Rob

I hadn't identified it as a case of mis-spelling, I had assumed he had been pounding the keyboard randomly in frustration at the confusing mass of heiroglyphs in front of him. And why if someone has offered £600 is he offering to sell it for £550? Tell him to get an up to date copy of Spink, as the price should really be £850. Alternatively, given that characters can be written in any order and without punctuation, offer him a copy of CGCB (sic) for £495.

I'm not sure anyone will be able to supply enough examples for die pairing normal tower issues, even as a joint venture. Whilst the odd error, notably different dies or rare combinations such as mules are easy enough to identify, the dies struck without legend error but ever so slightly different will not be. Double striking in particular gives a variation in consistency of strike with hammered. Nominate the person you like least to do triangle in circle And to start you off, the Brooker 507 in my gallery has T/F or R in ET in the obverse legend. That's my contribution.

What type of plastic is it? There were very few plastics known in 1937, so it will be possible to give a no earlier than date of manufacture

Hi. Time to fill in a few gaps in the library. If anyone has any catalogues from the following list they are willing to sell, please get in touch. Glaring omissions are as follows. Patrick Finn lists 8 & 18. The latter I should have but haven't seen it for 6 months, so I've given up looking. Michael Freeman's sale at Christies 23/10/1984. Baldwin no. 26, May 2001. Most Corbitt's sales Any pre- 1960's catalogues from any auction house including those with no illustrations. I have too many gaps to list the missing ones, but also too many catalogues to say what I don't need, so please let me know what you have available. If you are looking to dispose of any catalogues, please email me with a list as there will inevitably be some I have overlooked, but Spink, DNW and Baldwin with the exception of the above are essentially complete. Glens have a few gaps, Christies and Sotheby slightly more. Hopefully you can help. Thanks Rob

Certainly looks like it is over an E. The C looks to be badly cut too as opposed to double struck because nothing else around it shows any signs of doubling. Clearly made after lunch and not before.

Could be made of tin. Based on the relative densities of silver and tin, 2.1g would be about right for the latter.

She who must be obeyed is never wrong. However, it can have its upside as I was recently instructed to up my bid.

I disposed of most of the low grade stuff. It saved me having to underpin the foundations.

You could do very well. Your illiteracy would be appreciated. - I'm sick of hearing "was you".

Mine is a clipped flan 1922 shilling, Davies 1811 with the larger 22mm reverse design and relatively scarce as a variety. Like its owner - not quite a full shilling.

Not convinced. Although the fields look proof-like, the edge milling doesn't look sharp which you would expect on a proof and the design, particularly on the reverse certainly doesn't look up to standard. For example, the centre feature of the rev. should have 5 raised vertical lines, but there are none. The coin also looks as if it has been dipped. The rims on this series are not so wide as on other types, but again they do not look good enough. I would expect to see flat rims, not rounded or uneven ones. Personally I wouldn't buy it as a proof

Now that Tom has resurfaced after a prolonged absence, here are a couple more to add to the list. Both were obtained recently from the Vosper site. The first is another tun over crown E2 obverse from the same die with apostrophe only contraction marks as as the E2/3 listed earlier in the thread, but this time paired with a reverse 2 and as a bonus this is also tun over crown and not tun over crown obverse only as listed by MV. A bit ragged, but presumably pretty rare. The second is a G1/2 triangle in circle over star / triangle in circle. Neither listed anywhere, nor in Brooker. Picture attachment still not working. Anyone who wants them, please pm me.

Email the mint and give them all the info you have such as weight, the fact that it is magnetic suggests nickel, pictures etc. With a bit of luck you will get a reply from Kevin Clancy in a few weeks. He will ask you to send it in for a positive id, but will probably make a suggestion as to what the flan was intended for based on what was produced at the mint in the relevant period. I did this for a 1967 florin weighing just under 8g which I was informed was on a flan for a 10Fr from Burundi.

If it were pure nickel it would be slightly magnetic. Cupro-nickel isn't magnetic.

I've bought a few things from Germany via ebay, a couple of rarities included. I would say at least half have been cleaned. When I asked one seller why her coins were always cleaned, the reply was "My customers like to see what they are buying". I hope this isn't endemic in the Fatherland.

To quote Peck on p.516 - "The scarcity of those dated 1946 is due to the fact that about seven-eighths of the pieces struck during that year were coined from dies of the previous year. None dated 1947 was struck." The first sentence is referenced to Mint Records 1946 p.3. The second second has no attribution but it is reasonable to assume that if he looked at Mint records for 1946 in order to establish scarcity, he would also have checked those for 1947 because there were still pennies, halfpennies and farthings to consider. Dependant on whether a die for 1947 exists at the mint or if one was known to have been cut from the Mint Records, what I was suggesting was that a few strikes could possibly have been made and destroyed, and if as in the case of the 1954 penny one escaped then it could one day re-surface. In the absence of any die or record of die produced, the likelihood of a 1947 threepence existing would be very much reduced. Unfortunately Hocking was written in 1910 so is of no use.

I don't think a 1947 exists, but the possibility still exists that one could appear in the same manner as the 1954 penny. Although Peck doesn't refer to mint records for this year, the fact remains that he referenced the Mint Records when stating that 7/8ths of the 1946 strikes were from 1945 dies in the previous sentence, suggesting that he was quoting at least word of mouth from the mint in saying there are none. As for relative rarity values for the VIPs I haven't a clue. I only have one Elizabeth 2nd VIP proof (1960) acquired as a type example. I too think the later dates may well be sleepers as it is possible that many of the original recipients are still alive

Yes a much under rated coin. I've managed to put the whole run together including the all types in BU except for the 1948 sharp corners. Gary, I have never understood the sharp corners rounded corners thing, although I have to admit I have never really closely looked, I seem to remember hearing it somewhere. Is it an obvious difference and on what dates does it occur? 1937 - 40 have sharp corners, 1941 both types, 1942-6 rounded, 1948 both, 1949 rounded and 1950-52 sharp. It was done to increase the collar life during the war when the availability of steel for making dies was reduced. See Peck p.515 where the above was taken from. There was an article written by L V Larsen in Seaby's Bulletin March 1961 which I can scan in and send if you want it.

Looks like a small piece of metal that inadvertently came into contact with a 1964 3d die! Well done, I'd buy that too.

It is internet explorer. If I changed to Firefox, how easy is it to remove the IE & replace it with Firefox? Bear in mind that I'm not very computer savvy. At present, all I have to do is click on the icon and I get to Google pretty much instantaneously, so I can't see how it can be much easier or quicker to use than that. It just seems to be ebay that is causing a problem by getting progressively slower. Also, I must already have a pop-up blocker because I often see pop-up blocked messages, but don't know how it was activated as my son did it and I can't get hold of him at present to find out.

Windows XP.

Thanks Mark. It's only really noticeable on ebay where a screen refresh happens reasonably quickly, but then after it says done there is a delay which is followed by more activity which says promo and ebay somewhere in the address which appears in place of the word Done. It then shows more download activity. Until this is finished, you can't use the slides or mouse thumbwheel and more importantly can't bid on anything. If I go to other sites, most refresh quickly with the notable exceptions being where they have always had a tendency to be slow eg. Royal Mail or DNW which seems a bit unstable with the images which frequently don't load. I've always put the RM site slowness down to overload because a lot of people must use it to calculate postage costs and DNW I've assumed is just not very well programmed.

Is it only me or has anybody else noted that the time taken to refresh ebay pages is getting longer and longer? I'm in danger of abandoning ebay altogether if it continues to take well over 30 seconds to register a bid. This only seems to have been a problem since they have added the promo page. The number of spyware cookies has increased as well. Auctiva listings add a cookie which slows things down dramatically after you have looked at 20 or 30 items. When you have to run a spyware check after every visit, looking for items to buy becomes less attractive by the day irrespective of the bargains to be had. I think it is becoming impossible to use the site effectively. The world badly needs an alternative to ebay because they won't do anything as long as their business plan is met.

Has anyone got anything definitive on how to identify busts 3, 4 & 5 other than the article in the BNJ (1985) by J Bispham and the pictures in Spink? The waters are somewhat muddied by bust 5 in Spink being the same coin pictured in the BNJ as bust 4, but the description for differentiating between busts 3 & 4 given by Bispham is quote "Although bust 3 has been engraved more upright, it is similar to bust 4." That sentence sort of fits the description when applied to both the pictures in Spink and the BNJ although Spink is the better fit. The bust 3 picture in the BNJ resembles bust 4 in Spink. The fact that Spink references the busts to Bispham's article suggests this should be the correct definition. The Spink picture of bust 3 is the same as that showing t over G in the article which implies it is correct as this overstrike was only found with bust 3, but bust 3 in the BNJ doesn't resemble the t over G bust. It looks to me like the BNJ article pictures are wrong but there is no correction slip in the 1985 BNJ. Was there a subsequent correction in later years? Any clues anyone?

First of all. Spink's pictures this year have many errors, though this is not one of them. You need to refer to ESC (English Silver Coinage since 1649) by P A Rayner. The footnote at the bottom of page 73 reads as follows. On Edinburgh halfcrowns of 1707 the figure 1 is always a J as on all coins of the London mint. Edinburgh coins of 1708 usually have a local reverse die with a Z type fig. 1. Rarely however one sees a Tower die with a J type figure 1 on coins of 1708.