TomGoodheart

Interesting thread. My feeling is that it can be particularly difficult to assess rarity. And as Rob says, it's often not absolute numbers which are important (though those in themselves can be difficult enough to fix) but what's available to collectors. A hoard find, or sale of a decent collection, can bring coins to light that were previously not known to exist. And even if rare, if say six examples are known to exist but only four collectors want one, then demand and presumably price will clearly not reflect scarcity. Ease of identification is certainly a factor too. In my own area of interest (Tower shillings of Charles I) discoveries are still being made. For example, in 1994 the Sharp G3/2 (S.2801) type was unknown. Today I know of 9 coins of this design. And while one is in the British Museum, the rest are in private collections and so potentially available to collectors. And die variations suggest more are likely to be out there. Barely rates as rare now. But don't tell Spink that!

Ah, very interesting! When I Wikipedia'd bezant it appears to be a heraldic term for a roundel which is gold in colour. And the use of that term derives from the medieval name for a gold coin from the Byzantine Empire! Most edukashinul this numismatics lark!

Yes! The image loading works fine now, thanks Chris! As to the admin stuff, I suspect it is just that the format is slightly different. But as you know, I'll pester you if I encounter any problems I can't sort out myself. Though I'll aim to keep that to a minimum!

How odd, because it didn't work for me! Ah well, at least it works even if I can't test it out!

Yes, very nice as I'm sure I've said before Rob. Evidently I've not looked very closely though, as I'm now curious about the small features in the forks of the cross ends! Any idea what those are? Pineapples? Thistles? Just decoration? Oh, and I've not seen Coin News I'm afraid, so don't know what was discussed in the article. But I personally can't see someone using wax to highlight a flaw. Or at least, nobody I know would be likely to do that! An illustration in a catalogue seems far more likely. And am I the only one that finds the use of what seems to be a number "2" to form the R of EBOR? It's always seemed a strange feature to my eyes.

They are under your avatar, just below the number of posts you've made. I'm not entirely sure what they mean. Just that previously every member had a little bar there. As an admin I could add a warning. And also as a consequence block them from posting further. But that seems to have gone, so maybe my admin privileges are different (or gone) now.

Blah. Stupid new forum doesn't let me nest urls within an image: Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23424289

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MwaHahahaha! Being an admin, I can see everyones! And if anyone wants one ... (insert evil smiley here)

Cool! .. though I'm still getting a cross scripting warning.

Dear Tom The Royal Mint is delighted to wish the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge congratulations on the birth of their baby boy on 22nd July 2013. Sorry RM, or rather Shane Bissett, Director of Commemorative Coin. But I don't believe that wishing someone congratulations makes sense. You can congratulate someone. Or offer congratulations. But unless congratulations is the new thankyou wishing them just isn't gramatical. And while I'm at it, did you mean Coin as in 'of the Realm' in your title? Or did basic lessons about the pleural also slip past whoever drafted this little missive? [/rant] Bother. I forgot to wish him my appreciation for giving me something other than the heat to grumble about.

Thanks Bob. I think Chris is away at present, but I'll send him a heads up anyway.

I'm getting a warning from Internet Explorer when I visit certain predecimal pages that it has modified them to prevent cross-site scripting. I have no idea what that means! But if anyone does (and particularly if it's something to be worried about) please let us know! Thanks!

Or in this case, lost. I deleted the post and blocked the account. And the other one from Shenzhan too.

Mmmm .. chocolate! And .. how the heck does anything confectionary related last from Christmas Rob? There must be something wrong with you. In my house it's an hour from gift unwrapping, tops!

Not quite right, Peck. The only reason you are directed to the PhotoBucket site, is because that is where TG hosted his screenshot. The original webpage is here and, in my opinion, saleroom.com is one of the best auction sites out there. Bah. I think that's my fault guys. I must have somehow picked up an active link rather than an one from photobucket when I couldn't get the usual direct upload to work. Sorry! That's not what I meant to happen ... obviously!

Sooner or later one of these will pass through enough auction houses to give it provenance. And once it has an appearance of authenticity it's not going to be good for either the owners or the hobby, IMHO. The problem is, what to do? I've written to the auctioneers in this case, but nobody can monitor all sales everywhere. Particularly mixed lots, which often have poor or no photos. And while such coins are never going to fetch big bucks, it's still a loss to someone, somewhere. [/rant]

Not really. That doesn't work for me. Neither alt and prtscn together or alt then prtscn seem to do anything. Going to the pictures folder where all the jpags are kept doesn't result in an image of the screen appearing either when I do a ctl-V. Never mind, I'll just stick with writing it out manually. Pressing PrtScn on its own doesn't seem to do anything either. Peter, you are right. Maybe the computer/operator is too old - or broken. Pressing PRTSC just appears to hold the image Rob. Like doing Copy, nothing else happens until you are in a document or whatever and tell it to Paste. I need an open image based window - I use Paint as it came with the computer, but I guess anything you can draw in as, although you can do it in say, Word, I have no idea how you'd save that as an image file! - then with that visible press Ctrl+V. The whole screen then appears as the Paint image. I still have to save that (usually to my desktop) to use it. That help?

Yeah, what they said ^ And yes, I had to upload it to photobucket and link from there. I did send a message to Chris about the direct linking not working, but he hasn't replied to an earlier email I sent so he may well be busy.

Ditto.. I couldn't see how to enlarge the warning to give the full address path. But hopefully you can sort it easily enough Colin. I'm using Internet Explorer 8 with AVG Free.

Tricky. I'm not sure there's any certain way if slab and label have been copied, though presumably PCGS could check and confirm it for you after the sale. As for provenance, I just don't get the impression that Americans are big on provenance. Certainly (British) coins I've bought haven't come with any and they tend to be the only kind where it's mentioned in auction listings ... .. have you thought of asking this question on Coin Community? It's US based and there are many experienced collectors there who could advise. Of course, they might say, if you're not sure, walk away ...

Not sure. I see what you mean about the garland thingy, but I'm not sure if it's just the design for that date or signifies a different mint. Anyway, there are some here Coin Archives for the reference numbers: http://www.coinarchives.com/w/results.php?search=1%2F4+kopek&s=1&results=100 Edit: And I've emailed Chris to tell him about the upload error, though I don't know if he's about at present.

Maybe everyone else is just out enjoying the summer weather? Or I need to change my deodorant. Either way I'm begining to think the forum is broken again. This has to have been the quietest weekend in recent years for posting!

*bump* I've decided to keep the Besly, but Boon's book on the Aberystwyth mint is still available if anyone is interested?

Seems to work from a hosting site like photobucket, but direct uploads don't seem to work for me either. Edit: Just tried again in case, but got "Error The server returned an error during upload" as before.