Rob

That was the second one. The world is full of nutters. A couple years ago on Winter Hill a kid tried to give me a high six. Mum wasn't amused.

Makes sense. You should be paying more if you buy the same coin via eBay.

A good cheap compact reference in 5 volumes covering Ed.I to the Commonwealth.

The images are too small for me to make out. The second might be Lincoln? Dinner plates make life a lot easier.

These are too early to have the mintages documented. The pipe rolls from the early 1200s give considerable information regarding moneyers, their fees and the amount of silver struck, but these are over 100 years before any available records.

Top left is Stamford, top right is Thetford, bottom left I could do with a better image (Bath?) and bottom right is London

True, but I'm not sure the t**ts who start things like this are prepared to wait the few years required for populations to recover before they get bored and do it all again.

I would suggest a softened piece of the same metal used for the die. The presence of the bottom line on the 2 base above tells us that it isn't a perfectly flat fill. Maybe they used a 2 punch to hammer in the filler. The fact that die blockage is fairly persistent and progressive tells us that filling a character has a good chance of lasting long term.

It's a lot cheaper to fill a die and recut one character than it is to start from scratch. This applies whether it was a change of privy mark following the pyx, or a change in the calendar year. The mint was not a publicly funded institution with everyone salaried, rather the running costs came out of the sum given to the master of the mint who employed all those under him. Consequently, the cheapest remedy gave him the best return on his activities.

They must have been able to fill the die somehow. It clearly isn't a case of just dropping in a piece of metal the right size and hoping it stays. It would have to be a piece of soft metal that is physically hammered into the recesses and then the die put through the hardening process again. The attached is my 1675 over 3 over 2 halfpenny, which has a continuous flat surface in the exergue and so the 2 was clearly not ground out before the 3 was entered. The 3 only marginally impacts on the 2 (the top curve of the 3), with the remainder cut into good metal. The 5 is made by adding a reversed z-type 1 to the curve. A raised trace of the bottom of the 2 base is still visible on the coin as is the general 2 profile, which gives 2 options. First is the 2 was removed on the coin with the die still retaining the original 2 detail - which is a non-starter. The second is that it was filled and recut, which I believe is the solution. This was also the method used by Taylor to make the 1807 proof halfpenny die, also shown somewhere on this forum. In that case though, the total number struck was small unlike the currency Charles II shown here.

There is circumstantial evidence for the 1839 proofs being issued up to the early 1880s because ESC 3249 (1738) is a 3rd young head sixpence with an 1839 reverse. The third young head was introduced in 1880. However, the mint equipment was upgraded in 1882 when the old Boulton & Watt presses were replaced. It's only conjecture, but there may have been a few sets of 1839 proofs issued prior to the refurbishment when the old dies may have become redundant - not being compatible with the new equipment? If so, the number made could possibly equal the number of these anomalous sixpences extant. ESC rates them as R5 (5-10 known), which is feasible. In terms of the penny, it is therefore likely that 1839 dies were always available. The halfpenny proof die was replaced on at least 2 occasions, with both 39 over 41 & 39 over 43 known.

That looks like a small flaw rather than an underlying character.

On the face of it, this might have some merit because 1839 proof sets were being produced long after 1839, so 1839 penny obverse dies were certainly available.

You shouldn't be too surprised that coin forum members value little round lumps of metal, nor that they are the reason for the members being on here in the first place. Most forums are populated with members that have an interest in the relevant subject. You are wrong to suggest that the majority are far right of centre. There might be a majority that are more right than left, but the overwhelming majority are close to the centre. Most of us without any political affiliations take a pick and mix approach as we are able to recognise that both sides bring something to the argument. Adherents to a cause don't have that option available.

Well remembered. I don't recall reading that one.

That's the one that someone started on Winter Hill. It's only a couple miles from the top down into Bolton from Rivington and Belmont, so presumably the smoke rolled down the hill in the absence of any wind. It's going to be an ecological disaster this year. The wildlife was already having a hard time of it, and now what few things did manage to raise offspring probably went up in flames. Certainly the grouse chicks will all be gone as they will only a week or so old at the moment. Skylarks, lapwings and curlews are all likely to lose their chicks. The bilberry bushes had no fruit this year, or maybe only the odd berry. Definitely not a year of plenty.

I'm surprised you don't have one already. Maybe a different department? It's worth asking the question.

Who's your employer? Father Christmas? You'll struggle getting that one funded out of petty cash. If the business needed one it probably would have bought one already, or at least have a 3rd party facility elsewhere it can draw on.

Having gone to the effort of looking up the prices in Spink for a Fine and VF Pontefract, you don't then list a VF example at a third of the fine price. Any auction house would give a better return than that, unless of course you know it isn't the real deal, in which place eBay is the best place to go to marry up the deceitful with the ignorant.

The 7 would have been entered separately and therefore isn't necessarily aligned correctly, plus the years 1853 to 1857 saw a large number of dies made (1856 excluded). The small protrusion at the base is good for a 7, as is the top right corner and possibly the inside of the bottom loop of the 8. The 8 has a straight, slightly ascending line at the top which would be commensurate with a filled 7, recut to an 8. Filling and recutting dies also risks damaging the edges of the previous profile because if you have a previously hardened die then it will be brittle and so easily chipped where the relief changes. It could be that all of the protrusions are chips caused by reinforcing the 8 and not from an earlier dated die. The die has the initials on the truncation which suggests a production date no later than 1858. For this reason, it is likely the underlying digit is not a 9, though can't definitely exclude a 9 sunk in error. The existence of 8 over 7, 6, 3 and 2 tells us that they were using up all the recoverable dies prior to the introduction of the bronze issues. The best way to establish the details is probably to put it into an electron microscope and produce an image such as those in Marsh where it is possible to do some limited depth profiling.

I'm going for a 7.

I turned it on at the end just before Columbia scored.

Can we not bin this thread? Or better still, there must be some govt departments across the world that would be interested in shutting down things like this. People producing fake documents should hardly be encouraged or given exposure.

Just turned on to see England are their usual incoherent selves. Columbians are playing football and shooting for goal while we can't string a couple of passes together.

If these differences were security related then they would need to be applied to all dies and not just one, so clearly would need to be present at every stage leading to the finished die, i.e they should even be on the dinner plate size master design used in conjunction with a reducing machine. To make a die takes time and therefore costs money. That they should rework a die to extend its life should not be surprising. It has always been done. You also have to consider that partially dated dies were produced in batches, with the last digit or two entered by hand prior to 1882. The fact that you destroy the coins removing the various layers surely means you are gaining an insight into the integrity of the flan, not the die which has its design imparted on striking, with every bit of wear removing the evidence.