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Been booked in for my vax jab on wednesday and very pleased with the NHS for geting one of the fastest jabs anywhere in the world .

Just a quick reminder , this cold spell is coming to an end but please remember many small birds wrens blue tits and many others die in weather like this in mild winters so this one is seriously killing lots of them . A few little feeding stations in the garden will lead to many more birds being around in the spring .

Old photo of my cat , nearly eight years ago - shes not changed much just fatter and greadier

We put a sign up to warn the birds but apparently they don't speak Swedish round here.

I'll be honest - I don't entirely buy the "old and sick" line. When our (my girlfriend's!) cats bring in corpses I get more than a bit angry. In the end I had to convince myself that the cats see birds as flying sandwiches. It's the only way I can understand their desire to pounce.

Not so happy to hear rose west and gary glitter were considered more important than me

Not to mention unfrozen water.

For those who have spent more time than I looking at these coins, what’s your thoughts on the level of contact marks for the grade? I realise these are chunky old coins that are seldom seen with good surfaces...However, are these ‘mechanical’ marks too much for you?

My cat has just been trained to be wary of outdoors - she knows its there but just knows it pleases me that she does'nt go there. Shes never been a stray so could not feed herself to save her life , I know she would be a great mouser but because none get in the house theres none for her to kill. A cat will always act differently if it has has been semi wild it has a different perspective on life. My cat goes in the back garden , but knows its a treat and as its well fenced off I am pretty sure she will not jump the fence and run away , she gets watched anyway .

Good luck. Do be aware that you can get adverse effects from the Oxford vaccine but they wear off in about 24 hours. You do get what you pay for - free care is not very good.

Mine was a stray before she came to me in 2012, and was used to her freedom. I found it literally impossible to keep her in from day 2, when she ran out through the front door when I was having something delivered - and they can move damn fast when they choose. I've got a cat flap so she come and go as she wants. Although she doesn't go out much in the Winter. Conversely most of those warm Summer nights she spends outside & sleeps in the house during the days. Somewhat oddly, she's never brought dead mice/birds in the house.

Agreed- I'm miffed that I'm having to wait while two obese acquaintances who haven't ever exercised or eaten proper food go before me. If you look after yourself, you wait longer. If you save money for old age, a care home is £1k a week. If you live like an idiot and p**s it all up the wall, care is free. Immoral. I've also found out that the people in the Vaccine group above me are Danish left-handed Methodist trawler salesmen. You just can't win.

Ok, but really which would you rather have - a top 1926ME with good lustre and strike or a "dotty"? Think I gave away my opinion on that last bit, LOL.

They are Jon, and there is no doubt they do kill many millions of birds and small mammals every year. But the vast majority of birds they kill, would have died shortly afterwards anyway. Even the RSPB concede that - link Bottom line is that cats will be cats. It's hard wired in them to hunt prey.

Martin, the only possible theory I can promote for the apparently low number of very worn F14's is that most collectors, pre melt, were simply looking for LCW under foot, and at that time, were maybe unaware of the other F14 diagnostics. Given that the F14 was a very scarce variety to begin with, and that the LCW is an early casualty of wear, it's entirely plausible that worn examples of the F14 just ended up in the melt - the higher middish grade examples from circulation having been squirrelled away over the preceding decades - and the earlier back they were removed from continuing circulation, the more likely they were to be not so worn that the LCW had disappeared. So I'd bet most of the mid grade ones were collected before 1930. I hope that makes logical sense, although it may not be right. Not simple to find reasons as there are so many variables, and so much completely unrecorded. So it's a bit of a guessing game. Hopefully others will also have ideas.

Thanks, Terry and Mike, for your feedback and picture research. I'll keep my eyes peeled, and maybe one will turn up eventually! But it is odd that given the proliferation of lower grade examples of the general date, one never seems to see an F.14 in such a state. There are other diagnostics that should be identifiable such as the missing sail, the exergue on the left being horizontal and the letters of PENNY being a bit further in from the linear circle, but for a good many years now I have been looking and seen pretty much zero! Maybe they weren't intended to circulate, as a sort of pattern, and only a few were made and which largely never saw use?? Bit like the 1860 beaded border pattern obverse - although there are several lower grade examples of those that clearly have circulated - two on eBay at this very moment! Is "Rarepennyman" on eBay a forum member?

Just scanned through LCA. In 17 years they've sold 6, 3 in more or less BU, and three in mid grade - like this one You're right in that there do seem to be a disproportionately large number of very high grade F14 examples for some weird reason. I wonder if a stash was once found, ex bank and never circulated. Just slowly released for collectors. Although that theory wouldn't explain the differing die cracks also found on unc specimens. If they were all together you'd expect the die cracks to be identical. Funnily enough we discussed this very thing a week or two back on the "More Pennies" thread."

Obverse

Here's my one, I never felt the need to up grade it as it shows the signature very clearly.

Will still be silver under the black bit.

Looks like this is the way my life's going Three elderly golfers walking down the fairway. "Sixty is the worst age to be" said the 60-year-old "You always feel like you have to pee. And most of the time nothing happens". "Ah, that's nothing" said the 70-year-old. "When you're 70, you don't have a bowel movement anymore. You take laxatives, eat prunes, you sit on the toilet all day and nothing happens". "Actually" said the 80-year-old "Eighty is the worst age of all". "Do you have trouble peeing too?" asked the 60-year-old. "No, I pee every morning at 6.00 am. I pee like a racehorse; no problem at all". "Do you have trouble having a bowel movement?" "No, I have one every morning at 6.30 am". Puzzled with this the 60-year-old said "Let's get this straight. You pee every morning at 6.00 am and crap every morning at 6.30 am. So what's so tough about being 80?" "I don't wake up until seven..."

I have just worked through my penny websites adding a "return to top of page" function at the bottom of every page to save users scrolling all the way back to the top to get to the menu. Hopefully it will be useful.

For the musically minded, an earworm

As an aside. I took my 81 year old mother shopping tonight and all she could do is praise my sister who lives 200 miles away and that I don't do enough for her. I've decorated her bungalow,sorted a new bathroom and phone her most days.Shop every week. My wonderful sister buggered off 30 yrs ago. She comes down about every 6/8 weeks and take her out for a meal and maybe a bit of gardening work.Mum has enough £ to employ gardeners odd job men It was the same with my mothers parents.One of her sisters went to Auz and the other to US. My poor dad was left in charge,walking their dog,shopping,bingo lift. BUT.............Tonight she said I can buy a £500 coin because I'm not a bad lad...I didn't see that coming.