Rob

Normal

TDOG - meaning?

A post mint damage date error?

Doesn't look like a coin as it has no date, legend or denomination from what I can see. A medal of sorts is most likely. One side has St. George and the Dragon, but I've no idea about the other which is probably the side with the biggest clue as St. George is fairly generic.

The previously unknown (to the general market) strip of 12 in this week's Spink sale was interesting. Makes you wonder what the longest strip was. If they were punched out off centre, then that's just shoddy workmanship. If the two sides are not aligned, then that's faulty minting equipment.

It certainly seems about that in my experience. Or more! But then, as Peter says, if I find a coin going cheap myself then if a fair market price is double or even 10x that and someone is happy to pay ... I don't mind dealers making a profit. None would be in business long if they didn't. But I do object to prices way beyond what things are worth! Of course, like any customer I have the option not to buy. But if it's a daft price and I want it I'll try to negotiate.... The above is fundamental to business. Any business has a known purchase cost, but an unknown selling price. You try to maximise the profit and if you can make 10x your cost price you're a happy man. Some you win, some you lose. As Richard says, nobody is compelled to buy a coin. A previous coin of mine was sold in Spink on Monday for £1K less than I sold it 5 years ago to a dealer, so somebody took a hit. I've sold things for less than I paid too. We all make 'mistakes'. Every coin is different, so that excludes the 'standard' price route - something the TPGs in the US try to manipulate with their price/slab grade policies.

Great example of a crap coin though .

Now all is revealed. I thought my page was missing something. Happy birthday to you.

nope

Which is why I think it is a broken punch

Just a broken punch IMO

A you have seen, they do appear occasionally. Your best bet for these is to make sure you check the main London sales. DNW seem to have the most eclectic offerings and is probably the best bet. If you want images, the Royal Mint museum has a large number of dies which were listed in Hocking vol.2 (1910). No illustrations but it tells you the contents of the archive. I have a spare copy if you want it. When Graham Dyer was curator he would have given you all the info you wanted, but they are not very responsive these days IMO as most questions I have put to them have gone unanswered.

A problem with sovereigns is the entry cost for those on a limited budget, as the later pieces will set you back a couple hundred each and some of the early ones are quite expensive. There is also an issue with variety because you don't have too much variation in design. Gold doesn't tone to the same extent as silver and copper leading to a certain blandness in colour. I have a few gold pieces, but can't get enthusiastic about sovereigns for the reasons above. An example of each substantive type is enough for me.

I couldn't believe that figure, given it was obviously dug and slightly bent. Difficult coin to find, but even so has to be taken in perspective.

Given the lack of facial detail, DNW's grade was hardly unreasonable

Thanks Tom. Is that the ruler? Looking at my edition of Krause, there is no ruler with this name for Russia in 1606-10. It just says FedorII 1605, Dmitri 1605-6 and Michael I 1613-45. Having said that there is no mention of silver wire money for Russia either for the dates mentioned, only gold. The legend isn't identical either. Confused.

With global warming, an independent and geographically separated East Anglia is a distinct possibility. More hot air everybody, please.

Can anybody narrow it down to more than the title? Weight is 0.53g. Thanks.

Given the number of undecideds in the run up to the vote, I think that a No was the likely outcome. Anyone who is undecided is most likely to choose the status quo as that is a known situation. Better the devil you know etc..... As for the suggestion of vote rigging, those allegations would come out from either side in the event of a close result. What is not said is that, if true, it displays a frightening lack of control by the Scottish bodies who would have been responsible for the organisation - presumably Holyrood or the local council, many of whom are SNP run.

I saw the price tag which is somewhat less than the seated Britannia 5/6d silver proof made in the Cheshire collection (?), or if not then, shortly afterwards. It might be a restrike that appeared in about 2000 via the Boulton family.

Not a clue as I have never seen one before and know nothing about medals, but if the image has come from the copper corner site then it is possibly a Taylor restrike. When the Boulton family sold off a lot of coins and medals 12 years ago, a lot of hitherto rare pieces appeared on the market. These were mostly restrikes by Taylor and it is now clear from the evidence that Matthew Piers Watt Boulton was in full time collaboration with Taylor in issuing the restrikes (as alluded to on the last page of appendix 10(e) in Peck). I think it might be useful to contact Tim Millet if you want a definitive answer of how many were put onto the market as he was given the job of dispersing them - though might not want to give you the answer. The numbers could be anything from 1 or 2 to rolls of 25. Bill McKiver at Copper Corner took a lot of the restrikes for the US market, while others were sold onto the UK market through Tim and Spink. I don't know if Spink had any on their lists, but a quick check from 2000 onwards might give an indication as to how many they had. Multiple listings are likely to be discrete pieces rather than unsolds from previous lists, as seen with the P1260s which came in rolls of 25.

That looks nice. I could see it fitting well into any G3 or milled collection.

Surely most of Westminster should be out of jobs then as they seem to be failing everyone on everything A vote to devolve Westminster, Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont from the UK might have had universal appeal.

There will be no sweetners Rob, Westminster want to screw Scotland for more money taking away 4 Billion a year meaning a few more foodbanks opening, prescription fees etc all having to be paid for and bending over and generally getting buggered by Westminster as usual. It seems English Masters once again and not neighbours as we Hopes for. Idiots is all i can say Yes, but the question of the No campaign offering extras in the immediate run up to the vote means that Scotland's share of the pie is likely to increase more than was intended by Westminster. That will awaken the Welsh and Irish to demand more for their areas. If it leads to a completely devolved UK there will be considerable additional costs for all, just as a Yes vote would have resulted in massive relocation of assets and the construction of duplicated infrastructure in running the two governments. Whichever route was taken was always going to result in increased expenditure on admin infrastructure (which is in nobody's interest). Whether the politicians will accept the diminution of their powers remains to be seen. For all the nationalist arguments regarding Scotland (and Wales & Ireland), there are a lot of people in England who also dislike the status quo. English is the only one of the four countries that does not have a body to oversee English matters, so anything to do with England is decided by Scottish, Welsh and Irish politicians. The problems of inner city Glasgow etc are mirrored in Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham etc. Scotland's view of Westminster is not dissimilar to the view of London and the south-east from the rest of the country. Under the Barnett formula, Scotland receives more per head from Westminster than the English regions, yet irrespective of the rights or wrongs of this, people still accept these conditions. I believe this will change with a hardening of attitudes in the other three areas as all four constituents have a significant minority of nationalists. The question of Scottish MPs voting on English, Welsh or Irish matters will have to be resolved - finally. As discussed by the commentators, all this points to a federal UK as the logical outcome and I think we will see a lot of horse trading in the run up to the next election because of what is at stake. As for the numbers game where a billion here or there is allegedly given or taken away from any country is a number that is impossible to quantify with any certainty. If Scotland is say for example 10% of the UK and that the oil reserves account for 10% of the value of the UK, do we then pull down the infrastructure and redistribute it among the other 3 countries leaving an independent Scotland as a country sitting on a large barrel of oil and no infrastructure? Obviously not. These uncertainties are why disentangling the two countries would have been so messy, divisive and ultimately acrimonious. The same arguments used by the Scottish Nationalists would be used by their counterparts in the rest of the UK, because every nationalist thinks they are being screwed by the other side. Given the centuries of integration, that is why we should be better off staying together.

Already looks like a done deal for the No campaign. Hostilities start at 9am. I'm not sure where this leaves us because the sweeteners offered to Scotland will have to be given in some form to N Ireland and Wales too. On the assumption that London will demand additional investment and probably get it, coupled with the finite size of the pot and promised expenditure elsewhere I can only conclude that the north of England is b******d