Paddy

I think it is called Horsetail or Mare's Tail. See https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=257 for advice.

The 1888 and 1909 look very obviously heavily cleaned to me. It is not just the colour, but also the evidence of quite a bit of wear, which is at odds with the apparent lustre. I see quite a few like this, where some amateur has been at them with lemon juice or similar. I would be less certain of the 1854 - the wear and residual lustre look much more in keeping.

Welcome to the forum Greg! You ask a lot of questions that needs long answers, and I am sure others will chip in with their thoughts. Just to let you know, I also live in Devon, so if you would like to meet up, we can discuss and I can pass on my thoughts. (I have been collecting and dealing for 20 years+.) I am in Barnstaple Pannier market most Wednesdays, if you are in North Devon?

I still think this is the best way to deal with them:

He can't even get the date right!

That must rank alongside Ratners for a quick way to lose your job!

Another nice find for someone: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-57520248

Funny I had one as well today.

I use the Coincraft book that Rob mentions. I am not in general a fan of Coincraft, but this book is not bad and at least is not printed on toilet paper, like some of theirs. I picked it up very cheap at a coin club auction. It is on Amazon but currently cheapest is just over £80.

Nothing at all after the first - not even an aching arm. I had the second last Friday - I have felt a little tired and had a slight headache occasionally since, but whether this is because of the jab or not, I can't tell.

Another snippet from the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57170608

A couple of principles that help with Mechanical problems: "If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway." "If all else fails, read the instructions."

Unfortunately many voting decisions (in fact most decisions in life) are made on the basis of emotion rather than logic. In the political world, you can spot when emotion has got the better of logic, when people start slinging personal insults rather than discussing the actual facts and policies that are important. The other indicator is when people start quoting "facts" that are uncorroborated, inaccurate or irrelevant. Virtually everyone in the media comes with a political bias, often emotional rather than logical, so they rarely question the mud-slinging or the misinformation. Sells more papers to keep stirring the pot.

I can't abide the first day cover/coin combination. Always struck me as one of the worst marketing ploys ever - tagging successful coin collecting market onto the rapidly collapsing first day cover market. The 1996 £2 coin though is one of my favourites of the decimal era. Shows what happen when "real" people get to design rather than trendy art students.

The trouble I think is we have too many "politicians" and not enough "leaders". Whatever you think of Boris's political views, at least he has leadership qualities, which are probably what we most needed during the pandemic. Leaders, almost inevitably, have more character, and that often comes with flaws. We should be more tolerant of these as most of the rest of the world are. (I am thinking particularly of the French and the Italians!) Politicians are trained in the process of politics and diplomacy, but somehow end up just following the process rather than leading their party or country. They end up as "grey" men and women. The other problem is we still have far too many lawyers in parliament, with the net result that their reaction to any situation is to pass more laws rather than address the problems underlying the issue. (There is another agenda too - make the laws as obtuse and complicated as possible to keep their colleagues in work for ever!)

The PC police have been notified about this thread and will be calling on some of you shortly.... 😎

Another new article on metal detectors failing to do the right thing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-56945507 P

I have been having a battle with them today, and I suspect my days of selling there are over. I may even cancel my account in a fit of pique! I got the email telling me I needed to register a bank account. I wasn't keen, but after some thought I set about doing it. The link to the bank account failed with an error message from the Bank and I then got a series of ebay emails saying I needed to take action. I fixed what I thought was the error - Ebay was using my name as per the Ebay account as my bank account name, which failed security. I tried again and now the bank was happy but Ebay wanted to text me a confirmation ID - but showed a phone number that was nothing to do with me, and giving me a USA helpline to call! I used the online chat system, and eventually got through that - the operator telling me that the account was now linked successfully. Ten minutes later I get another email from Ebay saying that my ID check had failed and telling me to upload a copy of my "government ID card" , or my passport. Well I'm not going to do that, so that is the end of Ebay. Anyone else having similar problems, or successfully got through it all? I'm not sure I am too bothered - the VAT on foreign sales has made selling there pretty pointless for me, and it is a while since I saw anything worth buying that wasn't at risk of being a fake. Ebay RIP.

Design is for the Half Crown, but with no weight or dimensions, one cannot be certain if it is an incorrect listing. As to whether it is a fake - the reverse appears very deeply struck, but whether this is natural, the result of fakery, or just excessive photoshopping is difficult to tell.

Yes, it has both those. The design is very plain - no twists or engraving, so was an "every day" piece in its day, which makes it more appealing to me. Also the top rim is not completely level, which suggests it was cheaply made at the time. Not going to be worth a fortune and worth more to me as an interesting old thing to drink my wine out of - knowing that 200+ years ago people were drinking their beer from it.

Ah yes, the last few English monarchs can be a challenge. I still need Henry IV and William II but I baulk at spending hundreds of pounds on something barely identifiable! I expanded into the Saxon kings of Wessex and England to give me something to buy and now have 8 different monarchs there - but getting any more is pricey. Peck mentioned Julia Domna, so here is one I picked up the other day:

Yes, Peck's advice is good. I don't collect Roman coins, but I do deal a bit at markets in the local area. I find Roman coins in good grades much easier to obtain than most of the hammered English. A collection based on as many Roman emperors as you can get, is a good target. Don't forget the wives/daughters/mothers, who also appear on quite a few coins. You will find, a bit like English hammered, that you can get the majority of the names fairly quickly, but then it gets hard filling the last few. Some emperors were only around for a few months, or only held sway in a small part of the empire, and those can be tricky and expensive. When you get down to the likes of Galba, Otho, Vitellus in the early days, or Carausius, Allectus and Marius in the later days, you will find your budget being tested more!

I picked up a wine glass a while back from a charity shop for 50p because I liked the simple design and it was a sensible size. A visitor at Christmas told me it was actually a Georgian rummer, and worth a lot more than 50p. I still use it for my constitutional home made wine every evening.

That is quite a beast! The pictures of the crane used to get it out of it's old home brings home quite what a task it would be to install.

It may be that VM is disguising your location, which is triggering a concern and so taking you into Captcha. I agree though, those Captcha screens are frustrating and sometimes you cannot work out why it didn't work and you have to do it again!