Rob

It's all they need to do. There are sufficient nerds around to ensure that is unlikely to slip under the radar.

He has more than 10 available of these rare pieces. I wonder who has the other 180 million?

Maurice Bull's Charles I Half Crowns vols. 3, 4 & 5 covers that denomination. Morrieson's articles in the BNJ cover the various mints, Lyall's Chester in the SNC, Allen's W/SA in the BNJ, Hird's work on Newark, specialist denomination volumes will have the appropriate coins. Then there is private research.

Maybe he isn't supplying the CGS coin you refer to, so can't provide good images. Just a thought. With the historical baggage, anything is possible.

Most of the 1915 and 1916 pennies I see appear to have had said tool applied. Most unappealing.

I don't bother. I check for open 3s, 1908 1*, narrow date 1877 and 1879, halfpenny numeral 1862s and die numbers. O/w, they are given a cursory glance to see if anything is abnormal. If not, the grade determines whether they are worth putting in the trays or the scrap pile.

A case of Pavlov's Clogs?

Don't worry, it's a minor transgression compared to the hammered 1915/6 recessed ear pennies currently being discussed.

I don't know any girls called Sharon or Tracy, however, I have extended my knowledge. According to Google, TOWIE is 'The only way is Essex' and Sharon or/and Tracy comes up with 'Birds of a Feather'. It appears both are from Essex. Same cast? Sorry, couldn't be a***d to find out. 30 years ago, a past encounter with a customer's son who was 10 years old at the time and lived in Essex elicited the statement 'cor, you dun arf tawk fanny mite'. I recognised 'You', even if the rest was in a foreign language. There was a definite inability to compose a coherent sentence, just as I noticed on ITV's 'The Chase' the other day. The presenter asked the contestant 'If you was to win some money, what would you do with it?' My immediate thought was to buy him a copy of 'English for Dummies'. Viz's Fat Slags I do recognise.

Never heard of it.

It isn't important as a broad classification will suffice for most things. Every die is different, so the fact that a particular individual has done something in a personal style is neither here nor there as long as it conforms to a particular class using most features. You can always sub-divide a class based on the odd quirk seen on a particular die, but most of these are inconsequential. Some things clearly take a higher priority such as the initial mark, which we know is changed for a reason. But garnishing or embellishment is not easy to tie down as a deliberate and defining change of detail, and thus worthy of being designated a different type.

Not much has changed in the past 300 years. There's still no shortage of people who somehow failed to learn to read and write and live out fanciful lives.

None of the above. You have a lis topped sceptre and a trefoil topped pillar. But given the absence of initial mark, you would have to say IIb. I would guess an early one given the use of the lis on the sceptre. Can't be IIc because the stops are trefoils.

I blame the penny boys for starting a penny only acquisition thread. Coin aquisition (sic) of the Week was doing just fine with nearly 14000 posts until Upinsmoke put his own purchases into a separate thread, then others joined it and now we have a multitude of disparate acquisition threads. Can we not just merge all these into one and keep it simple?

I would suggest that most of the problems arise in provincial auctions which are not specialists in anything other than arranging and executing an auction. Any specialist auctioneer has to tread very carefully and failing to withdraw iffy lots in its chosen field would kill any reputation that was painstakingly built up over time. I've not had any problem with the major players in refusing to take note of anything requiring either a saleroom notice or lot withdrawal. The number of withdrawn lots on the grounds of authenticity are minimal.

So, auctioneers are all crooks. We know eBay is full of crooks. Where else would you buy your coins? China? At least there is no pretense, as you can buy multiple identical examples of whatever coin you choose very cheaply. There are decent auctioneers who will pull an item if there is doubt cast on it's authenticity - most in fact.

That's possible. But then it is eBay. Whilst you may not know what item you will get, you are on firmer ground when assessing the seller. Horses for courses. That's what eBay is and why people won't pay too much for items and why sellers try to counteract that. I think eBay may one day contract to be a one-stop shop for useful everyday items from business sellers only, or maybe split into 2 with a sensible and silly section. It's biggest problem has to be public selling items with a grossly inflated expectation of value.

We should be able sort it out on here. Just post a high res picture that has been cropped to make the coin occupy the full width and height of the image. You might have to resize it to fit the 500kB maximum size. That will give approx. 78% of the image made up of coin with which we can do something. The current useful area is 2% ish.

The point I'm making is that due to the vagaries of eBay, it is easy to inadvertently list something twice. No malicious intent, just human error.

I know from past experience you can list the same thing twice if you inadvertently close a listing in the process of doing so. A copy then goes to drafts. After the interruption you list the item only to find out later that you also have an unfinished listing, which you duly finish.

Because to invert the punch you would have to use the other side, i.e. the bit you hit with a hammer, so the repair would probably be a round or square blob a few mm in diameter depending on what it looks like - I don't know. It is pretty certain not to have an engraved inverted E on the bit you hit. If you rotate the working end it would place the bar on the right

Where would they get a reversed F punch from? If it was upside down the vertical would be on the right hand side of the character. More likely a broken E punch or an I with the arms entered separately.

The description is as you say. Probably a typo as the following item was an 1826 with the same description, which is a year for sets. I have a complete set of SNCs for the year if interested. It's illustrated.

An illusion

Sixpence 19mm dia, shilling just under 24