music in pubs, restaurants and so forth, but that's another story... G

I'm not sure what you mean by "normal" here. Since 2000 the Mint has been striking two kinds of half sovereign, bullion and proof, as it already did with sovereigns. If either can be called "normal" it's the former and all of mine fall into this category. The proof version, as you know, is quite different. I was comparing like with like. Geoff

To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting! What can I say? Thanks! (Now I'm going to have to lie down - it's all getting too much for me). Geoff

Oli, if you go along Tib Street from Debenham's, Affleck's is at the end on the corner. Turn right at that corner and cross over. Lever St. is on the other side off the continuation of Church Street. Dave Clegg Coins is a few metres past the end of the street on the left, up some steps. It's not really visible from the road, but part of a little group of stalls in the entrance to the building at the top of the steps. They used to be in the Corn Exchange before the bomb, then they moved to the Colosseum and, when that closed, their present site. G

Flattery will get you everwhere G

Sorry - this is a reply to the question about what 850 Australian dollars is worth in pounds. Caldy Grammar is very prestigious. I've known a few people who went there. Presumably you also know that Glenda Jackson is an old girl of West Kirby Girls Grammar? (So is my ex-wife, but that's another story... Her brother went to Caldy too.) I was at Park High in the days when it was a grammar school, about 1200 years ago. G

£348.78 (to the nearest penny) as of the moment on www.xe.com Geoff

William, see the notice on my office door next time you're passing - it explains everything about my omniscience... G

Here's a nice story about 1967 pennies. Last year I bought some coins and the seller threw in three uncirculated 1967 pennies as a freebie. In June I played in a performance of Elgar's "Enigma variations" where, in the penultimate variation, Elgar asks the timpanist to play the drums with the edge of two coins to evoke the rumble of a ship's engine. In the past the player would just produce two pennies from their pocket but these days there are no decimal coins which work so well, so I lent a couple of the 1967s to this particular timpanist and they worked a treat. So they do have their uses! G

Shame on you! It's where the best people study and work, isn't it William? Oxford Road is one of the main roads going south out of Manchester, the "academic corridor" where the Universities, the RNCM and the Business School are. Affleck's Palace is brilliant - I got a new dinner jacket there recently for £30 last year. Did you pop over the road and visit Dave Clegg Coins on Lever Street? He doesn't have a huge amount of stuff but I've had a couple of nice things from him and he's not over-pricey. Geoff

Isn't it wonderful being talked about behind your back I don't know a thing about banknotes. When William first described this one I thought it might be issued for use in India, but the lettering looks Arabic. He could bring it to show me next time I'm at work on a Saturday but I doubt if I'll be able to help. Sorry I've not responded sooner, but I've spent the weekend playing Mahler 5 and lovingly gazing at my newly acquired 1690 Roettiers medal of Mary II as regent. Geoff

It undoubtedly does. The Dukedoms of Edinburgh, Connaught and Albany were held by Victoria's sons Alfred, Arthur and Leopold and the other titles relate to the husbands of her daughters. It can't be earlier than 1877 because that's the year she became Empress of India. I suspect it's later from the reference to the various daughters' titles and could well be connected with the jubilee of 1897. The other clue to dating is the reference to York - this is the future George V as Duke of York, a title he was only given after he became heir presumptive in 1892. Any chance of a picture? Geoff

Thanks Sylvester. Apart from the florins, the silver is stuff I have already, although the two 1937s sound interesting if they really are proofs. Glad to see you're a William IV fan though - Wyon's effigy beats them all in my book. Geoff

This is way outside my area, but what you describe sounds like Henry VIII halfpenny. "Rosa sine spina" means "rose without a thorn" and appeared on several denominations of Tudor silver coinage. Any hammered specialists out there who can shed any more light on this? Geoff

I could be interested in your dead wood - tell me more! Geoff

If it's 1781 it can't be Philip I, who was King of Spain much earlier. In 1781 the King of Spain was Charles (Carlos) III - which opens ups a number of possibilities. Geoff

I'm not an expert on banknotes but it sounds as if what you have is a note intended for colonial use. Are you sure that the foreign language is Arabic? Banknotes were introduced when it became untenable to maintain gold currency in circulation. Strictly speaking they were (and still are) effectively cheques or paper tokens which guaranteed that the bank would "pay the bearer on demand" the sum on the note. In 1915 we still had the gold standard, which ensured that the Bank of England had enough reserves of gold to honour all the banknotes in circulation. Eventually banknotes came to be seen as currency in their own right, although I think that wasn't made official in law until 1957. Geoff

Damn - I'm still the oldest! My kids are quite mercenary about the whole idea of coin collecting. My daughter was 21 last month so I gave her, inter alia, a silver proof 1983 £1 because £1 coins appeared the year she was born. Her initial reaction was to ask "How much is it worth and when should I sell it?" My son (18 this summer) admits to wanting to liberate "the geek within" which he feels he's repressed since those childhood days of collecting and ordering (like recording The Planets in the "right" order because Holst got it wrong). I've warned him that this could lead to a serious fetish for little round metal things... Geoff

I've no real objection to the Maklouf Elizabeth II obverse, but I do think his Edward VIII retropatterns are hideous. Not only do they make the king look like JFK, but they don't even begin to refer to the elegant designs produced by Percy Metcalfe, Kruger Gray and others for the real thing. Anyone who want to see what we missed out on should take a look at Graham Dyer's HMSO monograph "The proposed coinage of King Edward VIII". Geoff