Rob

Any defect will reduce value, but as to how much is anyone's guess. Twenty years down the line, the market will be hot in different areas to those that are popular today. Equally, different faults might be more or less acceptable. The commoner the coin, the more impact is my gut feeling because you can invariably pick up a fault free example with a little patience. It's the patience thing where most collectors fail.

What you say is exactly what the problem is. Politicians of all countries do things in the name of their citizens and said people have to live with the consequences ad infinitum. That is what makes history. It doesn't matter whether you opposed the Iraq war or not - it has already happened and the money spent. It doesn't matter any more that Gordon Brown sold all the nation's gold reserves off at rock bottom prices - the transaction has completed. If you want to rebuild them, you will have to do it at market rates. The same can be said for the actions of any other politician; Thatcher, De Gaulle, Hitler, Washington, Mugabe, Merkel etc. All would have attracted varying degrees of support and dissent at the time, but their decisions have lasting ramifications for citizens both immediately after, and for some, long into the future. So we return to the point in question. Government borrowing affects people today and tomorrow. If you don't want to be controlled by the banks, don't borrow. The actions of politicians are mostly restricted to spouting populist policies, or backing pet projects. If people of any country want things done for their benefit, then both good and bad are done in their name with collective responsibility for the outcome. Benefit provision costs money, which is usually borrowed. More happens at a local level when you have a sense of community - something that has been lost to a great extent in much of the developed world primarily on the back of greed and avarice. Materialism has a lot to answer for, as without it, far less capital would be borrowed. Politicians of most democracies are voted into power by either the largest minority or occasionally an outright majority, but the entire population has to live with the consequences. It doesn't really matter whether the point in question is a financial one or a political one, it will be opposed by something approaching a majority because of political division.

It's a common theme these days for everyone to blame someone else, because saying mea culpa isn't a vote winner. If politicians ran their countries as well as they managed their own finances, I believe the debt levels would be much lower and by extension manageable. Countries borrow money for the most part because they are incapable of generating sufficient capital internally to fulfil the pledges made to buy votes. If the various countries of the Eurozone want to maintain their diverse lifestyles, for the less efficient it has to come at a price in the form of wages and therefore purchasing power. A common currency dictates that wages must be lower in line with relative inefficiency and a comparison of services available should reflect the degree to which they can be afforded. The national balance of payments will ultimately determine what luxuries you may or may not be able to enjoy, because a permanent negative balance as seen in this and many other countries is money that has gone forever unless you take steps to build up resereves (i.e reform your economy) The question of bank debt is a practical example of inappropriate political expediency. Banks were bailed out that should have been allowed to fail with the associated problems for depositors. Individuals need an occasional kick in the nether region to realise that their money is their responsibility and should not be treated as a cossetted asset safeguarded by the state. The willingness to diversify risk would soon take root were this the case. If the problem is genuinely the banks, then politicians need to man up and refuse the loans/money 'forced' upon them. They are voted into power to run the country's finances in a responsible way, but I think it goes without saying that significant and damaging decisions are made by politicians who are not the best tool for the job as this country's PFI projects, or the local government loans discussed on tonight's Channel 4 program amply demonstrate.

I think all the noise being made on this topic misses the point. Leaving aside the question of whether the Greeks cooked the books to ensure they were admitted, once they were in they were on the same treadmill as all the other constituent nations. The root cause is trying to fit the variously efficient economies of Europe into a one size fits all exchange rate. The Euro is overvalued for the Greek economy and undervalued for the German one. Without full political union to accompany the monetary one, there is only the slightest chance that it can end other than in tears. If Greece, or any other country wants to be part of the Euro on a sustainable basis then they must either forego their sovereign independence and become part of a political settlement that determines everything is controlled from the centre so that you have common taxation and other regulations across the community, or they must ensure that their economy adjusts to the average for the EU. If they don't want to become like the average Eurozone economy then they have to consider leaving the Euro to enable them to set their own interest rates with their own currency. It's their choice, but there is no reason why the other Eurozone countries should be accommodating a country that wants the free lunch of no reform and unlimited funding. Given the likelihood that the Greek debt will never be repaid and there is no appetite for reform, it would be an abrogation of responsibility for people to lend further amounts to a government that is taking you for a ride with no intention of future loans being repaid either. When in a hole, it is best to stop digging. Creditor nations also have responsibilities to their own taxpayers which is something that spendthrifts are anxious to forget. Living beyond your means is a problem that's closer to home than Greece, but at the moment we are able to keep the balls in the air because we have control of our own currency. However, people are advised not to be too complacent.

He's changed his phone number Now it is +918469466030

Same as ships I guess. Why are they always female, because the vast majority of crews are going to be men? There might be some basis for gender allocation to otherwise asexual objects derived from languages such as German or French for example. e.g a good rule of thumb is that most things that do work in German are the feminine die (as are plurals). The exception to this rule is of course der mund (mouth), which invariably works overtime in the female version, but less so with the male form.

Doing well I see. HB.

Why? That's what we are here for.

Ok, I'm happy to stand corrected, so do we have a die link for it?

There are a lot of modern copies, for example, the William I PAXS penny posted a few minutes before your thread. If it looks odd, it probably is. Whilst somebody could possibly unearth a rarity, eastern europe (or ebay) and a potentially valuable type are usually accompanied by a large red flag. A lot of Roman copies emanate from eastern europe, so a Viking copy doesn't require a great leap of faith.

To expand, it appears that the coin attempts to imitate an Ethelred II long cross penny, but the legends are completely wrong. An example of a long cross penny is below. Maybe there is a Viking imitation of this issue, but those are also round. Weight?

Best bet is ebay which has 2500 listings in the bulk lots section. I've about 40kg here which I am gradually sorting through, but unsorted means a lot of different things to people. If you want unsorted in the hope of finding something valuable then it will be difficult to find this as most accumulations will have had at least a cursory look, but unsorted in terms of things that people aren't interested in might offer more potential. What countries are you looking for?

How much do you want?

Casts are invariably thicker because the metal has to be poured into a mould whereas a coin struck from sheet silver is actually quite thin, because the integrity of the metal means it follows the relief of the dies. You often see a line which shows the join around the edge because often casts are made in two parts.

Could be a coin weight given the shape, or just a weight for scales

That isn't right.

I also feel I have nothing to add to most threads, The underlying die doesn't have to be a shilling

In that case it's genuinely wrong, which I suspected as the surfaces look cast. The weight should be 1.4 to 1.5g approx. The weight will vary, but not by a lot. e.g. the one below weighs 1.45g.

Ah, the transatlantic invasion of words that invariably seem to be a little 'wrong' - such as ebay's or amazon's use of 'buyer/seller experience'. Globalisation has created many such incongrueties of which my favourite is probably the Mitsubishi Starion. Given the other two models were the Colt and Lancer, this had to be a misprunt based on a Japanese person interpreting a fellow countryman.

The look suggests to me it might be a copy despite being battered. What's the weight? Clive will be up to date with all the copies of PAXS pennies. If a copy, then south of the couple pounds it costs to get one in a museum shop, if genuine a couple hundred at most because the mint isn't legible. The surfaces don't look good.

No idea, but using phrases like that are presumably Chinese?

It's just part of life's general trend. Given there are few easy options that haven't been tried, the only way to stand out is to become ever more eccentric or outlandish. As someone who grew up in an era when a pub crawl involving 15 different breweries' ales meant visiting 15 different establishments, the concept of having 15 variations of the same basic cider on the same shelf seems a bit strange and smacks of the marketing man trying to override the pleasures of trying different companies' products. As cider must have a legal definition, presumably these are just flavoured concoctions? Rhetorical question, but what was wrong with dry, medium or sweet?

Empty barrel.

Probably because the question of reused dies has been addressed here before? Adding a reply along similar lines is akin to a typical academic paper where previously published facts are repackaged and then regurgitated, all from the need to publish a paper in your own name. It is very difficult to continually put a new slant on a topic, and as for adding new material every time then forget it. This is a recurring problem for me at places such as our coin club because I struggle to find sufficient new material to talk about that can't be found elsewhere. There is no way I can do a talk more frequently than every other year without repeating myself - which would bore people. Anyway, to address the question. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that diestock was reused time and again, with perhaps the most obvious example being the Exeter shilling that went through DNW a few years ago which had 2 nearly full reverse designs visible. There is no practical reason why a die would need to be melted after use as it is not a precision piece of engineering, being just a length of bar with a design engraved on the end. Of greater interest would be the identity of the underlying die. A reversed N should be quite easy to find when it comes to narrowing down the die options.

Splendid, another subsidiary living under the corporate iFault banner.