Leaderboard

Prone to fill? I don't have any 1862 halfpennies but the reverse G image in Freeman doesn't appear to show a full crop of rocks compared to Malcolm Lewendon's reverse G (though neither of those images are of an 1862 halfpenny - they're 1867 and 1864 respectively).

If I had a 12" it would flop around.

Hmm...if the steel core of the coins is 'soft' magnetic material, like mild steel, the the induced magnetism will indeed slowly reduce. To create the effect, you would need a powerful magnetic field that doesn't change polarity. Indeed, how to de-magnetise something is to use a coil powered off ac mains which reverses 100 times a second, and slowly draw it away. ( Remember the 'wand' that the old tv engineer used when your tube tv screen went funny colours?) Magnetising ( or what magnet manufacturers call 'charging' or 'energising') can indeed be achieved using a single high-level pulse of DC current, like what a capacitive discharge will produce, or, in this case, a lightning 'strike'. I put 'strike' in parentheses, since the big high current ( million + amps) discharge goes UP. The high voltage 'leader' comes slowly down, finding a path, ionising a channel of air, and the ground discharges to the cloud. Persistence of vision makes us see this as a downward 'stroke'. Lightening rods etc spray electrons up to the cloud, discharging the cloud, and can actually make a big upward discharge more unlikely. I'm selling my magnet collection. Special Offer: Buy a North pole, and get a South pole free!!!

I've followed this up with Spink as a matter of interest as it was clear to anyone yet alone a professional cataloguer that it wasnt a mule .....they did say there had been an unusual sequence of events that led to this rare cataloguing error ...that the matter had beeen resolved correctly and satisfactoraily between the buyer and the seller...pity it wasnt the other way around ie described as an F10 but actually an F9 ...lol !

Incidentally, here's a photograph of Wyon, who lived from 23rd November 1826 to 20th August 1891, succumbing, at the age of 64, to Bright's disease and apoplexy, at his home 54 Hamilton Terrace, St John's Wood. He's buried at Paddington Old Cemetery. He was married in 1852, to Mary Birks (1831 to 1902). The couple initially lived at Maida Vale, then moved to their St Johns Wood address in 1856. He designed many other coins, some for the Empire. No idea if his initials appeared on them, and if they did, whether they continued to?