1949threepence

You only have to ask yourself what country has invaded and bombed other countries more than any other in the world, since 1945, to realise the uber controlling nature of successive US administrations.

Top tip, never buy anything from China. Another top tip , never sell anything to China. It's just bad news all round.

I don't know whether it's my imagination or not, but to me, stylus on vinyl sounds better than a CD, or downloaded track played through a PC. Deeper richer & more lifelike tones My collection pieces other than coins, are decorative plates. They're plastered on every wall all over the house. It's only a small house, so I'm running out of room.

That's really interesting, Declan. Two points I note: some streets are partly green and partly orange ~ that must have been difficult. Also, the RUC station is in the green area ~ awkward. I had to go to Belfast on work related business back in 2003, and despite the Good Friday agreement and all the talk of peace, it was obvious that sectarianism was a total way of life on both sides of the divide. Very, very friendly, hospitable and outgoing people, nonetheless, with a great sense of humour, and quite a lot of humour about the sectarianism itself. At one hostelry I went in for a meal, I got talking to a guy who said to me in a quiet voice "SShhhy, I'm the only f***** protestant in this pub, and they don't know" Was a good two weeks, and I was almost sorry to leave.

Interesting that their letter to you states "breakdown of machinery" while the actual Report states "fully occupied with gold and silver [issues]". I wonder where the modern Mint gets its information about "breakdown" from? I'd hazard a guess from the 1875 report. The text says that the 1876 coins were contracted out because the equipment was fully occupied striking silver and gold. The number of presses at the Tower mint would have to be investigated, but is likely to have been a minimum of half a dozen, so if a couple of them were unavailable, then sub-contracting the copper would be the logical option security-wise. Also, the Heaton mint was regularly striking coins on the same size blanks, so familiarity with the product wasn't an issue. There were a lot of halfcrowns and shillings coming off the press in 1874 onwards. How long this upsurge in demand lasted I don't know because I don't have the records, but thinking about it, the equipment probably broke down due to the excesses of the previous two years because there was no time for maintenance and a lot of coins produced. That makes logical sense. I wonder where the 1875 100 tons comes from - the penny is rare so must we assume it is mostly made up from halfpennies and farthings? I know Heaton's farthing issue for 1875 was pretty sizeable Either that, or given that mintage records, for what they are worth, show 752,640 pennies being produced dated 1875 by Heaton, and 11,074,560 produced by Heaton in 1876, can we logically conclude that the contract started towards the end of 1875, continued into the new year, and the date of those coins produced after 1st January, was changed to 1876 ? 11 million was a high mintage for Victorian buns, and we know that for pennies at least, these are not from 1875. Heaton halfpennies and Farthings also indicate a high mintage from Heaton. The halfpennies showing a similar, though narrower ratio between 1875 and 1876, whereas the Farthings show the greater production from 1875. The mintage figures don't actually tell you how many were dated 1875 or 1876 or 1874 for that matter (if they were struck in 75), they are merely an output for the year. It would be entirely possible that a very high proportion of the 1875 coins were actually dated 1874 hence the scarcity of the 75H. Yep, that's an equally plausible theory.

Interesting that their letter to you states "breakdown of machinery" while the actual Report states "fully occupied with gold and silver [issues]". I wonder where the modern Mint gets its information about "breakdown" from? I'd hazard a guess from the 1875 report. The text says that the 1876 coins were contracted out because the equipment was fully occupied striking silver and gold. The number of presses at the Tower mint would have to be investigated, but is likely to have been a minimum of half a dozen, so if a couple of them were unavailable, then sub-contracting the copper would be the logical option security-wise. Also, the Heaton mint was regularly striking coins on the same size blanks, so familiarity with the product wasn't an issue. There were a lot of halfcrowns and shillings coming off the press in 1874 onwards. How long this upsurge in demand lasted I don't know because I don't have the records, but thinking about it, the equipment probably broke down due to the excesses of the previous two years because there was no time for maintenance and a lot of coins produced. That makes logical sense. I wonder where the 1875 100 tons comes from - the penny is rare so must we assume it is mostly made up from halfpennies and farthings? I know Heaton's farthing issue for 1875 was pretty sizeable Either that, or given that mintage records, for what they are worth, show 752,640 pennies being produced dated 1875 by Heaton, and 11,074,560 produced by Heaton in 1876, can we logically conclude that the contract started towards the end of 1875, continued into the new year, and the date of those coins produced after 1st January, was changed to 1876 ? 11 million was a high mintage for Victorian buns, and we know that for pennies at least, these are not from 1875. Heaton halfpennies and Farthings also indicate a high mintage from Heaton. The halfpennies showing a similar, though narrower ratio between 1875 and 1876, whereas the Farthings show the greater production from 1875.

Although from your first post, I would never have guessed your beliefs on the matter, were as per your second Quite the reverse in fact.

Steve if I had that sort of spare cash lying around I would probably spend £42k on wine, women and gambling, then just waste the £500 that was left over And waste the rest on wine and women Gambling is for mugs. Wine & coins are investments, but women are a depreciating asset Even so, I might split down the middle and take a nice woman plus a few slightly cheaper coins (given that we all depreciate with age)

link to 1876 Royal Mint report extract

Here is the reply I received from the Royal Mint regarding pennies minted in 1876:-

Taking the piss ? I've just sent an e mail to the Royal Mint requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act. The e mail reads as follows:- It's just that, unlike the 1882 no H, which itself is suspect in my opinion, I've never even heard of an 1876 no H which is anywhere near convincing. I'll reproduce the response on here. Just as a reminder, this is what they said about the 1882 last year:- Not a pisstake, the real thing

I can make out the entire right hand upright of the H, and the top half of the left. (I zoomed my screen.) Likewise. I zoomed in on the iMac and can see this fairly clearly. I guess the people who can't see it don't have Macs I can see it without anything. A definite area of discolouration underneath the date between the 7 and the 6. Tell tale mark of a rubbed away H

"Faith and truth I will bear unto you"

All this clampdown on small time people is to pay for the greedy banks and their profligacy. I notice the government isn't getting tough on them paying back to the good old taxpayer, all they milked off them to bail them out. Not a single bloody word about that.

azda, i sincerely hope that you and peckris both understand that my posts were meant in good faith and also meant to differentiate between the bad that occurs on ebay, those you have highlighted as shill bidders, those who clearly sell the utmost of polished crap, designed to mislead, and the genuine dealer, whom may have had a difference in grading to personal levels. we may all disagree on grade of a particular coin at times with bona fida dealers, that happens, we have different ideas and ideals, different knowledge of a specific coin/dies....etc etc, but it sure must be difficult to be all embracing. azda....how many times have you come on here to ask for die pairings/references for a particular penny.....loads azda....how many times have you asked for a grading on a particular coin...................................loads does that make you or any other here better than CC or Rendell........maybe yes, maybe no. but yes it does make YOU and Peckris and CC and Rendell and all the others here far and away better than the those shill bidders, crap sellers on ebay...........and that was the whole point of my original post....... im gonna leave this forum now................theres clearly no place for a prick like me here. ski I wouldn't worry, ski. There will always be disagreements with people even in the most (normally) harmonious of settings. Doesn't mean they're by default right, and you're wrong. Sometimes they will be and sometimes you will be. Sometimes you will both be half right and half wrong. Whichever, it's not worth putting yourself down and leaving for, as it will all be forgotten in a few days anyway. If you have something to say, say it, and if it happens to upset someone, then tough do dahs. It's life, it's the way it is. You should see many of the comments made and insults exchanged on some forums. Makes the worst of what you see on here look like a Sunday School outing. That's the trouble with fora, a timid gutless coward all of a sudden grows a pair the size of watermelons as he sits at his computer 2000 miles away from the poor recipient of the hurtful dirge. As Mike said Ski, divn't worry aboot it marra. I've got skin thicker than a Rhinos arse so you or anybody else might get me revved up for a minute or two but after that I start to worry about more important things like "can Newcastle stuff the Toffees the day?" Not on this occasion, John. I was hoping they would, too. Pleased for Man City ~ was really Boys Own Annual stuff getting those 2 goals in injury time. On a sour note, I note that psycho Barton got sent off again, and hopefully will face a lengthy ban. Sorry to go off topic, folks

azda, i sincerely hope that you and peckris both understand that my posts were meant in good faith and also meant to differentiate between the bad that occurs on ebay, those you have highlighted as shill bidders, those who clearly sell the utmost of polished crap, designed to mislead, and the genuine dealer, whom may have had a difference in grading to personal levels. we may all disagree on grade of a particular coin at times with bona fida dealers, that happens, we have different ideas and ideals, different knowledge of a specific coin/dies....etc etc, but it sure must be difficult to be all embracing. azda....how many times have you come on here to ask for die pairings/references for a particular penny.....loads azda....how many times have you asked for a grading on a particular coin...................................loads does that make you or any other here better than CC or Rendell........maybe yes, maybe no. but yes it does make YOU and Peckris and CC and Rendell and all the others here far and away better than the those shill bidders, crap sellers on ebay...........and that was the whole point of my original post....... im gonna leave this forum now................theres clearly no place for a prick like me here. ski I wouldn't worry, ski. There will always be disagreements with people even in the most (normally) harmonious of settings. Doesn't mean they're by default right, and you're wrong. Sometimes they will be and sometimes you will be. Sometimes you will both be half right and half wrong. Whichever, it's not worth putting yourself down and leaving for, as it will all be forgotten in a few days anyway. If you have something to say, say it, and if it happens to upset someone, then tough do dahs. It's life, it's the way it is. You should see many of the comments made and insults exchanged on some forums. Makes the worst of what you see on here look like a Sunday School outing.

Just by way of contrast, David, my 1876H wide date shows no evidence of die modification:- Sorry can't get the magnification on here, but magnified in the viewer, there is no alteration.

lol ~ Item No 1857: 1905 shilling, item description reads as follows:-

There you go..... Just scroll down the page for English coins. I've set it to that, but there are obviously other options.

There's a bit of a mark underneath. I'm going with the theory that someone's cut out the H quite skilfully, but not perfectly.

Yikes, fair brings tears to the eyes just thinking about it

Totally agree with the above. My sentiments exactly.

Even the sharpest get stung there occasionally. The most successful strikes on e bay fall into two camps, in my experience:- a) Nice coins with a high initial bid price, which nevertheless is still nowhere near their true value. Would be bidders are strangely put off by the high start price, and often by-pass it completely, leaving someone else to make the only punt at the original price, thus bagging a real bargain. b ) Really high end coins which would be better off in a proper auction. They will sell, for sure, but usually end up at between 55% to 75% of what they could potentially realise elsewhere. It's a real mistake for high quality expensive coins to be put on e bay. Gambling strikes which may or may not pay off, are on those with poor photography, where the coin cannot properly be seen. This often puts buyers off, leaving the speculator room for a potential killing, or to get their fingers burned. There has been (and will probably continue to be) another more sinister ebay tactic; the seller of the major/undiscovered rarity, thta is actually a forgery. 2 examples leap to mind; the 1860 unrecorded die pairing penny about 3 years ago and the "plain edge proof" 1819 Crown that is now on offer at a major auction house with the tag that the edge has been deliberately smoothed. The first coin was an excellent effort and I think I pushed it to about £1500 (I am sure there will be another member or two on here who also had a stab at it). I cannot comment on the second as I did not see it sold on ebay. This type of scam is very worrying, particularly when the forger is very skilled. Another area of selling is the "unable to price it" item. I sell lots of things on there that seem to fetch incredible prices (mainly exonumia) and foreign coins where I need access to a worldwide customer base which you just don't get with your website (or seem not to get). For all the pitfalls of ebay the plain truth is that I need it to survive (where else do you get rid of 1971 first decimal sets?) Just as a matter of interest, John, how did that emerge as being a forgery ? Also, was it tooled, or an out and out fake ?

If it was just ½ a grade either way, I wouldn't be too critical about grading. Grading is fairly subjective and one man's GVF, is another's NEF etc. Moreover, I have known dealers to undergrade their coins. It's not wholly a one way street. To me it's obvious if a dealer is taking the wotsit on grading, and I don't think Neil of CC falls into that category. Little story to tell on Neil. If you receive the booklet with new stock from CC every month, you might have noticed that the April edition carried a note bemoaning the lack of new stock, and asking customers if they had any surplus they might want to offload. As it happened, due to collection upgrading, I did. A total of 6 coins of varying grades, all bun pennies. Neil bought them from me, for £130. Yes I sustained a loss on them, but that was always going to be the case. The interesting bit though was that he used the grading for the coins supplied by me as my opinion, in the e mail I sent. The only exceptions being the 1892, which I described as EF/GEF, and he just used GEF, and the 1868, which I descibed as AVF and he described as VF. Those 2 are still for sale on his website, all the others have sold. He only wants £30 for the 1868. An absolute bargain, I think.

6/7 ~ went for Guinea instead of Spur Ryal.