Sylvester

And where does someone like me whose economically centrist and social right sit in all this? I care not for big private companies and greed nor do i care for nationalisation and handing money out willy nilly. The economic outlooks on both left and right are too extreme. I agree with Rob on economic issues. For me there has to be some balance. Tony Blair is the closest i've come to anyone who thinks remotely like me, except the problem with me and Blair is we are seemingly mirror images. The Labour party seems to stand for economically right wing pro-privatisation, and socially centre to left. Whereas i favour it the other way around, socially right and economically centre, which probably explains why i'm not liking Blair. Although if David Cameron can shift the Tory party's economic policy to the centre ground (which is what he's trying to do) then i'd be quite happy to vote for them. Socially i expect they'd stay right of the border.

Good question, and one i don't have an answer for! Acetone perhaps?

Yes well the govt would be more credible if it didn't make promises it couldn't realistically fulfil. I know i can dream.

The current government has been saying their getting tough on crime. Every week in the newspapers i read another article on some staement made by Blair or whoever about how the government's going to get tough and crack down on it. We've been cracking down and getting tough on crime for the last 5 or 6 years... so we're told. Is this government ever actually going to live up to any of it's promises? Education, education, education. I know lets shove up University fees from £1100 to £3000! The only successful education reforms this government has done is drilling Political Correctness home. Unless your a minority group of some sort then you're free to say as you want, otherwise it's racist/sexist/ageist... Enough of this madness.

Punishing criminals and disuading re-offenders i would think is increasing levels of morality, no? Look at the chav explosion since the Blair government got in. Crime is up (either that or the police are doinmg a better job of finding crime than previously). The general tone on the streets in some city centres has never been particularly good but there's alot of people stood around in hoods, 'happy slapping' people or smashing stuff in because they're bored. The police can't seem to do a great deal because many of these individuals are underage and thus the police's hands are tied. The real problem is the fact that the children aren't brought up correctly by their parents, the reason for that is because parents themselves were not brought up correctly, are often teenagers and haven't got a frigging clue what to do. Now do-gooders have been going around cutting back what teachers can do, and preventing parents from smacking their children, it'sgot the the point where everyone is powerless against kids and kids know it. If they get away with that kind of 'no one can touch me' behaviour as a kid where they have to answer to no one, then they generally continue like that as adults. Often thinking the country owes them a living. It'll only get worse.

Toning is a number of things as you indicate. Firstly most metals will oxidise or react with the atmosphere eventually, silver darkens and goes grey (or tarnishes and goes all colourful). Copper likewise loses the reddish/orange shine and goes brown. Toning is basically the natural aging of metals in their atmosphere. Some toning is highly desirable, other types of toning are avoided like the plague, it's all a matter of taste. Some US collectors pay high premiums for tarnished silver coins, UK collectors will pay more for a subtle blue or nice grey toned silver coin. Generally we like coins to look their age. As for cleaning coins in the method you describe whilst the cleaning will not show scratches and such the lustre of the coin will be impaired. Especially on the UNC coin. Lustre and shine are not the same. Shine is a glossy almost flat satin kind of shine, lustre is a three dimensional shine with depth. Light reflected from a coin with natural lustre will be brighter in places and have richer colour in other areas. If you've ever seen a bright shiney new silver coin with a 'cartwheel type' shine of brilliance then that's the ultimate in lustre. It's bright If you drop a new penny under water for a few weeks and look at it later, it might still have the same kind of colour but the lustre will be flatter, less mirrorlike. Hard to explain i know. Coins with verdigris should be cleaned, if you don't it'll only get worse.

Don't knock Leyland they made some damn good buses and lorries. Talking of burdens on the taxpayer; The Welfare State is definately gonna have to change. Welfare States work when there's about 95% employment. That is lots of people paying in. With a booming population and job cuts you get less jobs to go around, more people about and less money going in, in inverse proportion to money being taken out. Either the Welfare State has to be curtailed and restrictions have to be proposed or you have to create jobs and aim for full employment. The governments of the 1950s and 60s aimed for full employment. This is not neccessarily a solution to the problem though, because goverments have to pay for job creation, especially when the economy is in stagnation. So extra burden falls on the workers, whilst people not paying in seem to not notice. Therefore the obvious solution is to cutail the Welfare State. The current government plans to cut down on incapacity benefits (and to weed out the people that don't want to work out of idleness rather than out of necessity) is long overdue in my opinion. I believe this has only come about because T. Blair is worried about the Tories. I still agree that the NHS should be free to all natives, or those that have lived within the UK for over 5 years and have shown integration within the British society (as in the French system of forced integration and promotion of French ideology over other cultures has created less grounds for fundamentalism to grow, rather than a British setup of 'us' versus 'them' that seems to dominate some cities, hence the race riots as shown in Birmingham last year). It would also help to curtail immigrants arriving just because the health service happens to be free. Hopefully that'd keep immigrants coming in that want to live in Britain, be British and become British, but would stop fundamentalist religious types coming in who hate Britain and all it stands for but yet come here for a cushy life. Also the government should greatly curtail benefits, especially to 18 years olds who have never had a job that claim the benefits straight up because they can't be bothered. For once workers should be rewarded by having to pay less for medication in chemists, and get opticians appointments at reduced rates. There should be an incentive to get a job, these benefits being less based upon income but more based upon hours worked. Taxi drivers, bus drivers, carers in homes and other long shift jobs (often low pay, except for the latter), should be rewarded for the amount of hours put in. Obviously high income jobs that mean employees can work shorter hours and earn much more probably wouldn't need as much subsidising, because money would be less tight, although they should still get rewarded for their work. So managers get less subsidising than their employees. Where does this subsidising come from, well redirect it from the cut benefit claims. People who are quite clearly disabled or suffer other issues that mean they realistically cannot work, or struggle even to get around the house they should have the current system retained. Those that are off for more minor things, or simply are out of work for prolonged periods should recieve less subsidisation and should pay more for their health care simply as an incentive to get a bloody job.

Well that's been said before! Although i should point out i have a thing about heirarchy... gotta maintain heirarchy. So not quite Stalin.

They are getting real desperate. The problem with the Tories is i love half of their traditional policies and i dislike the other half. Tory economic policies, 'privatisation' and favouring the rich is not my idea of economic handling. From a social level though; tough on crime, pro-death penalty, pro-corporal punishment and anti-Europe are exactly the things i'm going to vote for. To morals i say yes. The Lib Dems (or rather the Liberals pre-88), well i used to like their economic policies, middle ground half socialist/half capitalist. I don't like nationalisation as i don't trust the government and it means income tax increases, likewise i dislike the private sector (as a deregulated body) because it means companies can get away with murder and monopolise and give not a care in the world for their customers/patients/passengers. My ideal economic stance is one of government regulated privatism. I.e keep companies small, prevent monopolies and protect the consumer, but the government doesn't own anything they just keep companies in check. So it's regulated market. I suppose Blair's party has been trying this and i'm okay with the current government's economic policies. Their social policies though are far too left wing. I.E Political correctness, protecting criminals by giving them rights for heavens sake. That farmer that shot those intruders should have been given a medal not a prison sentence! The surviving lout that broke in should have been whipped in public. I suppose we're both Conservatives Oli but we admire different eras of the party. From reading your posts i've always thought you a fan of the New Right, Thatcher etc. The big words being Privatisation, free market and low taxes. You know my position on Thatcher, my opposition to her comes not because i'm anti-Tory but because i idealise a different Tory period altogether, with different policies (Baldwin/Chamberlain specifically). As MacMillan said Thatcher sold the family silver. Britain was a great powerful industrial nation because she was a producer, and could capitalise the market. So i always thought selling off all the heavy industry to cheaper foreign competition was going against her ideal of Victorian principles (i.e what made Britain self sufficient and the most powerful nation in the world). Sure the Unions needed crushing because they were causing havock in the 70s. My priciple would have been to make everyone buy British, i.e protective tariffs. Whilst adopting an isolationist policy and stuff Europe. I also wouldn't have let the Empire go, especially South Africa with all that gold, which would help to reintroduce a gold standard. I would have dumped all the other colonies swiftly but maintained India and South Africa, afterall they were the important two. Perhaps i like Victorian politics? Quite the imperialist, pro-heavy industry, pro-royalty, pro-House of Lords, pro-tariffs and protectionism of our national heritage (imperial weights and measures) and culture. Getting a party that believes that though these days is hard. Basically if a time machine was invented and Benjamin Disraeli could be brought to the the present and ran for election i'd vote for him.

What do you guys think (particularly Oli) of David Cameron? I haven't read the updated manifesto of the Tory party lately but he sounds more like a Tory leader that's a bit more agreeable, especially as he's trying to shift the party to the centre ground. Certainly the Cons are now further left than Labour which is currently following a continuation of John Major's policies, with spin added for further effect. Blair's government is still strong enough to win the next election as far as i'm concerned, however, i believe the longer it is fronted by Tony Blair the worse it's chances will become. The Liberal Democrats are seemingly falling apart at the seems now that Charles Kennedy has gone, potential supporters switching to Lab or Con instead. Looking at the opinion polls on the potential successor of the Government, Gordon Brown, it appears he's not that popular, less so than Blair. Which strikes me as odd as i'd be much happier with Brown running it than Blair. I think we're going to see a real revolution in the political makeup of this country. If the Tories pick up Clause 4 (and some have considered it, they're that desperate to win), then it could be amusing. And they might even win.

First rule; don't clean them, any of them. I'll tell you that now.

Or lower if they're a novice.

Did the coin have a 'Buy it now' option? If it wasn't that then one of two things might have happened; The seller took it down and might perhaps relist it. This generally happens when it's reported as being listed wrong. Or someone has approached the seller by email and offered to buy it straight up. Failing that the seller changed there minds about selling it.

I am sure there are Geoffrey coins you know but they look exactly the same as the Fulk and Henry ones, same design, same legends. It's quite possibly the case that some coins identified as Fulk are really Geoffrey. Geoffrey's reign was one of significant expansion, so i'm sure he'll have coins of his own, it's just waiting for them to turn up. This family tree approach that we are all seemingly taking sounds fun! I'm doing Blois (in theory) as well as Anjou though, but i'm sticking with the 12th century, i'm not going back earlier than that, nor going further forward. There will always be stumbling blocks Geordie, it's that way of this game! They just didn't tell me that Khufu had built it though!

France yes, as for the low countries, well they might get roped in. I could do with that book too actually! In response to Geordie; No i haven't met anything directly from Geoffrey yet, although i've met things both sides of him, Henry II on one side and Fulk V on the other. The design of the coins from Fulk V (and maybe earlier?) is an immobilised type though, which runs through until Henry II and perhaps beyond. I have not sources on these though as of yet, so i cannot be more specific.

You mean Æthelred II? There's an interesting thought, which of these four types of pennies are the most common coins left in existence? 1) Æthelred II 2) Cnut 3) Henry III Long Cross 4) Edward I 1279 Recoinage types There's a heck of alot of those out there. A few million perhaps? Æthelred's and Cnut's survive in substantial quantities. Henry III & Edward I are everywhere you look.

Dunno. Things to consider perhaps from common sense; 1) Geography of the area. Were there any populous settlements that would warrant trade and commerce at a level that would make coinage feesible? 2) Could coinage from other kingdoms be plentiful enough to not necessitate the issuance of coinage in that particular kingdom? 3) Perhaps some Northumbrian or other coinage has been erronously ascribed to the wrong kingdom? 4) A fundamental saying in archaeology; "absence of evidence does not mean lack of evidence", i.e just because it's not here now doesn't mean it never existed.

Can you post photos or scans? This is the quickest way for us to ascertain value.

The sky is blue, the clouds are whispy. The grass is brunswick grren and there's a giraffe doing handstands. Did i pass?

I love hammered coins!

No i have to say i like snakes. Dogs are the curse of the earth. *Shudder*

Very sound advice, particularly if you are on a tight budget. As a complete date nut, i can't argue with any of that. If date collecting is your thing (like me), then you're in trouble.

It was back in 2003 though! Do your records go back that far? I know you trim it out regularly.

An 1887 year set from Crown to silver threepence is as good a place to start as any. That's where i started. That way you don't have to pick a denomination from the off, you can find out which one you're natually drawn to. 1937 set can be fun too; crown to farthing. If you really want to start cheap try the 1967 set (halfcrown to halfpenny), a very good set to start with.

I forget which it was Chris (and i can't locate my CCrft at present), but someone on here many, many moons ago reported having a 1696 or 1697 sixpence without obverse stops. One of those years is listed in all the books, the other is not, my hunch is 1697.