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I'm finalising due diligence on this piece, here's the provenance the seller has provided but would like to know more about such a striking coin ... hoping someone can help? @Rob? The provenance so far is superb of course, I would like to go back further! Provenance: Spink Numismatic Circular 1985 (£850) Spink Numismatic Circular 1986 (£850) Spink Auction 117, 1996 £605 hammer ex Coins of Britain 2016 Ex Maurice Bull Collection

Not if it is shilled. I've lost count of the number of second offers I have had on pricier (and cheaper) items. The number of people who it is claimed haven't paid when I have come second seems far in excess of the percentage of buyers who haven't paid me for items won.

So, Paddy, if you stop an auction to sell to a regular client, for, say, £100, how do you know that the auction, had it continued, wouldn't have raised £200? I've been in the position where I've left a bid of £1000 on some old electronics, and the auction has been stopped at a couple of hundred. Very frustrating. It turned out I knew the buyer and he had offered £500 and the seller took it. I also knew the seller and was going to tell him he lost £500....but did he?.........? Second bidder may only have bidder £110.... The only problem here isn't monetary- it's moral. My view is that if you can't find a buyer for something, then auction it on ebay. If you take it down because a buyer contacts you, you've used ebay as an advertising site, which it isn't. In the vintage pro-audio business, people who mess people about on ebay generally have to pay more for stuff from other collectors since everyone knows what they are like. People in the business don't rush to recommend them either. They are only successful when dealing with people who don't know anything. This costs them in the long run. After all, they have no idea whom they have really annoyed every time they stopped an auction..... If ebay ran like an auction house, so when you put up an item it stayed up until the end, things would be better.

It depends on what you want. As a general reference North is still ok. If you want specialised books, then you have to look at specifics such as The Coinage of Offa and his Contemporaries by Derek Chick; Coinage in Tenth Century England by Blunt, Stewart and Lyon; for specific mints, The Lincoln Mint by H R Mossop or The Ipswich Mint (3 vols.) by John Sadler; for Scandinavian copies then The Anglo-Scandinavian Coinage c.995-1020 by Brita Malmer is good. There are an increasingly large number of detailed volumes, but any volume encompassing all info for all reigns would be impractically large which is why North is still worthwhile as a good general guide, giving as it does the basics plus variety info. It's a bit dated now due to finds since 1992, but covers most of what is out there. If you want to find out how knowledge has developed down the years, then Ruding, Hawkins or Greuber together with papers from the Numismatic Chronicle and BNJ will all form part of the story.

I was watching four or five of his coins, including the 1860 T over T penny, one of a batch of identical coins sold by Baldwins a couple of years ago- I bought one then and I know Secret Santa did too; his coin, now slabbed, had already reached double the Baldwins hammer price. And the nice 1868 penny was already at a good figure, and his William and Maria halfpenny, stated to be UNC (more like AEF to me and not a particularly good strike) was at £700ish, all were withdrawn together, with three days to go. Altogether rather strange unless he made a bulk sale, or just felt the market wasn’t supporting his aspirations. Jerry

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

I'm starting to get really bored now.. .

Another newbie, type 3a3, ex Bull

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-52843846