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Hi, i’m wondering if this is a known variety or just an oddball. The 1 in the date is over another clearly separated 1 and the 4 appears to be both the plain and serif version at the same time. Any insight is much appreciated 🙏

I've had several rather less than commendable experiences with Royal Fail in the past few years. A couple of them stand out, the purchase of a Scottish square £1 note from 1909 that seemingly took a long detour for four months about four years ago - I worked with seller, filed a claim got refunded and the out of the blue the parcel showed up and I paid the seller for the note. Then about a year ago a parcel with some 19th century banking memorabilia dropped off the face of the earth in London - same thing, worked with seller got refunded and then like six months later it showed up. What a contrast - I frequently get several parcels, even large parcels from Ukraine all the time with complete tracking and despite the fact they are at war with Russia - parcels come through with efficiency. Ukrposhta is an enterprise that tries to deliver despite the circumstances - Royal Fail is a sad excuse. Now auction purchases from the London auction houses have to come either DHL or Fedex.

Sorry if l killed the off-topic area of this forum. I'm back for a quick stint and note the thread is dead. Tenuous conclusion: It was a glowing hat, lit up by abundant UV outside. Of course that doesn't sound right when l say it back to myself but the alternative is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ aliens, paranormal, orbs. To be clear, l didn't climb the tor seeking answers to an existential crisis and so l heard monks chanting and am seeing orbs. I don't buy into Xtianity, l feel sad for the monks that were hung drawn and quartered there, they surely died in vain. Yet honest to God l heard a single note sung by a multiple male voices in unison! As for the orb, l'm not that sure it's a hat. New observation: put it into Pinta (my image editor) and change move the brightness control up and down - you will see the light spread from the rightmost side (by the doorway) increasing leftward. That implies it's an inert physical object from, er, this world. It's hard to get meaningful answers from Google re: "can you cast shadows on a supernatural orb". May try Bing ...

Yes , royal snail do things like this very often now since they started their double digit price increases about five or so years ago , Disgraceful service

We’re just getting ready to fly out to Germany for a wedding, so can’t comment at this point. Interestingly, I hadn’t noticed the DIG Galata guide until your post, another book to buy!

Those little pieces are stunning, I’m so impressed! 🙌 Also, aboutfarthings was very active member on here…last time I contacted him, he’d been swamped with work. Around 25 years ago I used to make little refectory tables from dendro-dated Tudor oak. Great fun! And @Paddy really great point re drilling the die…not sure what Colin (from AF) said, I haven’t looked at @absence of uniformity’s link, yet?

Fully functional teapots hollow spouts and removable lids.

Here is a pair of 1/12 queen Anne flintlock pistols I made. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JRH-9o-P6sg

I dont own a dollshouse myself but in my spare time I make objects for collectors (I'm amateur jeweller), here is 1/12 scale fully functional padlock.

Here is all the dies I made with the different collars.

Here you can see the mild steel die deformed after striking around 20 coins. To me its clear you need tool steel and the die must be tempered to some degree. But not so much its too brittle. But in its current state not suitable for striking coins.

During the first week of May I spotted a 'Silver Hammered Penny King Edward I' for sale as a Buy-it-now' on Ebay, £38 total including Ebay insurance and 48hr Royal Mail Tracked delivery. As the coin was in fact an Edward III florin coinage penny of Canterbury, and quite scarce, I bought it and tracking showed that the vendor posted it on 10th May. Over the next 48hrs or so it tracked to the Birmingham MC sorting office - where it stayed. After a fortnight I spoke to the vendor who contacted RM and received an unhelpful reply and no coin. After 3 weeks Ebay gave me my money back within 24hrs of my claim as suggested by the vendor and I wrote the coin off mentally with much regret. It is noteworthy that with the refund Ebay actually state that if the purchase is subsequently found it can be kept and they do not have to be informed. Well, it was delivered out of the blue by postie on Thursday! Only 8 weeks in transit! The vendor and I have exchanged several cheerful emails and I get to keep the coin for nothing! As far as I can tell the coin is S1547, N1122 (VR) and DIG Obv 1 rev Ai. Jerry

Here is the pair of dies and the coin I struck with them. This was the largest I made and because I spent a while engraving them I was more gentle with the hammer. The image shows the dies and the coin made using them.

An 1889 F127 narrow date,13.5 teeth £200 on Ebay.

Thanks ! I started out with intentions to try and engrave reverse and obverse design of a penny, I quickly gave up on that. Impossible. I have a pantograph that I can mill metal but struggled with that because the dies are 4mm diameter even with a 6:1 reduction. In the end I engraved the designs freehand using a loupe, it was tricky. For a normal size coin I could print a guide/stencil on the 3d printer and using the pantograph mill the design into a steel die then temper it. The more simple designs of hammered coins I could make something that resembles the real thing. Although I have no intentions of forging any coins.

An 1874H F69, £17.10 on Ebay.

Then a decent 1863 'open 3' , £30 at Midland Coin Fair.

Finally, after a month of challenge getting BT/Open Reach to repair my landline I at last have acceptable broadband and can post some recent acquisitions. First an example F10 new obverse 2*, £20 at Ebay auction.

What great fun! That is really rather clever, nice job! Jerry

I engraved some coin dies in 1/12 scale for Dolls house money. I used mild steel and after striking 20 coins the mild steel dies deformed. I dont know but would imagine real coin dies are tempered to a certain degree making them less likely to deform like the dies I made. I tried striking gold, silver, bronze and copper all soft metals compared to mild steel, the fact my dies were not tempered they deformed. I quickly understood a highly polished die and more force when striking the dies produced much higher quality strikes. When I try it again I will anneal 01 tool steel engrave my obverse and reverse then temper them in order to harden the metal so I can strike more than 20 coins. There will be a trade off between a soft of a die that deforms with subsequent strikes and tempering the metal too hard the dies crack rather than deform. If a metal cracks rather than deforms it suggests it is tempered or work hardened and with each subsequent strike the metal is probably hardening itself also. At a guess I would think a pair dies slowly harden over the working life of a pair of dies which may lead to crack dies?? I made a steel tube/collar inserted the bottom die into the collar then placed my metal blank into the collar then presented the other die and struck it with a hammer. Initially I was getting weak strikes, then started hitting it harder which produced much nicer strikes but ultimately deformed the dies.

I cannot say definitely that is the case, but it certainly seems a possibility. I suppose the other way would be if parts of the die were fragile and broke off around the nascent crack, but I don't think the metal used in the dies was usually that brittle.

I just noticed the following; https://aboutfarthings.co.uk/catalogue/farthing-varieties/ "Obverse 2e Die Fault resembles colon between 8 & 5 in Datal Figures (Image shows early stage of flaw, advanced stage can be seen in the enlarged image" I saw a coin listed as having a colon and when looking at other 1851 farthings I noticed the example with the crack, aboutfarthings.co.uk has it spot on.

Interesting, do you think the images show that progression? A crack formed, two holes drilled and then the die deteriorated further to show the pronounced crack we see in the first image.

Both coins are missing the serifs on the B of BRITANNIAR.

Could be they drilled a small hole in the die to limit the crack. It is a well known technique to drill a small hole at the end of a crack as it reduces the stress at the tip and so makes it less likely the crack will propagate further.