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The original picture posted for this item was a pair of spectacles and not an 1854 penny !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would think them to be about as rare as the 1903 open 3 Mike, but there are a few really top grade examples around unlike the open 3 .

I got mine from Michael Gouby in 2001 for £125. Seems quite a bargain now.

Blind leading the blind. I've learned to check both sides now. 🙄 I just got lumbered with the job. In which case there may be a few bargains available. 😎

Should have been easy to spot no anne patterns for 1711 are known

I think it must be, although his Wikipedia entry makes no mention of that book, when you search on Amazon the title comes up with both Terry Pratchett and Gray Jolliffe on the cover. GJ is best known (apparently) for his Wicked Willie series...

On WorldofCoins, Malcolm Johnson has come up with the answer: "HME - HORDERN, MASON & EDWARDS Cincinnati began as a small machine shop in the downtown area of the city of the same name in Ohio, USA, in the mid 1860s. After World War II it took over the Birmingham (UK) press manufacturers Hordern, Mason & Edwards, of Vesey Street, Birmingham, (HME) who had been approached by the Royal Mint in the early 1960s to prepare a specialist modern coining press suitable for the quantities of UK coins needed when the country changed over to a decimal system; the Mint estimated that 150 additional presses alone would be needed. HME designed the Coinmaster, a forged steel press with a novel rotary feed plate, which was subsequently sold to many mints the world over. In 1969 the parent company name changed to Cincinnati Milacron, reflecting the rapid development of plastics and injection moulding in the company’s markets; the name was changed again to Milacron Inc in 1998" Thanks Mal

Absolutely Peter, her and all the others. I remember how, 10-15 years ago, I would spend and enjoyable hour or two hunting for coins on ebay several times each week.. It was fun, and there were always one or two proper rarities to be found which a seller may not have been aware of when listing. Now, there's so much repro being sold as genuine, washers being described as 'high grade', worthless 1971 pennies on at hundreds or thousands, that I can't even be bothered to look anymore.