Fubar

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon trying to find an upgrade from XP to 7 pro with no luck whatsoever. You can get all sorts of OEM versions of 7 but no official upgrades. I won't consider 8 without having a touch screen. I've found it too difficult to use without. My second PC, above, was another Digico based around a Z80A processor and running CP/M. WRT the first one - look in the mirror on the second pic. This was my third and I still have it but now with an 8 meg Winchester in place of the top floppie. My son (pictured) is now in his 30s with a son as old as he was when this was taken. I occasionally fire the beast up to play a couple of games. Originally adapted from the Heathkit it was changed a lot by the time this "Prince III" came along.

Is that a Digital PDP-11? (DEC). That looks like the usual config, CPU/ 2 Drives/9 track tape. That was a popular unit early on. It looks like you are ready for any contingency with the full set of replacement cards on top of the Tape Drive! Ha, Ha! See my reply just above yours - there's been some Photoshop jiggery pokery going on I can assure you there's been no Photoshop jiggery-pokery going on at all. It took an awful lot of looking after - A Digico M28 with 3 Pertec 23Mb hard drives, a Pertec tape deck and around a couple of Meg of RAM. OK if you want to do some accounts, word processing or play DND.

Then I migrated to this. Just a bit more compact.

This was my first computer. Fortunately I managed to sell it on when 'er indoors kicked off about losing the front room.

I shall have to look closer at my "collection" of world coins. Mostly just thrown in a cabin drawer when leaving a foreign port then scooped up when paying off and consigned to the sock drawer at home for years.

Some local shops in our market town will only accept cheques or cash but they are becoming rarer these days. The auction house I work for will no longer accept cheques from buyers except for some long time regulars. They still pay vendors by cheque though rather than BACS. The last cheques I wrote were in November last year for fridge and washing machine repairs with local repairmen. Always handy to have and I can't see them disappearing completely for quite a while. Although my phone can do it I doubt I will use near field contact (NFC) to pay for anything. Don't trust it.

And that reminds me of the Brummy fisherman who caught a 'whale' and threw it back because it had no spokes in it!Tommy Cooper! Once, while in a large Birmingham shopping mall, whose name escapes me, we asked, with my wife's Essex accent, for directions to a toy store and ended up at The Tie Shop.

That's a good reproduction Kris - is that on the Epson V500, or V600? That's scanned on the Epson Perfection 4870 Photo that must be getting on for 6 or 7 years old. Probably the equivalent of the V500 or V600 today. The latest ones use LED lamps and mine's plasma so there's no longer a direct equivalent.

My scanner goes up to 4800 dpi true optical resolution and can be forced up to 12,800 dpi using computer generated interpolation. That's something to be careful about because the highest scanned resolution given is not necessarily truly optical. If you have slides or negatives to scan then I've found the Epson ideal. It has overhead lighting to backlight slides etc. The attached was scanned from a 1950s glass 4x4 slide and came out originally at 13419x11447 pixels and 15.4MB. It shows that big resolution is not everything because the film grain starts to show up and does nothing for the final quality. Regards Kris

I use an Epson as well. A Perfection 4870 Photo that's getting a bit long in the tooth now. The bed's scratched from scanning things I shouldn't but still does a good job. I'm told by various phtographic programs that I have nearly 28,000 photographs on this PC but that probably includes the internet cache. Most of those are scanned pictures of ships and slides from my time at sea. The current camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28 which I use a lot. Even though it's only 10MP it does a good job. Digital is definitely too easy but being old film school type I'm always loathe to delete the failures. My Yashica 35mm with a bag full of lenses has been inheritied by my son who still likes 35mm. I used all manner of cameras while at sea from Brownie Box, through Canon to Praktica and settled on the latter until the Yashica came along. I have an Olympus OM-10 and various other veteran, vintage and antique cameras knocking around as decorator's pieces. Plus a selection of Bolex, Braun. Pethescope, etc., 8mm cine cameras. I managed to get hold of a Bell & Howell 16mm projector last year at auction for a tenner because no-one wanted it and have just got hold of a 16mm film to show on it (cost 5 times as much as the projector). So now yet another winter project on hand overhauling the projector that hasn't been serviced in too many years. Same model as we used at sea to show Saturday movies so I know how to work it. I never fancied the amateur route to radio even in training and the last thing I wanted to do on leave was listen to more morse. I must admit to being impressed by an amateur rig in New Guinea that contacted someone just down the street from my parents in Hull whereas I couldn't raise Oz from there. If I could get hold of an Oceanspan and get licenced to do some work on 500kHz or thereabouts I might give it a go. If I get really nostalgic after a few beers I can listen to the amateurs banging away on my marine receiver.

Wot they said + Godt Nyttar

I had an Ancestry account for a long time and then found that I was no longer using it since I seem to have reached the end of the road as far as my family history was concerned. There's a limit when you find that two paternal great grandparents were probably Irish and the family name changed in the 19th century because one of them couldn't spell. He was a foundling from London and apprenticed to be a fisherman in Grimsby. The other was in the British Army for 40 years and only just learned to write his name. Apart from that he was quite a naughty boy and in 1871 is listed as being banged up in Dover Castle for fighting. The latter's records were acquired by a direct visit to Kew while researching some local aviation history of WWII PI (Pre Internet) The other side are all Swedish farmers or Norwegian seamen which probably makes them distantly related to the Irish ones anyway. Family legend has it that one of them fought at Stamford Bridge in 1066 on the losing side but then Norway always had such a small population that everyone is descended from some Viking or other. The Norwegian records are on line and easily accessible plus Humberside have a good site for research leading to copies of birth ceritifcates. Quite up to date so that I can even look up my own wedding details. At least I had my Ancestry account long enough for the WWI burnt records to come on line and finally got my grandfather's records and details of family moves from the 1911 census. I didn't need the earlier records because I have his Boer War diary. The most difficult thing is getting hold of ancestral photographs from other family members when "splits" have occurred in relationships as grandparents etc., have passed on. Being a war baby of a war bride means I have a lot of history and the filing cabinet is overflowing. My better half's family are just as bad with maternal grandfather running off to Australia and paternal grandmother being born on the wrong side of the blanket. If you have parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., talk to them and get them to identify folks in photographs. Otherwise they'll just get binned. Cheers Kris

No need to lose all your data if the hard drive is still good. Take it out of the laptop and fit it into a USB caddie. You don't have to keep the software on a new laptop if you don't like it. You can still get hold of older Windows versions if you want them. Hibernate shouldn't have flattened your battery but if you use it on the adaptor all the time you wouldn't necessarily notice that the battery was knackered (official computer speak). Sounds like the socket as you suspect and it can be something as simple as a dry joint where it connects to the board. A common compaint because of the current flowing through an inadequate soldered joint. Although they can also break internally because of the strain.

It used to be that auction estimates were 40% to 60% of found retail value but of late this has shrunk to 25% to 35%, if not less. Except where an identical item has been sold at auction within the last 6 months. "Identical" being the operative word. Almost impossible to assess. It is usually felt that a lot at auction will reach the price it deserves if catalogued correctly. Plus, when valuing anything for auction I am not allowed to give a condition/grade for use in the catalogue. Interested prospective purchasers must ask for a condition report which will include photographs and general condition but not a grade. That is up to the bidder to decide for him/herself.

The tradition was to sell in guineas and pay out in pounds. I suppose that amounts to 5% on sales only. Now the trend is towards lotting fees (not payable on unsold lots), commission paid by the seller and commission on the hammer price. Our local auction house charges 15% +VAT and in this day and age is quite reasonable. That's for a rural auction house so 17% +VAT for a southern or London based operation is quite reasonable. I still think the big houses charge too much in order to cover their excessive lifestyles but they do also have big reputations. The amount of work that goes into preparing an auction can be quite extensive. Research on items that may not even sell takes time and manpower. Sourcing items, unpacking, arranging into lots, researching, labelling with lot numbers, cataloguing (preparing a description for each lot), printing the catalogue, manpower for viewing, manpower for the sale and handing out sold and unsold lots are all costs plus all the overheads you can possibly think of.

I've seen something similair before. The impact looks like what one would expect from a .22 lead projectile. Standard wartime ammunition was almost always jacketed and would have sliced through a penny like a knife through butter. Unless it was spent, i.e.,bounced off something else, in which case it wouldn't be such a round depression. As a guess someone has used it for target practice with a .22 air rifle or it has been used in some form of fairground shooting stall. Cheers Kris

Yes but it reads "JACBUS" or "JAOBUS" rather than "JACOBUS". It appears the legend is turned through one complete letter while the portrait is only slightly doubled. Kris Sounds about right given the legend to the left of the mark reads RREX. It just means the last blow only affected the edge of the coin in the 11-2 o'clock region. i.e only a small portion of the die was used as the blow was at an angle to the perpendicular. Sounds fair enough. Thanks for the help. At the moment this has just been a valuation exercise but these and others may or may not come up for auction at our local auction house. If they do I'll add to this with the date and where you can see the catalogue. Regards Kris

I've been asked to describe and value some coins and a few are giving me some problems.This looks like it could be an Edward VI fine issue shilling from 1551-53 but why the curled and perfectly round edge. The only thing I can think of is that it's been mounted at some time but has this devalued it totally? It's 34.28mm in diameter but I have no weight. Any help much appreciated. Regards Kris

Yes but it reads "JACBUS" or "JAOBUS" rather than "JACOBUS". It appears the legend is turned through one complete letter while the portrait is only slightly doubled. Kris

Are there no thoughts for the future of the site when someone doing research finds that the photo they want of the coin they're interested in is no longer available because it's been removed from the external picture storage site? Other sites that I administer try to strongly discourage external sources as much as possible especially when it is so simple to upload direct.

Seems I must have got the Edward III about right judging by the lack of comments. The attached is a James I shilling that looks double struck and I've tentatively marked at £80 to £100. I know it's double struck but that doesn't explain the completely missing letter in the king's name. I have no idea how these were struck but I assume the die was the complete coin and the letters weren't just added afterwards. An explanation would be nice if anyone can help and also if anyone has ever seen this before. The other 20 coins are just the normal range from the Charles via Commonwealth to Victoria odds and ends. Regards Kris

A third one if you can help please. This looks like an Edward but I'm not sure which one. I think it's an Edward III groat (approx 27.5mm dia.) and worth about £50-£80. There's a better one on London Coins that sold for £120 about a year ago. Again any help would be appreciated. Don't worry there's only another one to go after this. The other 20 hammered coins should be relatively simple.

Thanks again for the replies. More valuable than I thought. The graffiti on the obverse could just be "PM" but the other side is more obscure and could be religious. I hadn't thought of that. Cheers Kris

This time it's a Philip & Mary shilling of 1555 that's about as worn and probably worth about the same £30 to £50. I'm always surprised at how relatively cheap these old hammered coins are. The question this time is about the graffiti between the heads. Is it random or could it mean something? Again any ideas would be much appreciated. Regards Kris

Thanks for the help, Gents. It does seem to be mounted within a narrow ring. The ring is about twice as thick as the coin, level on the obverse and raised above the reverse. This could be due to wear as if it has been used as a shove ha'penny token or something.