Rob

All the major houses will act in a similar way where the provenance is legally questionable. A good example was the recent DNW sale where a large number of nice pieces were withdrawn prior to the sale. Another example is the Lockdales sale a year or two ago where a William I 2 stars of Launceston with the SAGSTI STEFANI mint reading was on offer. As it was the same coin that had been stolen from Seaby in 1961, I questioned whether the purchaser would have legal title to it. The coin was withdrawn, and only after its legal status had been clarified was it re-offered. It's the way it should be as virtually all those involved in the coin trade are upstanding folk of good character.

I think it's a case of deciding what the biggest issue is. Literacy was at a premium leading to many corrections. The punches are in a dire state by 1700. And with the dies being used to destruction you also see a considerable amount of degradation along the way, including a lot of detail loss at the edges and die filling. Here is another 1700 again with a fairly messy T, which although not identical to yours, would not be the first shape you would choose to represent a T.

The key is to find one with Britannia's head area well struck and in gVF or better as struck. Until you can definitely say it is missing on the die, then all must be conjecture.

My personal view is that the jury must be out on any BRITANIA until a well struck up head and surrounding area is seen. Every one I have seen is weak at this point.

It isn't Nicholson's. It's a bit better detail than that, but hardly a thing of any, let alone great beauty.

I've disposed of most of my 1694s having only 10 left, but do at least have some interesting varieties - I/A, GV/B, MVRIA, unbarred A's MARIA, thick flan, overstruck on Chas II, brass, piedfort and a couple patterns/proofs.

That will be the Peck coin. I remember passing on it as I had an example, and in any case had just decided to refocus away from shillings and halfpennies.

I've got the Nicholson coin. I remember the Peck coin going through DNW about 10 or 12 years ago. It sticks in my mind as being orders of magnitude better than mine. I need to dig up the info. And vaguely recall another one in DNW at the end of last year. That isn't exhaustive, so at least 6 or 8 to start with.

Should have made it separate paragraphs. TM's deal only provides any use with a definite cut off for the backstop, otherwise we are tied in at the EU's mercy as has been endlessly discussed. That's the elephant. As for a customs union, whilst it may provide more flexibility than being in the single market, it is still limiting because the removal of tariffs doesn't remove border checks, and and by definition doesn't solve the Irish border problem. To eliminate border checks requires us to be in the single market with all its contribution and regulatory issues. It would also limit our ability to do other trade deals. The choice is still stay in and do as you are told, or leave properly.

And the backstop is the elephant in the room. Until that is resolved, we are tied to the EU. I don't have any confidence that it would be resolved anytime soon, nor in 5 or even 10 years. It's an open-ended leave in name only, with Brussels holding all the power. This cannot be resolved by wishing the problem away.

TM's deal is leaving in name only. And anything requiring the customs union means your hands are tied. Leaving properly is the only way to be free to make your own policies, because staying tied to the single market is, as has been repeated time and again, having to accept all their rules with no say.

It's the only way you can have a business

Which is why taking any mention of population ranking and totals slabbed should be done with a pinch of salt. As is patently obvious, not all coins are equal, nor indeed is the same coin equal to itself.

Firstly I will congratulate you on your weather - it's raining here, so I have all the time in the world. Given our current politicians, I think that we would be on a hiding to nothing if they had decided to go for a customs union. They weren't capable of putting their foot down when required and playing hardball, nor do I think they have the ability or the desire to stand up to the EU and negotiate anything for our benefit. It's the price you pay for putting the future in the hands of a group who profoundly disagree with the instructions of the referendum. My personal view is that we either get out properly, or stay in with a voice in order to mitigate the backlash. A customs union will tie our hands and give us nothing. I therefore still think the preferred option is to leave with no deal whether they like it or not. IF we end up with another referendum (which would be a travesty and presumably would have a predetermined outcome in case we were stupid enough to vote the same way), then if they really want to have any chance of closure, it will be imperative that no deal, remain or half-way house are all on the ballot paper. But I doubt they would have that wisdom. The EU has moved their institutions back to the mainland as is their right. They will certainly move to get as much of the financial sector moved to Paris or Frankfurt whether we stay or not. If the only options are a customs union or remaining, then it is also a case of accepting that we will continue to get a bad deal from Brussels, at which point we would be better in being the least bad option, but I wouldn't hold out any hope of them investing any EU funding or infrastructure in this country again. The old adage of keep your friends close and your enemies closer was never more appropriate. To fully extricate ourselves will probably require a new political party with both the desire and the balls to make it work. This undercurrent of discontent is a 46 year project in the making. For all bar one of these years (1974), we have paid in more than we have taken out. In that time, we have lost much of the infrastructure which would give us the ability to stand on our own two feet. Any other country would expect some sort of return for paying in, but we haven't really gained anything of substance in that time. I don't have a problem being a net contributor on occasion, but it does have to be offset on others by actually receiving benefits. In any system there are winners and losers, it's just that 17.4 million see no benefit, whilst only 16.1 million thought they were better off. Our problems are to some extent home grown because our politicians are too ideological, unlike the majority of the population who are generally middle of the road and value a good social policy but crucially recognise that it has to be paid for. Too many on both sides only see one half of the story. The Tories are called the 'nasty party' because they are perceived to be indifferent to social policy, whilst the Labour party is mainly concerned with taxing and spending money on benefits without expecting anything in return, living in cloud cuckoo land that you can turn on the spending tap at will without ever questioning whether wealth is being or can be generated. The system is broken, but given we all place a value on wealth and it pays for all consumption, you have to make it to spend it. So the question is, where should our priorities lie? The EU won't come riding to our rescue because we are only ever net contributors to the system, and going forward will be seeking even more from us. That is why a customs union is not a good idea.

Before the referendum, we discussed on this forum what would happen if the result was to stay. A view was that a vote had produced a decision and that the question would be put to bed for a generation. I concur with that view because I was prepared to accept the result unlike the current protagonists.

The obvious error is that St. Paul's is on its side

Although I believe the union of the four countries should remain, there is a degree of resentment at the way Scotland receives a disproportionately large sum of public funding through the terms of the Barnett Formula. Put the question of Scotland's place in the UK to a national vote and the SNP might be pleasantly surprised at the support they receive from the North of England. In a finite pot of spending money, anyone region with a larger handout has to be balanced by an area with lower public support - the North of England.

And every other day is Groundhog Day.

Strange that. I would have gone for DPL being Doubtful Political Leadership. Very high grade dereliction of duty, but not perfectly so.

I accept bribe is not the right word, but the simple fact remains that we have paid more in than we have got out for 45 out of 46 years. That's an awful lot of money that could have been better spent elsewhere. I think that countries joined based on an illusion that it would provide a ready market for their goods which would be easy to sell into, or in the case of the less developed countries that it would provide a free upgrade to their infrastructure. In the case of goods, yes it will up to a point, but if the product quality isn't equal to or better than the market you are selling into, you are on a hiding to nothing. Selling Germans imported goods is one of the more difficult tasks on this planet, but that is the biggest and most affluent market. Clearly convenience is the major selling point for a single market, but the moot point is whether it offsets the price paid in loss of control and an acceptance that the rules will be set by a group or body that don't have your best interests in mind. In my view, I don't think it does because what you can't control will always bite you on the a**e whether it is sooner or later. I guess it's the difference between having enough self confidence in our collective abilities, or being reliant on others to decide people's lives in a dependency culture.

She does already. We went decimal during the present reign. Including the 7 pages given to predecimal would add nothing.

Dream on. The EU is and always has been the property of the six founding members, as indeed it should be. They originally came together with a plan to have integrated economies, with each constituent country contributing something different to provide the whole. They didn't need a seventh, or eighth, or whatever country to come on board. Why was de Gaulle always opposed to our membership? Because we were more likely to side with Germany than France. France and French politicians see France's perceived political clout as probably the most important consideration. They always have done. They are currently opposed to any concessions because our leaving will improve their relative importance. The EU remains fundamentally unreformable because there is no mechanism for reversing policy. The Euro is killing the southern countries and without political union will do so ad infinitum. The quid pro quo is of course Germany's obscene balance of payments surplus courtesy of a weak Euro exchange rate relative to the strength of the economy. All those German funded (and to date also UK funded) payments to the new and under-developed countries are promptly recycled into the purchase of German industrial output. The chronic unemployment seen in the southern countries makes it manifestly clear that the system is not healthy. Germany pays, and will be paying more in the future, but is able to do so, and so the ship sails blissfully on. Every country that has joined since the 1950s has effectively been providing a semi-captive market for the goods of the 6. It's their ball, and whether you are allowed to play depends on how much you bribe them.

With a bit of luck it will soon be big enough to be issued as a stand alone volume. I also wish they would reduce the size of the predecimal section such that it fits into a <1kg package.

The desire of an individual to acquire something that resonates may be the overriding factor in pushing up prices. It doesn't matter whether you are looking at the finest known by general acceptance, the coin with the highest label number in the population, or just having two bidders that are chasing a target for whatever reason. e.g. Derby has been a popular mint for a while, with high prices being obtained on the back of a small corpus of persistent bidders. The Gothic Crown is priced way beyond what you expect for the mintage. The Una & the Lion goes for silly money. At the other end of the scale, halfpennies remain unloved despite being the hardest of the three base denominations to acquire in the highest grades. It is the human desire for fashionable items in the broadest sense; but for those who are indifferent to fashion, well, another day is a different opportunity. I wanted that A groat for a good few years too. Why? Because after Brady it was the only one available to pursue.