Chris Perkins

We had a big tom cat (from an old bloke that died and his family in the house next door claimed to not know him!) that suddenly had some kind of wound on his face that smelled rancid and eventually fell off to reveal his teeth and gums! He had bits of ear missing, bit of face missing, was visibly full of lice, didn't look like he'd cleaned himself ever, but he was the friendliest cat. For a while he seemed quite happy with missing face, even though his food would fall back out while he was trying to eat it. I called him the Terminator and most people avoided him. Then we found him curled up in a sleeping position in the shed, dead.

We actually paid for Noodle to have the snip and sometimes someone comes and takes a van full of cats away (apparently to re-house, but who knows). We've paid out well over EUR1000 on other peoples cats to keep them healthy! Noodle died the other week of kidney failure.

We don't have much luck with cats. There's a farm very close and they seem to have more cats that cows. They often end up befriending us and then we 'adopt' them and they live here. Two of them have even had there babies in the garden, but they never seem to live long. We gave 2 babies away and the one we kept (named Roger, after Syd Barrett) died of FIP before he got to 2. The other week his mother (Noodle) died aged about 5. She lived in the house for a few months but was never that healthy. Some end up dead on the road, too. We pay the vet bills to try to keep them going, but they just keep breeding and dying.

Not for the 1689 2/6d. Those are almost as common as Churchill crowns, but certainly better than bullion

I don't think any of those have been polished, at least not in the last 100 years! Higher, worn areas are often lighter. The first one is the most likely to have been polished, but certainly not recently and probably not at all.

The old Scorpios go well and are comfortable, roomy and all the right things. They have some weaknesses like all cars (e.g. the fuse boxes on these are a bit exposed and tend to get wet and cause electrical probs). I've never met anyone that hasn't shared the opinion about this being the ugliest Ford. I don't think Ford ever actually named and shamed the person responsible for the design. There was a face lift version in 1998 which was a little better, but then it died a death. In fairness that was also to do with the weaning appetite for large cars at the time.

Yes of course. I looked and I only have 3, but one of them is at least a CGS best of!

I usually have a few! Any that are ugly (I mean even uglier than normal), excessively bag marked, scuffed or just not right, all get paid into my Natwest account at 25p face value.

Silver coloured 2p's are all coming out of the woodwork today! Sorry for mixing you up.

We spoke on the phone today didn't we? As you know, it's an error coin and it sounds like the 2p dies have been used to strike a 2p but with the wrong blank in place, either the blank of a 10p or of another coin intended for something else. I thought you already had someone that was willing to pay big money for it? As far as I'm aware modern off-metal strike like that don't sell for very much money at all, usually. Unless any other members know of any expensive ones in the past? I've had cu-ni pennies before and generally got just a few quid for them.

I just have to suffer it for a couple of weeks! And yes, Del Parker is allowing me to use his images, which is great. He doesn't have a lot of modern images of the ordinary coins though.

On the 8th July I fly over to collect this from my usual odd car supplier of choice near Bolton. A Ford Scorpio based 6 door limo. The last big Fords were an acquired taste in standard form. As a stretched limo with a higher roof-line they look even more cumbersome and are so ugly that they rival the Medusa. People quite often turn temporarily to stone when it drives past. It's a 1997 model with air-coin and chromium hub caps. 69k miles and in regular use until 10 days ago by a funeral director in Plymouth.

I used to do that one a lot (sharing a table with my mate Richard), but haven't for a while.

Yes, I suppose so. But they may well just find other metal objects that aren't coins!

What was your brother in law doing in Gangs of NY? An extra? Apparently the book will be prominent in the Andy's flat, but who knows. They no doubt chop scenes and things round and the action is obviously the actors, not so much things laying around.

A new BBC comedy series focusing on the exploits of two metal detectorists, starring, written and directed by MacKenzie Crook (The Office, Pirates of the Caribbean, Game of Thrones) may use a copy of my book "Collectors' Coins GB 2014" on screen. MacKenzie Crook is a keen amateur metal detectorist in real life and owns a copy of the book. Filming starts soon and the six part series will be shown on BBC4 later in 2014. My book will be present in the wannabe archaeologists on-screen flat, but whether or not it actually makes it to the final edit depends on if the production team happen to use the scenes and camera angles in which it appears! Here is the Radio Times announcement: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-01-31/mackenzie-crook-to-play-metal-detector-enthusiast-in-one-of-four-new-bbc4-comedies

Yes, but the others are mostly 2's with a couple of 3 or just over, which may not be strong enough to get to us 45 miles away. It's certainly the only one I've ever felt. 4.3!

Everything's fine, we were just shaken and not stirred. People that were outside on solid ground didn't even notice. We're about 45 miles from the epicentre. It was a remarkable demonstration of the power of those bubbling gases and molten rock miles under the surface. It's inspired me to go and visit the nearest volcano, which is about 30 miles away, the 974m (3,195') Schneehübel which apparently last flowed liquid lava a mere 300,000 years ago. There have been a number of shakes today and over the last week, but the big 4.3 was the only one still noticeable by the time it got to here (as far as I know).

Had an earthquake today. Noticeable shaking of windows and ceiling, just for a couple of seconds, but enough to make you start wondering what the bloody hell's going on and whether you need to take emergency action. I've never experienced anything like it. It was logged at 1237 local time and at the epicentre was strength 4.3: http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/689940/M4.3-Sat-31-May-3km-NE-of-Skalna-Czech-Republic.html

In Germany these are the generally accepted standard works: http://www.gietl-verlag.de/grosser-deutscher-muenzkatalog-/buchdetail/312/1/themen/neuerscheinung.html (1800 to now) http://www.gietl-verlag.de/kleiner-deutscher-muenzkatalog-/buchdetail/329/1/themen/neuerscheinung.html (1871 to now) There is also one for 1700-1800.

A great one for ID-ing ancient Greek is Richard Plants 'Greek Coins and their Identification'. I should know as I'm currently manually typing the whole thing from scratch to appear probably in 2015 as a Rotographic book (in metric and with some updates). For now, you'll have to make do with the re-printed 1979 version: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0900652470?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creativeASIN=094896409X&linkCode=xm2&tag=predecimalcoi-21 And of course for Roman there are the 2 linked to in my sig. And for German I can supply the standard German catalogue (1871 to date) for about £14.00.

You may have done Geordie. I think USB visual devices are pretty generic with the drivers they use, so I would imagine that the CD contains a version for Mac/Linux. You know what, I'll ask and report back.

Looks like this one that I offer for £79.80 (just reduced from £86.90): http://www.predecimal.com/lindner-digital-microscope-lindner-7155-p-18576.html

Looks like whoever was answering enquires at Chards has just assumed its a boring date and quoted bullion.

I haven't changed anything. I'll have a look.