Paddy

This has now gone to auction, so you are all too late! If you want to know which auction, PM me.

Yes - it was a very good deal to help out someone who needed to get cash urgently. 2 Shield back Sovereigns - 1870 and 1872, 3 shield back Halves - 1872, 1887 and 1890, 1906 half and 1958 full sovereign. I don't really collect gold, so these are more an investment/hedge against inflation, but much nicer to have it done in decent looking coins. And before anyone raises concerns about stolen property - I have known the vendor for nearly 20 years, straight as a die and most of these he bought off me at some stage. He has turned a good profit on the prices I originally sold them to him for, so everyone is happy.

A bit quiet on this forum at the moment - I fear some of our regulars have been put off by some rather aggressive comments. Pity. I got tempted into buying some gold - 1872 Sovereign and 1887 Half Sovereign at a little under melt:

Bought this one at Lockdales as an upgrade to my sixpence date run: Very happy with it.

I am considering it - depends how high it goes! So far I have only gathered contemporary counterfeits in passing when they have come in with other coins, and all are in the 1770s. I have handled a few evasions, but always sold those on as the Americans tend to go crazy for them. The only list I have at the moment is at the back of the Withers Token book One.

That was the conclusion I was coming to. Seemed unusual to see one dated so early - I usually associate the contemporary counterfeits with the late 18th century but I see some of the evasions are dated much earlier, so that makes sense.

Here is the reverse:

Any thoughts on this? Vendor's picture, so please don't ask me for better ones. Described as 1739 Halfpenny, and size and reverse seem about right but this bust looks wrong to me. Is it a contemporary counterfeit, a modern forgery, or just unusual deformation of the portrait?

I use Chrome and am having no problems at all. The address bar does show "Not Secure" but it always has done in the forum area as far as I know. It might be worth checking/comparing your Chrome security settings. Click on the three dots in the top right corner of the browser window and select "Settings" and then "Privacy and Security". Under "Safe browsing" I have "Standard" rather than "Enhanced" selected. Further down under Advanced I have "Always use secure connections" turned off. I am not necessarily suggesting you change your settings, but if they are different it may explain where the issue is. Further - I just tried putting https before the predecimal address and got a "Not allowed" message where previously it said "Not Secure".

I usually rely on others to sort these out for me, but as no one seems to be replying, I will add my thoughts: I think the 1* obverse is clear - the lack of knot with the beaded border is clear. Not so sure about the reverse. The halfpenny website mentions A and A# , not A* - was it A# you meant? See https://halfpennyvarieties.wordpress.com/victoria-reverses/ A close up of the shield might help - looking for the extra incuse line for A rather than A#. Variations in the position of the 0 in the date are mentioned for both, so that alone is not an identifier. In any case the website suggests that in either case they are not that scarce. Or maybe I have missed the point with the A*?

... and I did not dispute that "fact" though I have seen no evidence to support it. If it happened 50 years ago, it was wrong then and remains wrong today. I doubt that it was as wholesale and targeted in the past. I was at university 45 years ago and I recall very little of what you describe. My fact, supported by current evidence, was completely discounted based on left wing bias against any media that does not support their narrow viewpoint. What really gets me is that the Labour party, supposedly champions of the working classes, for which I laud them, has now become the puppet of wealthy, privately educated and privileged trendies from London.

... and are you not also ignoring facts - as displayed in the Daily Mail - simply because of your bias against that paper? As @oldcopper puts it, much better than I could: "when you put the Daily Mail clipping to Peckris, he pulls out the cliched lazy get-out clause so beloved of the Left". Before you say "Why hasn't the BBC repeated the story?", that organisation has become so woke, left wing and anti Brexit it has ceased to publish any news that contradicts their viewpoint. I am wasting blood pressure again - I'm out of here.

I think it is best we just agree to differ. Neither of us is likely to change our viewpoint substantially, so there is no point wasting blood pressure on the debate.

... and as if by magic, this headline article today. I know from the Daily Mail, so there will be a good deal of bias in choosing to run this topic, but the basic facts are still extraordinary:

That's not a smile - it's a smirk!