SEnumis

Happy new year to all

Used a bullion shop for sovereigns - nice ones (BU) when collecting in person, grotty ones (nEF) by post. But they are just bullion.

On the sausages and burgers check out the Meat Products Regulations and the Food Labelling regulations. The Food Labelling Regulations define meat when used as an ingredient in other foods as permitting only a certain proportion of fat and connective tissue depending on the species. Also pork is so cheap anyway that it is unlikely that ears and snouts are used (they usually become dog chews - watch out kosher dogs). The Meat Products Regulations require minimum meat contents for sausages (30%) with excess fat and connective tissue declared separately, Pork sausages (42% pork) and excess fat and connective tissue declared separately, and burgers (60%). Meat products are regulated in this way because people with low incomes eat them and the Government sets a minimum standard, which applies to UK produced food and food not produced in the EU. EU produced food must declare the percentage of meat but it is not limited (it's usually more than the minimum anyway).

If you wanted to do something like getting £300 of 100 people to buy the voin for Britain, it might be best to donate the £300 to the British Museum with the stipulation that it be used to buy the coin. As a private enterprise it gives everyone who is in it about 3.5 days with the coin a year. With postal delays make that one day a year. The British Museum can show it to people every day.

£2 to celebrate the Rugby World Cup I think it was held in one of the UK countries in 2008 and therefore commemorated. The precious metal versions have a hologram rugby ball. I love the Mary Rose coin too. Would like Santa to bring me it in silver...

Welcome to the forum - some very nice crowns there.

Perhaps a trade token? Or even a gaming counter?

There are no crocodiles in Dundee because the jam and jute industries are repellent to them.

I would consider anything before the current coinage to be old, such as the 5p that was the same size as a shilling and the 10p the same size as a two shilling piece. Maybe even the bronze penny and 2p and the cupro nickel 5p, or those with the Christopher Ironside designs. Of course if 'old' means 'meritorious' then the selection of items might be rather different. But for a classic definition of old I think my definition would hold up.

I think one of the Guernsey coins has tomatoes. Not sure if it's a 50p or 10p

From Wikipedia (with the usual caveats although the article seems fairly sensible. Hope this helps. "In 1920, the silver content of all British coins was reduced from 92.5% to 50%, with a portion of the remainder consisting of manganese, which caused the coins to tarnish to a very dark colour after they had been in circulation for a significant period. Silver was eliminated altogether in 1947, except for Maundy coinage, which returned to the pre-1920 92.5% silver composition."

17.3g seems quite light for a coin that should be 1oz of silver manganese. Also it does not look like silver, although that is hard to tell on a picture. Have you tested for silver content? Might be worth a try. The legend does not make sense - why put fid def and ind imp twice?

I have some coins 50p and £2 removed from change but these are only specimens in order to look at the designs until I can obtain the proof sets. I always try to buy the best coins I can afford and that means proof sets for decimal coins as these are the best although the BU sets are also very good, although there can be errors in these as the QC is not always good. Coins from circulation can be very bashed about. I agree with you about Darwin and the Chimp though. I picked that one up in change from the Wellcome Institute which I thought was quite appropriate.

To answer your question about darkening a coin there are a number of different treatments, although some are metal specific. I know that farthings were darkened to prevent confusion with sovereigns when sovs were still (almost) circulating currency. I do not have access to one of my dad's books (a schoolbook called 'metalworking) but this has details of how to colour metal using different treatments. I hope this is helpful.