Sylvester

Not always... The Provincial mint Sovereigns SA, C, I, S, M, P etc. were usually minted in the provinces cos it saved shipping raw gold over on ships (where it could be looted), minting it into coins in England and then shipping it back over to the colonies on ships (where if they didn't get it the first time they could have a second attempt). Therefore the sovereigns were minted near to the gold source and then shipped wherever required which meant only one shipping rather than two.

Oh i would. In about 5 or 10 years it wouldn't surprise me idf they didn't sell of the circulation coin minting royalties to another private company, either that or they'll shift production to China/India like everyone else seems to have done and make a better profit.

Oh tell me about it. And whilst we're bitching about it, what is it with releasing the proofs in different cases? standard and delux etc? Then of course we get speciman sets, piedfort proofs...

Household polish should do the trick. Also soap and warm water... it won't be an easy task but just give it your best shot, and use circular motions with the cloth, it'll get you plenty of hairline scratches. Once you've seen a coin properly cleaned you'll not want to see too many more of them. Another thing you can look at is those sets they sell at souvenier shops for tourists they are usually dipped/polished to oblivion. Well it saves you cleaning one. But if you clean a few pennies in circ... oh i've just had a though try salt and bicarb soda... but not together. I know salt can be used to shift tea stains in cups and bicarbonate of soda is just fantastic for cleaning all matter of stuff like teeth. Have an experiment or two, then once you've done chuck em back in circulation. Feel free to try vinegar too.

It's a rare building that needs brakes, some have been known to move of their own accord but not fast enough for brakes.

talking of hair look for hairline scratches on the ones you cleaned.

Actually the 1993 one is a 1992/3 issue or so it says and Collectors Coins was much smaller back then.

It's alright i don't need one and if i did WHSmiths has one at my disposal to read on the shelf and put back when i've looked up the coin of interest. I might buy a 2005 on though but that's goinmg against my 7 year rule... i should wait till 2006/7 before buying another. 1985, 1993, 2000, 2007...

Best way to learn is by DIY. Get some decimal pennies out of circulation preferably ones dated 1971-1991 (cos they are bronze not plated) and clean a few of them, give them a really good polish. Then find a true shiny bronze coin that you may have and compare the two, there's nothing like it, you'll soon see. Look at the lustre between the two, flat lustre of the cleaned, shiny depth of the natural. It's kinda like those hair adverts...

Rumours are that some are... But of course there have also been cases of fake slabs, and if i recall correctly companies slabbing slabs, i joked that it would come to the latter on RCC and someone stated it had already happened.

No way is that silver, looks to have been chrome plated. Definately looks to be a 'silver' metal other than silver, it's not white enough for silver though. My bet is on chrome.

I've got a sovrin' to crack out sooner or later... i don't want to damage it though.

You and me both Jennings... slabs probably will come in over here eventually, one dealer is already selling all his coins slabbed. The way round it is that us anti-slabbers just don't give them custom and keep moving along to those that sell raw coins. Another way is if we all continually slate slabbed coins instill into the newbies that it's an evil practice and make them approach it as so. Slabbing will only take over completely if we resign to it.

Ah, i get it now ...but i cant really see any kind of greenish on my farthings... Not that you'd want to see green on your farthings anyhow...

It depends entirely upon the tone, the way the light is reflected off of them, also how wide you interpet the green colour spectrum (totally individual) would you shove and olive/mustard colour in yellow or in green? (Females would generally just invent a new term for it like oh for the sake of explanation; mauve). When we are saying green here we do not mean plain green that say a child's toy would be made out of, if you're looking for leaf green forget it. If we want to get all female about it we could call it a slightly lighter shade of darker olive grey with a hint of puce and a sprinkling of mauve. Which would be an interesting colour that i'd file under the blanket term of say brown. But for the purposes of simplification just call it 'green'

Because they'll spend more time making coins that makes them a profit than those that they are actually there to make.

I know what he means, hard to describe though. Like brass has a greenish colour to it.

Don't give them idea please. I think that would be a disaster. Firstly the Royal Mint should mint coins and should not make any extra profits from doing so, they should be able to fund buying in the raw materials, upkeeping the machinery, paying the staff and minting the next year's issues etc. Ideally they should not be a profit making organisation. Secondly i strongly disagree thatthey should make repros of any kind cos newbies get fooled by unscupulous sellers on Ebay who sell them as real, even worse it would be if it had got a certificate of authenticy with it (i.e it's a geniune certified Royal Mint repro). No i don't think they should mint them. It's bad enough we have to put up with all this bullion and commemorative trash they release every year... does anyone really need a silver version of a 1994 £1 coin?

I totally agree and alot of those are unnecessary too.

How many other people think that? I bet it's lots... so everyone saves them... they stay common and they don't go up in value very much... How many people save the decimal halfpennys on the other hand?

do we really need anymore 50p commemoratives?

Not with you. How could the oppositon benefit? (unless they get theirs printed here too!) That's what i meant... they might move to cheaper printers.

i second that notion.

That and the opposition might benefit!

Subsidery to me suggests they might mean the smaller denomination coins.