Gollum

Uh huh, I have the capability to make anything complicated including the use of an abacus

Wonder how much I will get ripped for. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260937397578

Ten sticks of dynamite hanging on a wall Ten sticks of dynamite hanging on a wall And if one stick of dynamite should accidentally fall There'd be no sticks of dynamite and no bleedin' wall (Thrown out of Scout Camp, our Liverpool troop was, for singing that round the campfire). Try the campfire with the French Foreign Legion you going to start singing Le Boudin for us then Az ?.

And just to be an idiot, more books. The early coins of America and the laws governing their issue. Comprising also descriptions of the Washington pieces, the Anglo-American tokens, many pieces of unknown origin of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the first patterns of the United States mint (1875) by Sylvester s crosby http://www.archive.org/download/cu31924029793472/cu31924029793472.pdf An Arrangement of Provincial Coins, Tokens, and Medalets: Issued in Great Britain, Ireland, and ... (1798) by James Conder http://ia600303.us.archive.org/18/items/anarrangementpr00condgoog/anarrangementpr00condgoog.pdf American colonial history illustrated by contemporary medals (1894) by C Wyllys Betts http://www.archive.org/download/americancolonial00bettuoft/americancolonial00bettuoft.pdf If you right click and save as they should come down as pdf files, they do for me anyway, quite interesting so far. click this too as normal http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=numismatics and follow the links, all good fun.

Spent most of my working life (as a histologist) working with these solvents and I'm still here, and I've worked with lots of things far nastier Wear gloves, use plastic forceps, use them outside or in a well ventilated area, avoid naked flames, and you'll be OK NB avoid nail varnish remover, can have unknown additives, my local pharmacy sell small (50ml) bottles of pure acetone, with is ample to soak a couple of coins in. Acetone evaporates quickly, so use a jar with a lid if you are planning on a soak rather than a quick dip Don't know where one would buy small quantities of xylene though, I used to buy it 25 litre drums, but if you do locate some ensure it is marked "sulphur free" if you are going any where near coins. David I once tried to buy a small 50ml bottle of acetone from Tesco's, they wanted some ridiculous price for it, I then got a 500ml from ebay for less + postage. I am surprised it came in the post as I thought it was a banned substance to post.

Happy birthday to the two old codgers I am currently watching one foot in the grave , how apt

However, cellulose thinners was what car body shops spent their entire lives working with until comparatively recently, and as an old car buff I have used it a lot and know of a lot of other people who have too. Most of them are still around... Meet someone who used to use it a lot including when he worked in a spray shop that painted, yes painted furniture a horrible duck egg green with it, the only mask I had given to me was one of those with a aluminum frame and cotton in it that you squeezed round the nose, I forget how many time I would sneeze green muck out of my nostrils and now the old lungs are knackered. Nasty stuff that thinners was.

Ok so its not pre decimal. But does anyone seem to have noticed how the new 2011 £2 coins all seem to have marks on the inner part that are there as if the machine that pushes the centre in has left an image like two large () ?. I thought it was just grease or dirt so tried to remove it with a cotton bud, it remained though. Nasty mint people. Still it could be me.

Yes but weren't the arms facing the other way.

Flamethrower 20 minutes each side.

Thanks Debbie, I have just placed my first on-line bid at a non-eBay auction! No BIN's !, NO 99p starters !, obviously for the rich people.

Thanks Garry. Apart from the first page, that first one has come out fine. (But the site I had to get it from ... GAAAAAH! Don't the stupid people who create those 'captchas' understand that a robot can't read ANYTHING in a picture? On the other hand, if they put a wavy line through the characters, then humans can't read it either!! What a bunch of total pillocks!) Anything on 1887 £5 or £2 in there. I can't get it to download. Garry, How big is it? E-mail me a copy and I will host it for those interested Actually colin the original from the american archive is about 243M and the cut down version that i put up is only about 2M. I dont understand why no one can get either I still can. the first link is merely a right click and save lin or file as, and the ones put up are just click and then choose free download. I dont have the B/W to upload the original 243M one.

I would rather not HAVE to use a machine to grade Peck, I would hate to have a coin damaged by one in the process, but if that is the only alternative to human foibles and greed that will give a more honest consistent grading, then i guess it is an option to consider. I still hate those slabs, I removed a 1964 and 65 kennedy half dollar from them a while back, they look and feel much nicer (for american coins anyway ).

Frankly as a begginer couldn't care less for coin grading in respect of companies, they are there for a commercial reason and not out of love for a coin. I ghave read so many articles about their over grading or undergrading coins for the benefit of iincome etc that it makes me wonder if they even know what they are doing, it is slowly but surely creeping to the point that they are going to be the only deciding force in this hobby that a coin is genuine or is not and what it is worth, unless your coin is in one of their coffins with a pretty sticker or ugly as may be it is going to be non commercial or a fake as far as the rest of the world is concerned. They can't even agree with each other, one slab is ripped open and sent to a different grading company in the hope of a better grade and so it goes on, then you have those professional grading companies who declare a coin as genuine or fake only to end up with egg on their faces and back pedalling when the reverse is proven. Maybe we could use laser scanning technology to determine a grade in respect to mechanical wear, I have seen them in use for body mapping, so would it be much harder to adapt. Scan a coin, match it to a number of known other grades and you get a more stable and uniform grade ?, then take into account tone etc manually or even with a laser again. Take the greed and human element out of the equation and I might take some note of those places till then I would rather ask those on here with no axe to grind or monetary gain involved.

Ilike that !, but I am soooo tempted to spray paint it gold and wait for a chinese tourist to pass by

However, unless everybody else flushes their caches - you'll be the only one that sees the change. I've just flushed mine and see that your avatar is now cyan coloured rather the purple/blue it was before. I think this is a forum s/w issue. Every time a user uploads a new avatar, a unique filename should be generated so that all browsers will download the new image. verdigris coloured, please I am sorry Peck, but I have to inform you that having looked at your Avatar, I must conclude from it's tone, and it's colour, it is not covered in Verdigris but it is a modern Fake.

The second one is very low grade but rare, the French 10 centimes 1853K Bordeaux mint is a scarce coin with a mintage of just 1,268,672, this one has the rare error of a vertical vine leaf to the right of the date Those awfull french things ! I have 3 now, they just seem to breed from no where, one has no mint mark on it due to being eaten ! but it's an 1861 and I think it's a K due to the hammer and pickaxe ? as is on the obverse of the other one, the other two have a K 1863, and 1862 with a B that looks like its been double struck slightly to the right, so its a BB. I hide them in my drawer so they don't make my other coins look ugly .

try this one. I had to edit it and it may not be as good as the original. http://www.fileserve.com/file/RU6Hhxe/Strand409.pdf or this one https://rapidshare.com/files/1906165580/Strand409.pdf

Nice idea, but it hadn't loaded even after 15 minutes so I gave up. Thanks anyway Garry. I think the idea is you are meant to right click and "save link as". comes down a lot faster.

It's about forgeries. you will need to download it and then go to an article called crimes and criminals. I found it rather interesting. http://www.archive.org/download/StrandMagazine40/Strand40.pdf

Yep, facebook sucks. Cant understand it all. My pages keep going silly. nuff said.

an olive oil bath should get it back to how it used to look Nah, I quite like the new verdigris look I thought it had been At'd and slabbed as a VF50BL(ue). At'd ?? Feel the force oh green one

Hi Colin, it's that bit that gets me, they grab it, and "independently" ( yeah right, of course it is )value it, and then if the museum is interested and can buy it they will. i have read so many stories about that independent valuation Colin, how the British museum will push for finds of any value to them to be declared as treasure trove at an inquest, and then have it valued within their means !. Hardly fair is it. What if you own the land and do not want to sell to any museum, are you then forced to sell it to them if they can find the money it is valued at, that is hardly fair either is it. If you found a coin that was unique, would you expect it to be given back, I doubt it, at least that is my understanding of it all, it's a one of and they will do all they can to keep it. I don't have a problem with them "borrowing" it for research for a limited time, if they want to display it then they can make a copy for the public to ogle at. I do have a problem with them declaring such things as of national importance and then hiding it in their grubby little safe for eternity in case it gets stolen or is forgotten, so much for it's importance to the nation. I am not surprised things do not get declared to the LFO or the like on occasion. I read about the time team crew and how they treated detectorists, as if they are scum, personaly I think that mob are a joke too, but there you go, if I am to be honest, it is the reason i do not go detecting, I have the tool, but when I think about the red tape and losing my finds I just can not be bothered to go through it all, I may well be wrong Colin, I do not know maybe the reality is different to what I read or perceive it to be, you would be more able to straighten that out to me than most, I just think a man should keep the fruits of his labour and not have it taken by govt out of greed or for some museum. Don't get me wrong, If people are happy to play the game then fine, but do not expect me to tell on someone who I see hiding a find, it's none of my business however rare it is, my mouth is shut, and I apologise to anyone who dislikes that of me. I have a big empty field next to me, I know the guy who rents it, if your ever bored I don't mind watching and supplying tea and sarnies .

Thank you David. Well I have an opinion, but some may not like it. If the coins had been stolen from an individual then what was done was right and they should be returned, but I disagree completely with any gov't imposing or demanding that any coin or such belongs to them de-facto, and is therefore gov't property, I personaly would not inform the gov't of the find or whereabouts of a coin farmer Giles ploughed out of his field by luck, regardless of its perceived importance to the state. I have a personal dislike of those professor types etc who sit at desks writing papers or other such stuff on the labours of other people, or who scream how metal detectorists are ripping up the land and our cultural heritage to bits merely to benefit their own careers whilst doing nothing to seek this stuff themelves. It seems to me they are more than happy to sit on their backsides and wait for it to come to them. I don't suppose many go out regularly in the cold, wind,rain or other foul weather at their own expense and actually put in the spade work as detectorists do. What gives any gov't the right to claim any coin found is theirs ( someone owned it before them! ), nothing as far as i am concerned, If the conservators or archaeologists want it so badly let them go and dig them up, otherwise it can never be seen and probably rust or rot away, no one wins then. I spoke to someone recently who said we had the best treasure laws about, but whilst I agree in relation to other countries I don't as a whole, if I find one coin it's mine, if I find two its treausre trove, pfft, one or twenty, it's the same too me I am afraid, only the numbers change, if they want one for history and archaeology then they can buy it from me or borrow it for cataloguing, not shoving in their greedy little safes never or rarely to be shown to the public, or like so many of our "nationally declared" treasures, sold of to the highest bidder in many years to come in order to save their failing little museum. I could explain and defend my perceptions further but I don't think we have space. Simply put, if it's stolen from an individual it gets returned and the law takes it course, if it came out of the ground I say it belongs to the person who found it. Sorry, for rant. I do have a B1 laser detector, although I got it to find the wifes ring she lost ( never did find it ), I am not a metal detectorist, although I would probably jump at the chance to be shown how to do it properly.

V dodgy provenance by all accounts Typical everyone knows except me, late to the party again !. Someone tell me please.