Rob

It depends on bright. There is bright as in dipped which is more a case of personal preference, or bright as in polished which reduces value and is generally avoided. A coin with natural random toning is less likely to have been cleaned in the past as cleaning usually results in a very even tone, maybe because a dip or polish must surely leave a chemical deposit on the surface. There are a few threads on the forum regarding toning including this one http://www.predecimal.com/forum/topic/9647-lets-see-your-toned-english-milled-silver/?page=1

You might get a couple quid on eBay, but they occur so frequently that there is no real demand. The thing is, it isn't a variety, just a random error.

Blocked dies as a result of grease not being cleaned and subsequently being trapped between the dies during striking, this preventing a fully struck up piece.

The box looks to be in good condition, which is not so common. There is only one side of the coins shown, so the other side is unknown. The coins will probably have a toning line across them from contact with the ribbon - many sets do. There is also a couple of spots on the halfpenny and florin. It's much better to see things in hand. Go to a coin fair. If convenient, the Midland is tomorrow at 9:30 at the Motorcycle Museum. York racecourse is next Friday and Saturday, Wakefield is the last Sunday of the month at the Cedar Court hotel off Jcn 39 of the M1, starts at 9:30.

According to Krause, the portrait types were .903, but the non-portrait types (earlier, say 1740s) were .917

The crown was always heavier than the 8R. at 30g it was 5/-, which is why the original countermarked pieces were tariffed at a lower value. The purity of the silver was also different to our 925. Given the upheaval of the Napoleonic Wars it is somewhat surprising that they issued a new value on a coin. It would have been far simpler to continue with the existing coin and adjust prices to suit even allowing for the shortage of specie. Obviously the Spanish 'donated' a considerable sum to the nation's coffers, and using existing coin of known purity was the easiest solution, bypassing the need to refine the silver.

Take it or leave it. I can just as easily drink a couple bottles of wine as I can not have a drink for a fortnight. I do seem to have relinquished the pursuit of drinking to a state of oblivion however - mostly.

If you intend mounting them for display I would suggest you find high grade but cleaned coins. Collectors don't like cleaned coins, so they sell for less. There is no point spending premium money on premium coins if you are going to knock the resale value for six by attaching them to the frame. Your gold will be dependent on the spot price.

26g is a bit vague for a reference weight. They were struck predominantly from 8 Reales which weighed 27.07g according to Krause, but given the host was circulated coinage this number isn't set in stone. It would also differ slightly if something other than an 8R was used, but not necessarily by a significant amount, and given you have no idea what condition the host was in before striking it is not practical to give an exact weight.

Good. Keep your eyes open. The relief detail is usually thicker and less sharp than a genuine piece. Additionally, in the case of those with die numbers, the population of these increases disproportionately relative to the other die numbers, so in this case there was an increase in die number 64s.

There are pictures in the Norweb catalogue, but as it just looks like a normal bun head it wouldn't be very informative to post it. AFAIK nobody is sure why the 1860 and 1861 gold strikings were made, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to say they were presentation pieces, the only question being for who? The 1861 had to be a set of three, but the 1860 appears to be a penny only.

These are strange posts written in a strange form of English. Do we have someone with a genuine interest in coins here or one of these random posters that appear from time to time, vaguely referring to what was previously posted and yet say nothing? If you are genuinely into numismatics then you are welcome.

No idea what it is. It certainly isn't English. For reference, it should look similar to the attached. A standard facing bust dividing E L and CIVITAS EBORACI on the rev.

Don't know where it is, but I would think it is still in the market. Dolphin bought it in Norweb pt.4 for £11200 hammer.

Someone said a month ago ( at the last Midland) in passing that he had left, but obviously that was supposed to mean he had handed in his notice and was leaving.

He left a month or more ago. Don't know what he is doing now though.

copper probably. Looking at it would be easy to determine as you only have copper with or without bronzed finish, silver, pewter/lead, gilt or gold as potential metals. No aluminium as it hadn't been discovered during the Soho period.

Blocked dies remove detail, broken dies give added detail. Although people use the term blocked (usually referring to the incuse bits getting filled with crap), it is in fact damaged, with a bit fallen off

Peck's nomenclature for Kuchler farthing type 1 in his tome. Peck 1186 & 1187 are gilt and copper respectively. Weight is not likely to be either an issue or very informative as you find the flan weights vary a bit on account of them not being for circulation.I don't have a crappy example to show for comparison, but attached is a halfpenny in fairly dire (for a pattern/proof) condition that passed through my hands a few years ago. You can see the high points have exposed the underlying copper, but the majority of the gilding is intact, basically because it is relatively thick (note the scratches above the trident which haven't exposed copper), which post mint gilding tends not to be. For your coin to have such widespread gilt removal, I would think it wasn't original. A few years ago at Warwick & Warwick, there were a couple of Soho pieces that were effectively gold painted. I think Colin G will remember them, but can't remember if the other one was a farthing and if so whether this was it.

It has been gilt, but possibly wasn't originally so IMO. I'd have to see it in hand, but genuinely gilt as struck coins are rarely if ever seen in this condition and the flans tend to be well made with the gilding holding fast, so only the highest points lose the gold. Any poor post mint gilding comes off relatively however. Based on the pictures it ought to be a KF1, but where is the ship?

Don't bother. Ever since the 1935 Silver Jubilee crown, there has been more struck than the market can absorb. They made just over 700,000 of them, and even today are only worth tens of pounds. The first George VI crown is not so bad, but the Festival of Britain crowns head a long line of things that are worth a few pounds at the most. Churchill crowns, Silver Jubilee crowns, how many do you want? I will sell you a bag of 50 at a bit over face. The main problem is that there is no precious metal content to encourage their melting down. By all means get an example of each, but don't imagine for one minute they will be a good investment.

See, now I would have thought a football reference was referring to the 66 World Cup, which they are forever harping on about (and it's getting boring) and not WW2. A bit ironic really that the inability to forget about the war is now almost exclusively the preserve of those with no experience. The wife's late uncle was on the Eastern front, my father got out of St. Nazaire, a fortnight after Dunkirk before going to the Far East and being a POW on the railway. They got on like a house on fire when they met. No axes to grind, despite one having half his jaw blown off and the other never being able to walk properly again. They were both happy to forget the past.

Germany needs to stop feeling guilty. There's only a certain amount of contrition that can reasonably be expected. Lessons have been learnt across the planet, nevertheless, history will repeat itself whether in the name of religion, politics or race - Srebrenica, Cambodia, Rwanda anyone? There will always be social stresses because there is always a section that feels hard done by, so open discussion is the only way to stop resentment becoming an uncontrolled problem as it is far more likely to lead to attempts at defusing the situation. If open discussion exacerbates a problem, then clearly it has not been responsibly discussed nor the situation addressed in the past.

There is too much tarring with the same brush going on here. The racist element in this country is small, just as it is in most other countries, but but does exist, just as it does elsewhere. You won't change that. To suggest that all those who cited immigration as an issue are racist is plain silly. Those who voted for the far-right in the last election are probably a good proxy for the genuinely racist numbers. When I was growing up in a little country town, migrants were a real rarity. We had a 3rd generation Italian ice-cream business until the first Chinese take-away opened at the end of the 60s. We had a Lebanese family move in after the 73 Arab-Israeli war and the first black family in 1974. Before that you had to travel to a city to see a non-white face. Many country areas still have virtually no migrants, so when the eastern counties have gone from zero to 20 or 30% migrants in some communities, it changes the whole mix. Relatively unprosperous communities inevitably see this as threatening because it is a genuine sea-change in the community. It doesn't make them racist however. This country has a long history of assimilating displaced groups, the most recent probably being the Ugandan asians thrown out by Idi Amin in the early 70s. To make any subject taboo will only serve to disguise any grievances, real or perceived.

Yes.