Rob

Oh the joys of those 'must have' faults.

I know we are looking at George II here, but think that the similar work done by Jackson-Kent during much of the 1950s and early 60s researching the coinage of William III could give reasonable parallels. One of the conclusions drawn was that you could infer nothing from the number of harp strings as you typically get a small distribution around the mean number found. They are unlikely to be chronological indicators because you don't get an even distribution amongst 12 varieties if monthly, though could conceivably be quarterly. The grounds for thinking they could be used for die identification is a bit suspect IMO, given their tendency to fill relatively easily on the die? e.g. my 1697B halfcrown has half a harp string, though clearly must have started with more than a partial string. In the hammered period there were situations which demanded die identification (or at least engraver id) because any control over them was remote because they may have been a one moneyer mint for example, or in the case of the Civil War, the engraver followed the troops around. These people also struck the coins. Here we are talking about a number of workers employed at the Tower to produce dies. They would have no control over the number of coins struck using those dies, so this begs the question as to why it would be necessary to identify the die and not the person making the coins. Obviously this isn't conclusive, but it dosn't quite add up to my mind.

No better than VF because you are starting to lose the eye definition

To be honest with you I didn't pick up on the marks, I was really struggling with the grotty silver bit that was proximal to it! Definitely one for sunglasses but, hey, what a price, around 8 X the price of the regular dates! Makes you wonder what a pretty VF would fetch? Less than it should probably because most buyers would get a twitchy bottom. The prices at the bottom end are probably inflated relatively because they are in short supply whatever the condition - hence a lot of dosh for not a lot of eye appeal or quality. But at least are affordable for the masses.

Not surprised. Anchor in E1 is one of those marks you automatically buy when they come along. The grotty one above has a muled round and pointed anchor marks too, which is probably why it got where it did.

Maybe they're rare in Ludlow.

Whilst there are no prices, Snelling (1769) produced a list of the Nurnberg jettons, so they have been documented for quite some time.

I miss the go to page feature used on the previous software. Then, I could return to a ballpark page number for something I was searching for and easily find it. Much easier than searching given the minimum letter count is 4. Lis is difficult to find amongst other things.

You mean they like naughty bits and innuendo too. Well done.

I was looking at it before being rudely interrupted by a pop-up. I immediately left the page. If something is interesting, let them read it. You don't look at websites to be bombarded with marketing/questionnaires crap. Given the ease with which information is spread by the internet, I am unlikely to learn anything significant that is only available via this website. After all, it appeared to be a compilation of news from other sites.

Out of interest, which two? My favourite two are "In The Land Of Grey and Pink" and "If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It Over You" (they had some really naughty titles!) Caravan had some very naughty bits. Always good to see them though on the university circuit.

I won't be there. I have a garage being delivered tomorrow.

You should append 'Acceptable to Geoff' to the bottom of the list.

I threw a 1812 1/6d bank token out of the collection 6 months ago as it was good EF and I wanted an unc. The buyer put it into Goldbergs sale last night where it made $875 hammer graded as MS66. I have a selection of MS71s

Some are British, some not. For example, CNG bid strongly at London sales and then the material crosses the pond, but others are private individuals. Then you have dealers with commission bids which are obviously for private purchases so there is no clear cut way of identifying the eventual recipients.

Let me guess. Lot 591. Of course. And I even had reservations because the reverse was off centre, but that clearly didn't matter to the eventual buyer. I'm just hoping it was a bit of a feeding frenzy as the market has been so lean of late. If these prices reflect a new level I'm not sure where the mid- to better end collectors (which is how I think of myself) are going to find material to keep the collection going.. .. I might have to muscle into Scott and Generic's bargain bucket game! DON'T DO IT. RESIST Let's just say 591 went to a member of this forum.

If I had known you were going for it as well...I wouldn't have even bothered!! That was earmarked early on All to no avail though. Things were getting desperate towards the end of the first five minutes. There were a couple that slipped under the radar, but not many. Once they started the Saxons, it was always going to be an expensive day. I wasn't surprised by 118 from the list above as Derby is always a popular mint, but the following lot going for £1900 was a surprise, as were the prices on 146, 164, 172 and 182. I even resorted to bidding on 514 at the end in the hope that it would be around estimate, but 3 or 4K hammer for a bent, double struck, and cracked William I had no appeal to me, however rare it might be.

Let me guess. Lot 591.

What a depressing day. Apart from coming second on one thing , I was blown out of the water on everything I bid on , despite often being multiples of estimate. I gave up after the Berwick farthing.

1872

To all intents and purpose there are also plenty of 71s, 72s and possibly higher based on the Sheldon or any other scale. The minute you assign a number to anything it is supposed to represent a particular coin's qualities. The collector then looks at several similarly graded coins and decides which one is the better. This one or that one has less/more nicks, wear, bagmarks etc. All of the numbers assigned are a reflection of the mood of the grader(s) on that particular day. That a coin can be repeatedly submitted and be slabbed in wildly differing grades on each occasion is testament to the failings of the system, as any firmly grounded grading scale would not have the scope to assign a subjective grade. As a Sheldon 70 or CGS 100 is supposed to be perfection, it should not be impossible for any scale to have examples with the top grade, even though I've heard it said that CGS will never give a coin 100. There are many examples in MS70 meaning that all should be identical in terms of grading assessment. Any scale must have the parameters defined with individual grades having their own criteria. This is where subjectivity comes in, as, with the exception of perfect or totally flat coins, all are in an intermediate state of preservation which is contentious in absolute number grading. I quite agree with rpeddie's query about the missing 18 points, after all, an assessment should have been made and the results documented in order to lose them. I suspect that this would be deemed to be releasing trade secrets, as the TPGs purport to have knowledge over and above 'non-professionals'. Once their criteria are known, anyone could grade which is not good for their business models.

Perhaps it's the unique Pattern Crown depicting the twinned busts of the Princes in the Tower with Lady Jane Grey and a Richard III (Leicester) Mintmark that they will put forward next ... I wonder how many of those still exist?? As many as can be sold.

I sent you a message

Or, better yet, why not ask what ESC rarities Saxby's can offer you? Don't even think about it. It's hard enough trying to interpret his listings without you playing devil's advocate and subconciously forcing him to introduce a whole new series.