1949threepence

Found an interesting article by M. Mapleton in the February 1971 edition of Coin Monthly, on the general topic of die No's under dates. Specifically mentioned at points in the article are the die numbers under 1863 pennies and die letters on 1862 halfpennies. These remain as big a mystery today as they were nearly 50 years ago. According to the article, the Royal Mint kept no records as to why the die numbers were used, and we are just left with the theories of either experimentation to test die wear or a means of identifying an individual operative. Anyway, here is the article in its entirety for anyone interested. They're not brilliant photos, so apologies for that, but they are readable:-

I think the 1898 bisect is interesting because it is intentional. Although why one eight would be altered and not the other, is a mystery. Possibly built that way by a mint member of staff without proper regard to the usual eight, when the 1898 dies were built. Then (maybe) noticed later on and scrapped. Or was it just one or two dies that were either never noticed, or noticed and the difference regarded as so minor that it was ignored? Incidentally, I'd also include 1864 in the final numeral discrepancies of 1861 to 63. The crosslet 4 is often seen well to the right, and badly struck (faint).

The steps themselves aren't intellectually challenging, but the time wasting lengths you would probably have to go to, are. In my opinion anyway. Plus as you say, you might also sustain some loss of money overall.

Indeed, good luck with that one.

To be honest, I've had more luck with the seller deciding to withdraw after I've contacted them, than with e bay themselves. As with any large organisation, their contact methods have become long, arduous and over complicated with, as you say Jerry, no guarantee of any action being taken anyway. My contacts have mainly been to "alert" the vendor to a wrongly attributed variety of an otherwise genuine coin. Invariably a common coin described as rare. Although in strict fairness, on the very few occasions when any of us have seen a rare item as a buy it now for £2.50, how many of us would alert the vendor then?

I suppose the most probable reason e bay appear powerless, is that their staff don't know real from fake. They rely on experts to pro-actively alert them to fakery, and even then can only deal with the specific items reported.

I've heard about 2 months or so, although as I've never sent one off for slabbing myself, others will no doubt give you a more precise timeframe. At any rate it's not a 5 minute job, so you can expect your coins to be away for a little while.

Wasn't Burberry considered to be the choice of "chavs", when that word was fashionable a few years back? I remember going to the pub with a mate about 2005, and when we came out there was a sticker on his car which said "oi chav, your car is shit".

Here's my not so landscaped garden, and the grass needs mowing again. But at the moment I feel damn fortunate to have a garden I can sit in for as long as I like, especially nice in the good weather we've currently got.

It's a source of great curiosity to me - for the simple reason that the dot itself is so perfectly symmetrical. Its non random look might lend weight to the theory that it was placed there deliberately for some unknown reason. Set against that, of course, is Freeman's notion, that specimens have been seen similar to Jerry's at either the beginning or end of the dot's "life cycle".

Ah, thanks Jerry. I'd not seen any example before this one. So you think this was when the "dot" was disintegrating, as opposed to forming?

"Attic find" would suggest that the attic dated from the 17th century, and your average attic does not. With regard to the second link, that tin looks amazingly new and fresh. I have actually, in reality, discovered a genuine "old tin" full of various bits of junk, including a few worthless coins, in the loft of my house when I moved in. But the tin, which looked a bit like an army one, was lacklustre, dirty and partly rusted. Not new off an ASDA shelf. ETA: looking through the rest of his items, how many tins has he supposedly found?

Made it look as though somebody found the tin with the coins in it. Although they cover themselves nicely. As you say, a pure scam. All junk. Yet people fall for it, such is their naivety.

They've stopped describing the N over sideways N (Z) as an F10A, at least for this auction. Now they just include the Gouby reference, which is wrong anyway. They were right last time with JA - link

Well you say that, but scanning through facebook yesterday I came across a thread in the "British pre-decimal milled coin collectors(1649-1970)" private group, where someone in about their mid 20's was looking for a number of Victorian Freeman types, including the F20 & F25, which I was able to sell to him as I've bought upgrades since. That's just an example of a whole new cohort of young coin collectors on the internet, quite a few of them foreign, but most from the UK. I let them go for a modest price as it's very encouraging to see this surge in interest, and over the past year or so, I've noticed that the level of knowledge in such groups has become more in depth and sophisticated.

The following is a list of those who fall into the extremely vulnerable category. It does include those on immunosuppressive drugs, but appears to be conditional:-

I am literally speechless that MS doesn't count. Beyond belief.

Me too. Very much so.

Couldn't agree more. Tonight we all came outdoors and clapped for the health care workers, on my street, and I had a 20 minute conversation with my next door neighbour about various topics - the longest conversation we've ever had. Previously just "Morning, how are you". Social distancing was observed, although as we both live alone, and have both been locked down for nearly 3 weeks, I don't think there was much chance of one of us infecting the other. As I've got some ASDA and Tesco delivery slots already advanced booked, I asked her to let me know if she needed anything, and I could add it on to the order. My sister has become a volunteer for the NHS. I think this crisis is actually bringing people together (albeit at a distance) in a spirit of mutual assistance where possible. Even before the lockdown I'd stopped seeing my girl friend as she is on immuno suppressive medication due to RA, and she lives with her elderly Mum, who also has health issues. So they are both highly vulnerable. Now we keep in touch by phone.

It's well documented that one of the weaknesses of George V pennies prior to the late 1920's, is the poor or weak strike on so many. This typically results in either very poor hair detail, or the breastplate very weak or absent. I've been trying to obtain as many as possible which have decent examples of both. I've now obtained a 1916 penny, which is not a recessed ear type, but does have a decent breastplate and good hair detail. Proves that if you're patient, you can obtain good specimens. I've now got well struck up examples of all the period 1911 to 1927, with the exception of 1913 Freeman's 175 (poor breastplate and hair) and 176, (very good hair but poor breastplate). It's quite unusual to get such a good non recessed ear specimen for 1916.

Right.

No 3 - the best three I can come up with so far are "unreasonableness", "declassification" and "discontentedness", all with 16. They are in the dictionary. That's obviously using just lower case. There's probably longer better ones.

Cheers things up a bit. For the sake of people's sanity, we do need the odd diversion from Covid 19 now and again. Especially stuff that bears no relation to it. The news is dominated by coronavirus, virtually to the exclusion of everything else. Not that there is much else.

Temperature - the (then) October maximum temperature record was broken in March (Cambs) on 1st October 1985, when 29.4 degrees was attained there. This was broken on 1st October 2011, when 29.9 degrees was reached in Gravesend.

No 4 anybody?