Rob

Not to mention overfishing. Many a quiet moonless night spent on Chesil Beach when the only thing you can hear is a boat's engine ticking over not far offshore. Needless to say, no lights showing That's where your fish have gone.

That's because 40 or 50 years ago you could spend a couple hours on the beach and virtually guarantee a three figure haul. All the neighbours used to receive some foc. Those days have effectively gone, with typical catches of a handful to a few dozen caught on the odd occasion now in the same timeframe. They go in the freezer.

The problem with established provenances is that they are lost with considerably more ease than they are found. A person's labour of love proving a provenance is instantly negated by the auction house cataloguer failing to record it in the sale catalogue. Any slab label will only provide one previous owner at best, which again negates all the good work done. Keeping the details on a coin ticket will only work as long as the ticket remains with the coin. Auction houses and TPGs are a bit hit and miss in keeping info with the coin. The point about leaving the wax is that any lost blobs from the impression then become part of the coin's relief detail, with the missing wax forming an identifiable feature in the auction catalogue. i.e it does matter that all of it stays.

They didn't reply, but seem to have quietly dropped the idea, or at least don't openly advertise it. They were proudly advertising the ability to remove unsightly deposits such as wax, so I wrote a letter, which GC then put it into more delicate terms. Richard (I think?) brought it to my attention on this forum.

You have to stay ahead of the game. Being a hostage to the whims of your creditors is not a good place to be. You have to generate real profits to keep your lenders off your back.

You don't remove wax. It is one of the main pieces of evidence of previous illustration, even if you don't know where it came from. I wrote an email emphasising this point to PCGS a few years ago when they were promoting their conservation destruction of historical evidence service.

I'm not aware of any auction room that used green wax. Sotheby and Glendining both used red , but depending on when and who, came in varying shades from bright scarlet to a dark red with a distinct purple hue.

I'm not convinced a profit margin of 4.3% could be considered big profits. It's a reasonable amount given they have to cover services to the back of beyond at a fixed price, but certainly not excessive.

All very interesting. Assuming the groat is on a smaller flan of 21mm relative to a sixpence at 25mm and looking at the pics I would say the sixpence has used the same head and crown punches as those used on the groat, but not the shoulders/chest. I couldn't find a coin in Brooker, Schneider or elsewhere which used this style of shoulder punch, but with the caveat that it could be damaged given the lack of V shaped drapery. I also don't know when or whether the sixpences used a complete crown/head/chest punch. These were introduced on the shillings starting with Sharp E3/2 (tun), but it doesn't necessarily follow that the 6d punches were also a single piece from that date - could be earlier, later or never. Assuming I have interpreted this correctly, that would suggest they were short of 6d punches at the Tower in late 1645, resorting to making up a bust from obsolete part punches and also leaves open the possibility of a pure Eye 6d with this bust surfacing at some point. More research required.

Take a trip to the beach, catch your own, and then stick them in the freezer. A few dozen mackerel in the fridge at a time, plus whatever else you can catch provides a pleasant change from shop bought produce. Best of all, you can't beat the taste of mackerel cooked on the beach 10 minutes after you caught it - a splendid breakfast on a summer's morning as you wait for the sun to pop it's head over the horizon.

Good. I thought it was my end.

I'm not. The attraction of steering clear and not being bombarded with vacuous trivia speaks for itself.

Facebook - where being 'Johnny, no mates' is a real bonus.

AEGELRIC, Shaftesbury. I assume this is the same moneyer as AETHELRIC which North gives as a moneyer during Ae2, while AEGELRIC appears in Cnut having displaced the former spelling. However, EMC doesn't offer Aegelric as an option for any reign. Whatever, it has to be the same person.

Self serving. Nobody ever says they are crap. The problem is they live in parallel universes, where the sun shines both on them and from them.