Rob

Complications here. How many John Springs do you want? Totally different John Spring. This one also lives in the London area and sells catalogues Tried to do a multi-quote but it failed. On the question of price, £60 is not a huge amount for a reference book. I was paying that sort of money for some books at university in the 70s, and there were far more printed than is likely for a specialist coin related book. Even at school earlier in the decade, the biology textbook for A level cost £30 - or about the same as a lesser quality first generation scientific calculator. M&R used to cost about £40-45, but is now out of print.

With the new feedback system it'll be nigh on impossible to email the buyer. Which is just what eBay wants. Being able to tell buyers that they have bought a forgery, means that they will return it to the seller and eBay lose the commission on the sale. Ebay's motive for the obscured feedback system is clear. Not totally convinced by this argument. Whilst eBay are not going to give up commission willingly, the number of forgeries sold on ebay is only a miniscule fraction of the total sales. Far more likely that they are trying to eliminate a source of potential hassle. To sort out complaints requires time and manpower, the cost of which far outweighs any benefits accruing to eBay.

link Presumably was able to outwit the guards and escape from the local asylum? There are some damned clever coins around. A few months ago we had one taking a dog for a walk.

This is obviously contemporary packaging, but I've no idea where they came from. Anybody?

I assume that most are going to be worn nearly flat, so by and large they will be worth nothing to very little and most would be best scrapped. (I have 25kgs here waiting to go in the pot which are too much hassle to sort for no sensible return) Key dates are 1864, 1869 & 1871. There are rare varieties of some years which by definition most can't have, but these are often difficult to identify because of the condition. Exceptions are things like narrow and wide dates. So the 1877 narrow date is easy to spot, but so rare you are very unlikely to have one. The wife stuck a low grade 1864 on ebay a while back which sold for just over £1, so unless in good grade is unlikely to produce a worthwhile return irrespective of rarity. Your call depending on how much time you have to waste.

The ticket doesn't look like it is in Whitton's hand. The attached is the 'Cost me' column from the catalogue of his own sale in 1943. The lower case m is distinctly different as is the 2. It isn't the ticket style used in the 1959 sale via Seaby. I have a coin from this and will see if the ticket is imaged anywhere.

Struggling here. There aren't many sceptre shillings listed. 1949 and the surrounding years saw two examples which appear to have stayed in the trays for a while. One less than fine for 8/- to 10/6 and a gFine to nVF at 21/-. However, neither had stock numbers that were remotely like the above. TBH, without knowing what the coin was and its grade, there's a fair amount of p***ing in the wind. Fair Tower shillings were still selling for 6/- in 1960, so it could be any time over a 20 year period. Unfortunately I'm missing 2 issues in the 1940-1960 period, so a complete check wasn't possible. Sorry.

It looks like a Seaby ticket from when RCB's collection was dispersed post-mortem. I'll have a look a bit later.

It's the only bit they needed to fill in. With die corrections, however well it gets filled there is almost invariably a shadow of the filled digit if in high grade. The filler sometimes falls out too, so you see a 'flaw' where this happened. Sometimes they don't bother filling in the previous digit if it is similar enough to the new one, such as converting a 5 to a 6, or say G1/G2 coppers where the font used enables a 2 to be superimposed on a 1 with minimal evidence. At this point you need a high grade coin to look at the relief to establish if it has been recut.

I can't see any trace of a 7

Why? There's no mention of collection in person only. They have a postal service too.

Thanks Rob, postie's just delivered it Great. Thanks I had 2 copies if anyone else is looking for one.

I don't think anyone will argue with that. The question is how?

That is the kind of uncertainty I want to avoid. I need reproducable and stable results under constantly the same conditions in order to have the possibility to compare. The easiest and cheapest way to achieve that is a scanner I only had to find a setup that I like once. I now use the same setup for all coin images and therefore have reproducible and comparable results. How do you cope with differences in toning? Some can be nearly black, whereas others have none.

Finally, this is a camera image of the second coin. http://www.rpcoins.co.uk/c15%20pics/01857.jpg

This is a regular currency strike of the same type.

I find the scanner much better for proofs than currency which are invariably featureless with a monotonous tone. However, it also appears to differ between scanners. The images below were taken using my old scanner which subsequently died, but I can't replicate this with the replacement which gives really flat and lifeless images. This is an image of a proof/specimen depending on whether you back Freeman or not.

It was in the last Downies sale

Large boxful just arrived. Please PM if anyone is interested. I haven't sorted a list out yet, so you would be asking for specifics probably. Plenty of other books and catalogues too. 2 car loads in total!

Although a dull thud is a good indicator of a cast, you would also get a less than perfect ring of varying quality with a defective flan where there is a crack, say, or an inclusion which would lead to a laminated flan.

Clearly a bad time for computers. My accounts computer has just gone on the blink. Just as I was printing off the nominal ledger for my year end. If it could be persuaded to print just 90 more pages I could start with a blank sheet for the new financial year.

I have never bought from them and sold them one coin about 6 years ago. It is still on the list. The 1861 halfcrown now priced at £750 (wt. 12.88g.). I sold it for £200 at the time which I thought reasonable. The current 3 pieces of this date listed are 750, 850 & 950. Unsurprisingly, all have been there a long time.

You and Peck brothers? Good lord no - heaven forbid!!. We're poles apart politically, dimensionally and in sporting affiliations. but we still get on alright. Her beard is not on the scale of yours Rob Dimensionally? You mean we're not on the same TARDIS? Or do you mean you're a fairly big rugger type and I'm a scrawny runt? Something like that.

You and Peck brothers? Good lord no - heaven forbid!!. We're poles apart politically, dimensionally and in sporting affiliations. but we still get on alright.

Yes. James I and Charles I farthings. Richmond, Lennox, Maltravers, Harrington etc