Rob

Wot about Briot?

I was going to reply to all these but too many to do - I'll give you the task of finding a D&H. Life is so much simpler with one as all the varieties are illustrated. Punctuation, present or missing is important, as is the position of the legend relative to itself or other features as this will determine the die(s) used and hence the variety. For this piece: Milled edge will be D&H 351 - common. 351a edge reads 'AN ASYLUM .......NATIONS' - Rare 351b edge 'BIRMINGHAM OR SWANSEA' - Very Rare. 351c edge 'PAYABLE AT LONDON LIVERPOOL OR BRISTOL.' - Rare. And for any 19th century tokens you might acquire, a good reference you will find is 19the Century Token Coinage, by W J Davis. Sorry, I will lose the will to live if I do many more. I don't have any copies of either in stock, but do have the references in an emergency and if all else fails will help. Every collector added to the list of known people in a certain field helps.

This one is a Coalbrookdale 1/2d token. The birthplace of the industrial revolution. Dalton & Hamer Shropshire 10, identifiable by the position of the obverse legend and the reverse date 1 relative to the K in KETLEY and the 9 being under the limb of L. Obverse is the bottom image. D&H rarity is scarce. If you are interested in tokens, you can get a reprint of the volume. The originals were printed in 1910 and somewhat hard to find.

Similar for me. And if you live within an hour or two of Galata's address, have a day out walking in the area and pick them up. You will probably be offered a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Paul and Bente are nice people.

I think that's what the last person had in mind when I sold a kg or so on ebay last time.

If I get enough, I might put them on ebay as material for an art project. Only the 84s sell individually.

More obviously there is no sign of a quatrefoil on the reverse to make it Irish (or possibly episcopal English). Don't worry about the small flan reference as many coins were clipped, focus on the detail you can see.

And my 1694 upgrade. Quite chuffed. . Thankfully people focussed on the description which said pitted flan, which is due to it being cast rather than rolled as per spec, but as that accounts for half the halfpennies or more of this period, should not be something to worry about.

I still think there is only one die for these, as that was the 4th I'm aware of, and they are definitely the same obverses. There are 2 different reverse dies however, which is probably to be expected (see alignment of 17 and final A). My current example is the third coin, which I picked up in DNW 76, lot 287. My first one came from ebay in 2004 and both cost a tenner. Excuse the GV/B 1694 which was added to keep things neat. That was the discovery piece by Colin Cooke in 2004. I have since upgraded that with the superb example in London Coins 168, lot 1407. I saw it, GV/B not mentioned in the description, compared with mine and promptly put a very large 'must buy' label in my shopping list. Those are the only two I have recorded, but there must more out there.

Not particularly flattering, is it? Having said that, my all time low is probably the 2002 Queen Mother £5 portrait. The first time I saw one of those, I had to do a quick check that it was a Royal Mint product and not some private enterprise output. Give Anne her dues. She is probably the hardest working royal of the 4, and I suspect has a greater sense of duty than the others.

That was the father. He passed away about 4 years ago. I don't think Dennis ever got over it.

Just had an email from Lu Veissid that Dennis Dunkerton died peacefully at home earlier today. Sadly, one of life's casualties to the excesses of alcohol. He has looked like death on legs for the past year and couldn't keep off the pop. Still a nice guy though. RIP Dennis

It's always good to learn. We all do, albeit mostly through mistakes, not having gone to the effort of preparing ourselves adequately for the items in question. It is always helpful to acquire a few higher grade items in your areas of interest as well as being cleanly and clearly struck. If correctly identified, then you can use those as a reference for the various design features you need to check to drill down into the sub-type. Don't be afraid of spending decent money on a good coin. It doesn't suddenly become a 50p lucky dip item worth nothing just because you paid more than you normally would.

If it had liv as the last three characters, it would have been worth a couple hundred pounds, or whatever someone was willing to pay, even in that condition

Anyone with a correctly spelt legend on William III obverses, please make yourselves known now. It seems easier to find an error than a correct legend in this time period. Yet another to add to the list.