oldcopper

It doesn't even get begin or end anywhere near a mainline London station like Euston. Apparently it can only go to Stratford, 45 minutes trip from Euston. So the much vaunted rapid journey time, which is how it was sold to us, is a farce. It should have been kicked into the long grass a long time ago. There was a chance to strangle it in 2019 but Johnson for some reason wanted it to continue. Still ,could anyone brief me on Labour's opposition to HS2 as its projected cost has risen from the original civil service back of a beer mat estimate of 25 billion (from memory) to over 100 billion. Not a squawk as far as I'm aware. Where is the opposition in this country? And the UK is 2.5 trillion pounds in debt. So how can we even afford it? Oh yes, more borrowing.

Encapsulated by Labour's take on the Alison Rose saga. Because the bank had wrapped itself in this hard-left ideology, much of it pushed through by Rose, she was "one of them". So Labour had no comment on her 5.2 million pound salary, and subsequent 2.4 million pound payoff. Rather they weirdly defended her in an identity politics victimhood scenario with Rachel Reeve saying she thought Alison Rose had been "bullied". No evidence was provided for this as none is ever needed of course for the woke oppression narrative. Some victim, broke the rules and gets an x million pound payoff! An interesting theory suggests this corporate wokery all really got going around 2010 as "Occupy Wall Street" were pressurising the financial sector, compounded by the bad publicity about greedy bankers as a result of their reputation for being massively overpaid and incompetent since the 2008 crash. How to neutralise this? - pretend you're on their side, talk the language of the adolescent woke left, have it enforced by ESG, perhaps another protective mechanism from the world's most powerful financial organisations, and finally frame the narrative carefully through the corporate-owned media. Then the financial sector will be free to carry on making their zillions without anyone even raising a murmur. Well it has certainly worked. The left are so gullible that 15 years go they were outraged at bankers' hugh bonuses, as was everyone else, but now they're complete kittens to corporate greed, because these corporations fly rainbow flags, swear allegiance to BLM and have DIE courses.

Political correctness, woke - it means using whenever possible words like "NazI" and "far-right" to constantly vilify people who don't subscribe wholly to their creed. No grey areas are allowed. It's been infused into us for over 60 years and accelerated strongly about three years ago with the advent of George Floyd and Coronavirus. No coincidence of course and all planned. It means ignoring or downplaying Pakistani grooming gangs yet visiting people's houses who have eg misgendered someone on social media to record an Orwellian "non-crime hate incident". I'll give you a perfect example of this propaganda from the Guardian a few years ago, the title "Most child sexual abuse gangs made up of white men" https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/15/child-sexual-abuse-gangs-white-men-home-office-report and from the BBC's report on the grooming gang paper in question from the Home Office: "Research has found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white." See, what are these far-rightists going on about? From the main three studies quoted, in one 42% were white, 35% ethnic (the largest of which was black at 17%), from another the figures were 30% whites to 28% Asian, so quite close. In another, out of 52 of these gangs recorded, half were Asian and only 11 were white. None of these figures were given in the Guardian article, but can be got from the Home Office report via the BBC article. But what a slam dunk! But hang on, aren't most murderers in China going to be...errr...Chinese? For example. Exactly, firstly the white population of the UK is about 6 times larger than the ethnic population, and nearly 15 times larger than the Pakistani-origin Muslim one. Not mentioned. Secondly figures aren't currently available from large towns and cities where active investigation was still occurring such as Telford, a massive Pakistani grooming centre, and thirdly, the police didn't always record the ethnicity of offenders for some unknown, perhaps politically correct, reason. These factors weren't mentioned either. And where were the whistle-blowers in these Pakistani communities? Literally thousands were involved, spanning decades. One can only assume no one saw anything wrong with it, or they all lived in fear. So the Guardian, in order to get to its big point, deliberately misleads its readers. They're so keen on the over-representation argument when it suits them, such as the police/race dynamic in the US (very misleading if you look at the violent crime rates), but cannot mention a much greater over-representation when it doesn't suit them. And let's not forget the grooming that is overtly racist, as white girls are nearly always the victims of Pakistani-origin groomers. They don't seem to do it to their own. This wasn't mentioned either. What a surprise. This is how much propaganda works - it's lying by omission. You are only given the part of the picture to make you think what they want you to think. The same of course goes for the Home office paper, obviously slanted as much as possible to muddy the waters and happy to assert the meaningless "most are whites" comment without context. But the figures still speak for themselves So what the Guardian headline should have said was: "Whites and Chinese least likely to form child sexual abuse gangs." I'm guessing the Chinese aren't big offenders. Woke also means the constant demonisation of white, Western societies as fundamentally bad and built on oppression and racism. The "far right" is always used a a bogeyman, yet in reality means people who object to mass immigration, and lately the sexualisation of very young children and the sexual mutilation of children and young people (see the latest Costa advert), and much more of what the globalists decree as our new Orwellian truth. Even Ulez protestors are "far-right extremists" according to Sadiq Khan, whom it's now known has pressurised scientists and falsified the scientific evidence for introducing it. This woke illness has come from the top and promoted by the media with its excesses brushed under the carpet. Quota systems, identity politics - if people don't see what a danger this poses to any meritocratic society and the incentive to work hard, use your brain and be a success, then they are naive to say the least. Stupid and evil could be two other words that apply.

Well said. The news is that 77 NHS trusts have signed up to the "Rainbow Badge Scheme" where they get points for degenderising the workplace ie when talking to patients etc. This has apparently originated from an internal unit in NHS England and has no mandate from any of the staff - it has basically been forced on them like much else of this nonsense. Just why "breast feeding" should be re-named "chest-feeding" for instance is a mystery to possibly everyone. And mother as "birther", Peckris might think that's progress, but it's just dehumanising people. Well said. I think providing specific information, as Paddy did, makes things much more credible. And if there's no blow-back from the NHS, then the story is of course true. Perhaps there will be, I very much doubt it though as this is an easily checkable story which the journalist will have done already. This information is also available from other sources, such as an interview by Julia Hartley-Brewer on Talk Radio, available on YouTube. Peckris has given no facts about anything, nothing specific, as usual it's just platitudes, slogans and in this case, asserting a certain woke isn't "extreme" is his opinion. Was that his big argument? So how can he say he's stating facts or whatever. Where are they? Have I missed something? I'll give the Mail this - though they sadly toe the line on Climate Change and other such stuff, they do now and again publicise things the rest of the media shy away from, such as Biden's corruption and the sinister absurdness of this wokery being forced on us. There is a very good article on this in, yes, The Daily Mail, which also contains a piece by Professor Angus Dalgleish, Professor of Oncology, whom I have seen give a public talk before, about the corrosive effect of all these Diversity, Equity and Inclusion courses all NHS staff now have to their waste time on, rather than actually doing their job.

The trouble is there's no debate because when you put the Daily Mail clipping to Peckris, he pulls out the cliched lazy get-out clause so beloved of the Left: "The Daily Mail, you can't believe a word they say etc etc etc!" Which is very convenient, because a person with even less self-awareness than Peckris can see that cancelling the words mother and woman is not a good look. So isn't that lucky he doesn't have to discuss it with you. And the Cabinet Minister and the other MPs who are complaining about it, and who are probably referred to on page 6 - that's all completely made up by the Mail as well? Let's analyse this. If the Mail either made up the story or got it completely wrong, let's consider what would happen? Firstly, they'd get a complaint in writing from one or more of the involved parties and would then have to issue a subsequent apology and retraction at the very least. If this were not enough, or it was not forthcoming, they would then be referred to the press regulator.and perhaps be taken to court. Thus any newspaper is going to have to be pretty sure that what they print about any organisation or powerful people like politicians is based on facts, unless it's obviously opinion. They cannot afford it not to be. So presumably Peckris has examples of hundreds of cases of the Mail being sued for printing false stories about powerful people or organisations? Because they do it all the time, right? No of course he doesn't. There may have been a few over the decades but that's true of every paper. It's his way of avoiding the subject. And Peckris airily assures us that NHS "users" are referred to as "clients". But this story is specifying maternity clinics, not just general "users" of health services, who will usually have non-sexually specific conditions. So he changes the story to fit his narrative. And when was the last time he hung out in a Maternity Ward? And where does this one come from? - "NHS Trusts who (voluntarily) listen to Stonewall or other such organisations wouldn't get very far with their patients" I'm so glad that the first question that Mrs Spriggs and her haemorrhoids will have is to ask the receptionist is how involved that NHS trust is with Stonewall, because if it is, she's going to march out of the door and find another hospital to have her operation (in 6 months time). We can safely say that Peckris talks nothing but complete nonsense.

That's alright, Michael can't dispute any of my points so he has to fall back on name-calling. Par for the course.

Never mind the Spanish Inquisition, here come the Puritan woke! Closely followed by the grammar police..... A harmless and wryly amusing joke in my opinion, playing on our stereotyping, but in your eyes not as funny as picturing Trump and Hitler greeting each other, truly sophisticated humour that, or thinking about it, berating someone for having the temerity to design their own book cover not up to your expert standards.

Yes, I expect I'll go and have a look at them at some stage.

Though DNW say on the web that it's been graded by NCG without specifying a grade, now I've received the hard catalogue (£25 - ouch!) that isn't in it. Some of the collection has been only recently slabbed (as they weren't bought as slabbed), but some of it is not slabbed, including some big items like the silver P.1086. And some coins have been removed from slabs. It seems quite random, and not dependant on date of purchase. It would be interesting to know why.

One of them went for £2,200 in the Spink Sept 2015 auction, that provenance mentioned in the catalogue, as part of a collection (Andy Scott?). Nice coin in that case, a bit mottled on the reverse, but unfortunately quite a few other coins in that collection were artificially toned. And even worse was in one that I bought, the colour was more like painted on rather than baked in (however they do it!), as even a light dab of a cotton glove to remove a bit of debris resulted in a light brown area of under-copper suddenly appearing amongst all that colour! Unsurprisingly I was not happy, but rubbing that side on a carpet did make it look better if a little weird, and I sold it soon after. Then it reappeared in another dealer's tray at the LCF a few months later looking vastly "improved"! Poor coin. The KT3 gilt is interesting - fantastic looking coin. I saw it at St James auction 2014 preview, and this is the only time I had ever seen this, but the coin had been shrink-wrapped, or perhaps "vacuum packed" in a cellophane or clingfilm type plastic skin. I asked Mr Fenton about this and he airily said it was for protection. It only occurred to me afterwards to wonder how you would take it off. I presume it's not been slabbed still in its plastic skin, though I notice DNW haven't mentioned the slabbing grade in their catalogue. "Unc details - clingfilmed" perhaps!?

I should have asked at the time - it wasn't a bad coin apart from the defects.

I don't think gold and early proof sets really count for many collectors - they're now mainly collected by investors from what I can see. Which of us is going to fork out the best part of 100k (or the best part of half a million upwards for a good 1839!) for one of the old proof sets? Especially as you could pick up a nice one for 10-25K 20 years ago. Anyone seen the Philip Richardson mainly Soho collection now listed on DNW? There's 200 lots on there. Some nice coins.... I notice one anomaly, to do with the gilt 1797 inscribed edge KP5 penny. DNW refer to the coin as a one off, and the inscription was referred to in Peck as a later adulteration in a footnote. Now, whether it is or not I don't know, but In Baldwins 47 (Gregory II) one of these was the front cover coin, in beautiful and brilliant mint state no less. A stunner. However, a more ropey one turned up in their auction a few years later, scratched and edge knocked, but it was given exactly the same provenance as their supposedly unique earlier mint state one. This is the one in DNW. So either someone bought it in Baldwins 47 (£2,800 hammer), kept it in their pocket for several years, then resold it (£460 hammer!), or more likely there are at least two of these coins in existence, both identically and incusely inscribed. In which case it is more likely that the edge is a contemporary and official addition.

Separate from the proofs of course, but I wonder how they were stored or given to people as quite a few of each variety were made. Or perhaps the Mint just stuck them in a cupboard for a long time, but they must have sold them/given them away at some stage.

What surprises me is that, as there obviously seem to be more of some of these proofs than were issued in the sets, why haven't any survived with an original case, Royal Mint envelope or whatever packaging they would originally have been put in? There are no contemporary official boxes around for any individual proofs of the Wyon proof set years as far as I know. Same with the pattern florins of the late 1840's for instance. About 25 years ago in SNC there was a fantastic set of all three main Gothic crown varieties (2 x1847, 1853) plus several of the different florin patterns in a plush velvet case, but that my have been a later case.

I've never seen a clear William III BRIVANNIA halfpenny, although this is still listed in some catalogues. More likely a damaged T in the cases I've seen, with no telltale middle gap. Spink are inconsistent, they don't list copper patterns, although some of these (the Medusa and the DEI GRATIA eg) were seemingly just released as currency. Yet for instance 1826 George IV/Wm IV crowns, and all the 5 and 2 guineas/5 and 2 pounds (except 1823 £2) from George III to Una and the Lion, though patterns, are listed and priced. If I remember rightly (haven't bought a Spink catalogue for some years) several edge/border varieties of the Una and the Lion are listed and priced. The staff are probably too busy to re-write it to any extent.

"the rims although equal in height to the currency coin are more raised from the fields". A nonsense comment from LC. If the field was lower in relation to the rims which are the same thickness as normal currency, then the coin would have been struck on a thinner flan and thus be lighter. As there's no mention of a light weight, presumably it is of normal weight and hence normal flan thickness. So any suggested lower field observation is just an optical illusion.

Missing/incomplete stems in the floral exergue is presumably caused by die blockage. You'd expect fine line engraving to be the most vulnerable to blocking, see Charles II halfpenny date numerals. In proofs I've seen it on some 1831 pennies but not on others. Same with the George IV 1825 copper proofs. So this factor most likely develops on the die during use ie some will show it and some won't. In this case it's a reused die overstamped, so it will be diagnostic if the blocked stem was already there when the overdating was done, which it probably was (unless anyone finds an example with full stems).

And....a broad sail veiled head 1894 pattern went for ~10K dollars (from memory) a few years ago at Stacks and Bowers, part of a fantastic bronze penny collection. London Coins had previously sold a nice one for £1600 hammer back in 2006. Which all means that if anyone wants to form a veiled head penny pattern collection (2 coins), they've missed the boat by about 15 years. If anyone on here bought that 1894 pattern from LC, well done!

£12,880 you mean!

As being defined as "industrialising" nations, yes China and India for example have got a free pass, this is enshrined in previous treaties - they can use as much fossil fuel, mainly coal, as they want. So China using a further 300 million tons last year to bring its annual consumption of coal to over 3 billion tons. And remember, coal is the worst CO2 emitter per energy produced, of any fossil fuel. I presume that's giving you sleepless nights - if not, why not? CO2 levels are at record highs mainly due to massive coal burning, but not in the West. And if Biden is doing so great on the renewables front, how come he's just given permission to open up the huge Willow Field, set in pristine wilderness in Alaska. Any thoughts on that, and does it mean that unlike Starmer, the US still has some grasp of reality? So are they going to transport Willow's fossil fuel to the remainder of the US by tanker, or use an existing pipeline or build one? They cancelled one pipeline a couple of years ago.

I expect he sees the ones he wants to see! He can probably see all of them - it's just a convenient excuse for getting out of answering any of my questions after he comes out with his usual nonsense. It's the same old story - there is no real perspective or realism in Peckris's blithe platitudes. It's all taken at face value from the media or politicians. He hasn't thought about it. He "hopes" China will come round - Xi has said that China will only change over to renewable energy when "others have shown it to be a success". If China can gain vast economic power from being the only country in the world that can do energy-intensive manufacturing, Xi isn't going to kill his golden goose - virtually limitless cheap energy, and the unfortunate result of net zero will be the complete economic ascendancy of China. So we're basically enabling a slave state to become the economic powerhouse of the world because they can, and do, burn as much coal as they want. To make all our renewables like solar panels for instance! Xi is safe enough in his stance - no one will ever make a success of it of course, as the renewables shebang has two huge flaws: its energy is not storable on any scale thus has to be used when made, and the supply is variable and uncontrollable. It's weather dependant, and cannot be magicked up when needed. You can't have bigger elephants in the room than that. "The wind will keep on blowing" - as you say, not if we have an anti-cyclone above us which happened for a prolonged period this Winter. And in Winter solar is basically useless with long nights and weak light, not forgetting it produces nothing for 50% of the year, ie night. So solar is only really significant on high Summer days when we least need the energy. So on not very windy days in Winter, how many nuclear power stations, small modular or otherwise, would we need to effectively produce 100% backup for ALL our energy needs? That would entail charging all vehicles, warming all buildings, hot water, all industry and all current electrical stuff? And how is our nuclear building programme going at the moment? We're tricked on every level - we're told renewables produce up to 50% of our electricity, often craftily called "energy" instead as if it's our total energy requirement. And yes it does produce up to 50%, but only now and again. But it also produces less than 5% of our electricity at other times. They don't tell us that, but just employ the phrase "up to". They don't mention that much of the rest of the electricity is generated by gas. And that's to order, unlike renewables. But electricity is only currently about 20% of our total energy consumption, the remainder being mainly fossil fuels with a bit of nuclear, that means our billions of pounds investment in renewables provides 20% of between 5% and 50% - so less than 1% to maximum 10% of our total energy requirement, produced randomly of course. Where does one start on this? - there are so many holes in it. Like some elderly acquaintances of ours who have just bought a mid-range EV, so as to tell everyone they're "saving the planet"! Help, help, help.....!!!

Thanks, that's probably what they mean though they aren't really right.

Politics today: One side: we'll do something insane. The other side: we'll do something even insaner. Vote for us! I would like the climate alarmists (eg Peckris, I know he can read my comments) to explain why the West signed up to these climate treaties that gave "industrialising" nations such as China and India a free pass to emit as much CO2 as they wanted. They are primarily responsible for the world now emitting more man-made CO2 than at any time before. I like the analogy of us trying to empty a bath with a teaspoon while China fills it up with a bucket. That sums this lunacy up, whether or not you believe in the man-made CO2 driving climate change theory.

Don't know why it says Germany was invaded in 1953. Am I missing something? East Germany was established in 1949 but had been in Russian hands since 1945.

All three of Peck's 1826 copper proofs were in the Verene collection, all ex the June 2012 Spink auction and before ex Glendinings in a 60's auction (I think as one lot then?). They are beautiful multi-coloured coins.