oldcopper

Thinking about it, two scenarios occur to me; either the copper proofs were made before the bronzed proofs and this die polish line only appeared then, or the toning has hidden the hairline from view.

Strange it's not apparent on the copper proof. Worth further research as they say. My currency has the noticeable fake ribbons as you mention, probably more evident than yours.

Bingo, you can just see it on my specimen's photo from the LCA Roland Harris auction:

Definitely on my currency and the BM's bronzed proof. And also on the bronzed proof sold by Colin Cooke several years ago. I would have thought that as the colon variety is always presumed to be a mono-die variety (after striking the proofs), it should be on all. It may be that yours are later strikings or more worn. It is a very thin hairline.

Yes, nice coins from the proof die - there is a straight hairline from B's arm/trident join to the end of her further away knee on both proof and currency.

Not really relevant. The twin pillars that are going to do in our economy, and are already doing so, are Net Zero and the massive government borrowing/money printing due to lockdowns and furlough, which is devaluing our currency, and inflation was already on a steep upward trajectory before the Ukraine war. Both of the above I'm sure you were and are fully in favour of, and how are our fellow European economies doing - booming? The powerhouse of Europe, Germany in an energy crisis of its own "green" making and about to tip into recession, according to economists.

The Baldwins large-rose example coming up next week, cleaned but eye-catching in the photo, is at £1200 when I looked yesterday.

Spink are always doing that - put a teaser date on a forthcoming auction then either keep on putting it back every few days or don't even bother. It's annoying. Some of these auctions are like their SNC "Collectors Corner" quality (which lasted a couple of years about 20 years ago), selling items for £5 upwards. Junk mainly. Talking of gilding the lily, I like their description of the Northumberland in the Wootton sale. It's got worn gilding, it's low grade and there's an impressively large hole in it. Apart from that it's "a good opportunity for a type collector to source a prohibitively rare type". If you say so!

and the Colin Adams sale (Spink 1/12/2005) had 2 en medaille - ESC 669 and ESC 670 (lots 652 and 654).

DNW sold an ESC 670 en medaille - 4 Oct 2001, lot 385, wt 13.98g.

Well, they quoted the excellence of their website and its exhaustive arichies as a reason for increasing their premium last time, so by that logic looks like they'll have to reduce it now. It never works like that does it.....

I think the key desirability factor in the Medusa if it you can see her face, and this SARC specimen isn't too bad an example of that.

Yes, it's the act of assuming that "full original colour" means just that.

I wonder if everyone has found this, but when I type "Noonans" or "Noonan's" into Google all the results are for the (previously unknown to me) genetic disorder Noonan Syndrome. So I wonder how they are going to differentiate their website location from that? I don't think they've thought this through. They'll hardly want to, or even be able to, displace important medical information off the top of the search results.

Yes, of course, they are bronzed, mainly currency pieces. The reason he didn't list them is they're unofficial as well.

Perhaps he phrased it ambiguously but if he did think they were official surely he would have given them a Peck number.

OK not that one! Its PT twin, so these later bronzed coins are out there.

That might be the coin originally sold by Baldwins as a bronzed proof (sale no.52) where Roland Harris bought it for ~£600. I saw it then and it was obviously a currency piece, so why Baldwins said it was "undoubtedly a proof" I don't know. People presumably sussed this as it only made £190 at the Harris sale (LC 2009), with LC's description somewhat ambivalent about the proof designation.

There was an unofficially gilded 1841 in the Colin Adams sale of 2003. Peck is saying that these post Soho examples are all unofficially gilded so he isn't contradicting himself.

Paper supplies must have run short!

If you phone them up you can say "Hi Noonans".

My first list from FS was just after John Minshull had got this fancy new typewriter with all the new fonts. Pre-computer it was cutting edge. It was a bound A4 light blue catalogue. The ones after that were just stapled I think and were always different colours, light green, orange etc. Always an exciting moment when his latest one popped through the door! They were all chucked out after I went to University but the dates were ~1977-1983. I wish I 'd kept some for memory's sake. He really went to town on the rarities, I remember a 1685 Charles II tin farthing got about a page of write-up.

pot?

Here's mine, bought DNW auction Sept 2008 - quite a steep price (£260 hammer), and good lustre on the obverse, but a dark reverse. https://www.dnw.co.uk/auction-archive/lot-archive/lot.php?lot_uid=158753 DNW's photography is somewhat flattering to the reverse!

As one dealer told me, this micro-incremental grading scale is just a way of making more money out of collectors. This here being a prime example.