Accumulator

Beautiful examples of the crown, guys. And excellent photos. Every one I've looked at has a slight flaw somewhere.

?? Having checked the website, I think he means it lasts for life in the sense that you never have to re-take the test (the RAE - Radio Amateur Exam, as it was called in my day). To keep the licence active you have to renew every 5 years though.

Just for fun, I took a look at the on-line licensing, which I see is now handled by Ofcom. Apparently I can re-instate my licence if I want to, by paying a £20 fee! There's no reason to do this, but it's interesting to know.

Both listed in Freeman (F-678 and F-679) rated R18.

I've always struggled with the MS65 = CGS85 alignment and I do think this demonstrates the tougher line taken by CGS. In my limited experience a CGS85 coin is always an exceptional example and I've not seen one that I wouldn't happily have in my collection. On the other hand I have a few (NGC) MS65 examples which I'd certainly look to upgrade. They'd never have made CGS85.

...and The Daily Mail, which does all the European thinking for a vast swathe of the population. At least they do slightly more thinking on Europe than the 3 'main' parties So you say. I vehemently disagree. The likes of the Mail have turned this country into a nation of Euro-phobes since 1975 (when we collectively voted to stay in), fed by a swathe of urban myths typified by the famous Yes, Minister episode about the 'traditional British sausage'. Just to throw one single fact at you : we, in this supposedly enlightened economy, have the lowest proportion of retirement pension compared to average wage, of any EU member. That makes you happy? It doesn't me. Nor do pro-Murdoch rants from the red-tops. In 1975 we voted to remain in the 'Common Market', what we have nearly 40 years later is something very different. We have the EU, as the name implies, a Union. I certainly don't glean my facts from the likes of the Mail and I can't see how the pension arrangements of this country have anything whatsoever to do with our being inside or outside of the EU. I'm not saying our pensions are good (they're not), just that I don't want this country ruled by Brussels. I'm not alone in that.

Things have changed, I'd never heard of call signs beginning with 'M'! I had a G8 licence back in 1974, which I kept up until about 1980. After that my interests lay elsewhere and I didn't bother renewing it. I was very active in the early days though, building some of my own equipment… particularly a 400w amp with two of the now classic 4CX250B RF power tetrodes. Did wonders for the neighbours tv pic as I recall!

...and The Daily Mail, which does all the European thinking for a vast swathe of the population. At least they do slightly more thinking on Europe than the 3 'main' parties

Me too. The seller just got back to me with this: I pulled this for the times being as others have mentioned this is not the F 21. Its odd as I am sure viewing in hand this has a sign on the truncation of the bust. At any rate I will submit it to NGC later see what they come up with. I have another (1860) lot 310755521863 I will send in also as it has no match that I have been able to find (the "I" in britt is Very high) and see what they come up with on that one. Thanks for the input much appreaciated. My reply included: "….I'm not sure that NGC have a very good record with British coins, especially pennies. We often see misattributed varieties over here. They also tend not to determine Freeman numbers and certainly don't use the even more detailed Gouby reference book…." The 1860 is interesting in that the 'I' of BRITT has been recut and misaligned, but otherwise it looks like a Freeman 10 to me, with obverse 2 rather than 3 as stated in his description (colon after G: of D:G: points to a tooth)

Me too. The seller just got back to me with this: I pulled this for the times being as others have mentioned this is not the F 21. Its odd as I am sure viewing in hand this has a sign on the truncation of the bust. At any rate I will submit it to NGC later see what they come up with. I have another (1860) lot 310755521863 I will send in also as it has no match that I have been able to find (the "I" in britt is Very high) and see what they come up with on that one. Thanks for the input much appreaciated. My reply included: "….I'm not sure that NGC have a very good record with British coins, especially pennies. We often see misattributed varieties over here. They also tend not to determine Freeman numbers and certainly don't use the even more detailed Gouby reference book…."

Welcome Geoff. I can't add anything to the IOM discussion but noticed your interests include amateur radio! That takes me back to the 70s, when I had a licence and used to spend my spare time building equipment and chatting on the 2m band.

I did, but the photos I took were crap. Far too grainy and contrasted, so I binned them. However hard I try, I can't seem to get reproducibly good images. Nothing wrong with the coin though. Those above were taken with a cheap compact camera (£75 ish), a mini tripod (£15 ish) and 3 desk lamps from Homebase which I fitted with LED lamps (£13 each plus £5 each for the lamps). Nothing fancy. And I've reduced the resolution by a significant factor to be able to post them on here.

I did buy the coin as an overdate Bob. As I recall, Rob had a very nice one for sale at one time too. He may still have photos? Dave, did you see my post about 1904 pennies in the 'Confirmed unlisted varieties' sub-forum? I'd be interested to get your input on these.

I've tried to take an angled pic of mine, in case this helps:

Hi Dave, that sounds like the one! Well done. Here's mine:

I noticed that error also! The coin does have a 2nd "1" impression slightly to the left of the 2nd one (1) in the date! I saw the second '1', but it's not something I would particularly bother to collect and certainly not what he is selling it as! It'll be interesting to see whether he replies to my email.

Freeman lists just the one (F-163) but David Groom lists 13 combinations, made up of permutations on the position of the '7' and the length of the tail of the '9'. He goes on to mention open & closed loop '9's but doesn't attempt to list all the potential combinations resulting from this addition! Only one type in the collection for me, though your photos do demonstrate a clear difference between the varieties.

This extremely rare Freeman 21 (3+D) is actually the common Freeman 29 (6+D). Watch out! I've informed the seller.

As well as being cleaned, I think the reason there are no edge knocks is because they have been removed. If you look carefully, the coin appears to have chamfered edges. The chamfers are very even in shape and tone. Also the description 'EX details' sounds remarkably similar to the TPG description 'XF details', which denotes a coin that they have declined to fully grade due to a 'problem' (eg. major scratching, cleaning etc.)

Ps. My CCGB hasn't arrived yet, but I'm not chasing . I can only help with photos of pennies from 1797, which I imagine you don't need?

Which reminds me, whatever happened to Bill Pugsley? He arrived like a whirlwind and took a great deal of trouble to write about and defend the actions of CGS on this forum. I enjoyed his input to the debate and hoped he'd stick around. Did we frighten him off, did he secretly decide that the CGS business model was failing and felt too embarrassed to stay, or did he just lose interest in chatting about coins? Last active April 2013.

Hammered / milled makes more sense to me, especially if the decimals were hived off into a softback produced every two or three years (after all, the values of decimals change even less than Roman and Ancients). Hammered / milled would give approximately half a book each, where pre-decimal / decimal would be about 7:1. But perhaps they've already identified that's where the biggest market split is? Actually a more careful reading of Spink 2014 reveals a dichotomy! Page 553 of the decimal section has a Spink colour 'advert', stating 'Coming next year. The Decimal Coins of England. From next year the Decimal Coinage will be published in a separate volume'. On the other hand, Philip Skingley's editorial on page ix states, 'We had previously stated that we would be removing the Decimal section to a separate volume, this again has not happened this year. We had intended to improve the section with more illustrations and greater detail but, since taking the decision, we have received almost no information from the Royal Mint whatsoever in the past two years and it seems that their policy is to disassociate themselves from the general UK coin trade who have supported their products for decades and created the very collectors who buy the coins from them. We still aim to produce a separate volume but will have to wait to gather the information as products appear rather than having official notification from the Royal Mint as they are released'. A very sad reflection of the Royal Mint in my opinion, but probably par for today's attitude from officialdom in many areas! Anyway, certainly no confirmation of a separate volume next year from Mr Skingley.

Welcome to the forum!Santa managed to bring me Spink 2014, so I've had lots to read. A number of changes in presentation this year and the promise of 2 volumes next year. A few day's break before the New Year festivities now I got my copy as well How is the book going to be split...hammered/milled? If CCGB can eventually cover milled it will be interesting. The split will be into pre-decimal and decimal, Peter. Only one volume I'll need to buy!

Welcome to the forum! Santa managed to bring me Spink 2014, so I've had lots to read. A number of changes in presentation this year and the promise of 2 volumes next year. A few day's break before the New Year festivities now

What's that then? Jesus was born in September