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Peckris 2

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Posts posted by Peckris 2

  5. Posted

    5 hours ago, 1949threepence said:

    Thanks Pete - was curious as there isn't a massive amount of information available on the matter. Whilst the 1944 - 46 are well documented for MT, there seems to be only Freeman's word for 1934 and 1935. 1934 I can definitely believe as the UNC ones I've seen don't look as though they are brightly lustred.   

    Yes, I think that's a Freeman slip-up. Most of the 1935s I've ever seen are lustred, in fact I can barely recall seeing a hypo example.

    • Thanks 1

  6. Posted

    On 28 November 2018 at 10:14 PM, Sword said:

    And he wasn't being totally honest as he is making the claim that it is a 1914 bullet tip. How could he date the bullet to a specific year, particularly as he is "know" ww1 expert?

    [Adopts tone of voice of the railway bore you dread sitting next to you...] Ah well you see, it's quite easy to tell. I can see from the riffle squod mark that the bullet was made in the North Croydon Works of the Machine Arms Co and they only made them with that particular riffle squod up to 17th August 1914 and the entire consignment apart from one case was used before November 1914 in the Belgian trenches on the Western Front - the one case was used in 1915 but only at Gallipoli so if I was a betting man I'd feel my money was safe in saying that is a 1914 bullet. As I was saying to my friend Roger only last Tuesday - and there's no-one knows more than Roger about riffle... [cont p.94]

    • Like 4

  7. Posted · Edited by Peckris 2

    On 23 November 2018 at 8:49 PM, Rob said:

    Stuff to make you laugh? Watching Pointless whilst eating tea this evening, one of the questions was anagrams of TV shows. Only 90 people out of 100 were able to identify QI as one of the answers..... 

    Blimey. Even if the other 10 had never heard of QI it doesn't  take a great stretch of intellect to realise that there is only one possible anagram of "IQ" !

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

    On 17 November 2018 at 11:38 PM, Unwilling Numismatist said:

    I'm prepared to bet that many remain voters didn't realise just how costly this "free trade association of European Economic Countries" has actually become.

    There is a pie chart somewhere which shows just how much it actually does cost us. The payment to the EU is so small a sliver you can barely see it. The welfare arc (the largest portion) takes up about 1/5 of the circle. Fact.

    Churchill must surely be spiralling in his grave as this shambles continues.

    The European Union was something championed by Churchill and there are You Tube videos showing him making impassioned speeches about it. Fact.

    We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, unless we decide to just hand it over and apologise for being awkward.

    And that's the whole problem. The 'Little England' 'island race' mentality. We never "handed our country over" and even a cursory listen to any Budget Day speech of the past 40 years will demonstrate that clearly. 

    I don't agree with Rob's stance on Brexit, but at least he talks intelligently about it.

     

    • Like 2

  12. Posted

    On 21 November 2018 at 5:50 PM, twofatslugs said:

    Is grading based on design visibility or visual appeal usually?

    Design visibility (i.e. wear) first and foremost, and also strength of strike, and any damage. Visual appeal is one of those hard-to-quantify things which people just gain from experience  and which leads dealers to adding a premium to the price!

  14. Posted

    On 21 November 2018 at 6:52 AM, 1949threepence said:

    Another irritation (to me anyway), is why so many people are starting sentences with the word "so".  

    I share your pain. That abomination seems to be everywhere. It's always in answering a question - "What started you in collecting coins?" "So I was at home one day..." :angry:

  15. Posted

    18 hours ago, ozjohn said:

    Ghosting, to a lesser extent can be seen on Edward bronze coins but is more pronounced on the George V 1911 - 1919 for both bronze and silver issues. Then very much reduced after 1919 until the end of the reign on bronze coins.

    Yes, because Edward's portrait was both larger and shallower so was a better design. 

    The ghosting reduced in a few stages :

    • after the shallower portrait was introduced in 1920/21
    • after the ME portrait
    • after the reduction in size of the ME (on bronze)
    • with the new reverse designs (small for bronze, 1925-1927), radically different for silver from 1928

  18. Posted

    On 17 November 2018 at 11:29 PM, 1949threepence said:

    You say that and yet the example I posted above has good hair detail and no evidence of ghosting. The obvious question is, therefore, why did ghosting suddenly start, when, ostensibly, the same build of dies were being used? 

    The poor hair detail I can understand, but that too seems to go hand in hand with ghosting. 

    It's difficult to know why the recessed ear experiment was stopped. We'll never know now, but maybe it had something to do with the war.    

     

    It suddenly started in 1911, when the deep profile portrait of GV came in. For comparison, the portrait of Ed8 is sufficiently shallower that ghosting is less pronounced and Britannia suffers much less. As the ghosting was an accidental effect, it is neither intentional nor invariable so there are good strikes out there, but they're hard to get hold of.

    As for the poor hair detail on some, that's purely down to the overuse of dies - note how the increase in penny mintages was sharp and dramatic, and "there was a war on" too. Bear in mind that the obverse 'sucked' metal from the reverse even when the die was worn; the hair detail was simply the icing on the cake, not the priime cause of ghosting. 

    I think you're probably right about the war ending the recessed ear experiment. 

    • Like 2

  19. Posted

    On 16 November 2018 at 7:35 PM, 1949threepence said:

    Whilst it is relatively easy to obtain high grade examples, the trick is to get high grade examples that are good strikes, with as much hair detail as possible, issue free and if at all possible, without ghosting being obvious, especially on pre 1926 examples. It's worth watchiing and waiting for these better examples to come up. Not going to be possible in every case, but I think this 1912 captures most of those qualities, although still a little thin on Britannia's chest, which is another common weak point.  Incidentally, the obverse colour is close to actuality. Not sure why the reverse looks different in the pic.

    Here is the conundrum : the stronger the obverse and the better the hair detail, the more likely it is that there will problems with ghosting and weakness on the reverse. It's rare you will get both - the high profile obverse sucked metal from the reverse, which had thin rims and little protection. Ironically the short-lived recessed ear experiment of 1915-16 went a long way to curing the problem, so why it was abandoned... (answers on a postcard).

  20. Posted

    6 hours ago, Rob said:

    Yep, because nobody in politics is prepared to bite the bullet demanded by the public in the referendum.

    You mean the nearly 52% who actually voted for Brexit, which was 37% of the electorate. No doubt you will recall that the ballot simply asked "Do we stay" or "Do we leave"? Nothing about the single market. Nothing about the customs union (and most people had never heard of that on voting day). Nothing about the implications for Ireland.  Nothing about the impact on all the "just in time" goods required by some industries. Nothing about the impact on medical supplies. Etc etc etc.

    I'm prepared to bet that many Leave voters didn't realise the implications of that decision.

    • Like 2

  23. Posted

    8 hours ago, Paddy said:

    There must be a business school somewhere that teaches them how to reply to complaints or concerns without actually saying anything at all. The standard answer seems to start with: "We value your custom and take **** very seriously" but we are going to do nothing about it.

    Tell me about it. I once worked for a company that issued a sheet saying - I kid you not - "We intend to cascade information throughout the enterprise going forward". Meaning that from the next month they were going to publish a company newsletter.

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