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Hi, Thank you for noticing this! I've taken a look and Neil appears to have used a photo of a coin I don't recognise. It's certainly not the Freeman 71 I have for sale! Also the photo of Lot 85 is terrible, with a large fingerprint and other marks which certainly aren't on the coin. I'll get Neil to look at these tomorrow and sort out the correct photos.

The background of these coins is the transition from so called "Altdeutschland" (German states prior formation of the German empire in 1871) and the the imperial coinage. It is the transition from predecimal to decimal currency system. Before 1871 people in Germany had a complicated exchange system of various state currencies. The common background was the silver standard shared by almost all German states. Germany switched from silver standard to gold standard in 1873. I wrote & published an article about this time periode. It is written in German. In case anyone is interested and able to understand the text, fell free to contact me for pdf. These coins are well sought after in high grade. Usually they can be found in poor condition. German states and German empire are classical collectors fields for advanced coin collectors. The prices dropped during the past years, you can purchase these for a fraction compared to British counterparts of that age and condition. Now it is a good time to make bargains, but the market will be empty soon I guess...

This little copper token arrived in the mail today. I just finished photographing it. This is a US Civil War token (1861-1865), a part of the "patriotic token" grouping. It is indexed in Fuld's reference as F-164/312a, and is relatively common. This obverse token design often comes with lack of eagle feather detail, particularly flat or no feather detail on the eagle's legs, and soft or partial strike up of the "UNION" text on the shield. This example is very well struck, and I'm very happy with this one in hand (it surpassed my expectations of luster and quality given the so-so photos that were provided by the seller). I'm also including a close-up photo of some of the intricate die work on the obverse. It is the size of a USA small cent (~19mm diameter). Brandon US Civil War Token, Patriotic c. 1865 (F-164/312a, NGC MS64BN)

Nice Russian material. Here is a AV 3/4 Dukat 1745 from Imperial City of Frankfurt commerating the election of Franz I as the new Holy Roman Emperor. John

Penny collectors