Paddy

You can't even rely on the broadsheets to get it right. Not many years ago the Daily Telegraph used "burglarise" instead of "burgle" on its front page, and I knew the end of the world was nigh!

My grandfather, who was otherwise very straight laced, sold me a long tale about a piece of pottery found in a dig inscribed "Itis apis pota bigone". Took me a while to spot the joke!

The one I recall is "Caesar adsum iam forte, Pompeii aderat".

I beg to differ on Referendum, which is a gerund, not a noun. It means "asking" and has no plural in latin. Snap - Blakeyboy beat me by seconds! PS: full discussion: https://www.dailyedge.ie/lets-figure-this-out-whats-the-real-plural-of-referendum-261522-Oct2013/

Whilst we are in pedant mode, another one that gets me is "The amount of people...". Amount is used for things you measure by weight or volume, so unless we are taking a leaf out of the Nazi's book, we should say "The number of people...".

The one that bugs me constantly is "unique". Everything seems to be unique these days, even frequently qualified with "very". If something is unique there is only one of it, so "very unique" is meaningless. On the antiques programs, which I generally enjoy, "unique" is trotted out for almost anything even slightly out of the ordinary.

It depresses me that the plural of forum is now accepted as "forums" instead of "fora". Even spell check highlights the second, not the first.

They are off again - more coloured dinosaur 50p coins from the Royal Mint: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-56182579

Is the alignment right? It should be medal alignment, not coin alignment. There have been some very good forgeries of the 1818 and the only thing they got wrong was the alignment.

Had a look - that's a pretty long stretch to make that look like anything at all! What is he smoking?

I had not noticed that before, but just checked and you are correct. I checked the specification of the pound on the Royal Mint website: https://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk-coins/coin-design-and-specifications/one-pound-coin/ The centre is Nickel plated brass alloy. Pure Nickel is magnetic, so I guess this is what is being attracted to the magnets. Copper-Nickel alloys are not magnetic.

I am sure between us we could send them pics of some really notable coins? I thought maybe my Gothic Crown, or one of my early Saxon pennies?

I have posted previous articles spotted on the BBC website, but thought a generic thread would be better so as not to keep starting new ones. Spotted this one today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56045273 The form at the bottom allows comment and contribution - I thought of pointing out how many fakes of the Kew gardens are around. Also give room for posting pictures of you oldest coins, or info about your collection - anyone fancy it? 🙂

I would think it is more likely that the batch of coins was in a hopper and the hypo solution was tipped in to achieve the toning. Then, as well as the issue of some coins being tightly packed together, and so getting uniface treatment, there is the issue of the hypo becoming used up as it reacts with the coins, resulting in different levels of toning through the batch. It is possible that all coins went through the process, some ending up heavily toned, some partial and some not at all. It may also be that the experts in the past had access to Royal Mint records saying all were toned and were repeating that information, regardless of the evidence of different levels of toning apparent in circulation.

Thanks again @Rob - very much appreciated.

That is brilliant - Thanks @Rob

That would be possible and I tried to find a match in any of the subsequent Henrys, but got nowhere.

... and finally this one I believe is Henry III, Nichole on Lund, S1356C:

... third I presume is another Edward I, Canterbury, and I think Class 9 or 10, but not sure which:

... Second I presume is Edward I, London, but I am struggling to decide which class:

Here are the 4 pennies. Two I have made good progress with, two I find very difficult to be sure of. First I believe is Henry V, S1785, York:

... third I believe is Henry VIII S2334, London:

... Second I believe is Richard II S1699, London:

I picked up a small group of hammered coins at a recent auction - partly as stock, partly to give me some new coins to work on. These 3 are halfpennies, and I think I have them identified, but please let me know if I am right. First I believe is Richard II S1700, London:

Are they for serving my guilt out to others or helping myself to a bit more?