Red Riley

1971 11th edition (presumably marketed as 1972 edition); VF-£90, EF-£125. No other prices given. 42nd edition (2007, published in 2006); F-£450, VF-£675, EF-£1100, FDC-£2750. I may have others but they would take some looking out. Would be interested to know your reasons for wanting this

Walking holiday from Salisbury to Lyme Regis. Nearly 100 miles and 200 horse-fly bites!

I think it was the historian A L Rowse who persisted in calling her Boadicea long after the version had been discredited. When this was pointed out to him, his response was, 'I would much rather take a woman called Boadicea out to dinner than one called Boudica'. Given her reputation, I wouldn't fancy dining with her however she spelt her name.

Just come back from holiday, hence no posts for a bit. I would agree, it does look VF to me.

None of the crap belongs to you. It is entirely the property of Spink. Today was better than the sale 3 months ago. Then the system kept halting intermittently and updates were in the form of rapidly scrolling lots (say 10 or so). Consequently in that sale I was unable to bid on a coin that sold for about £150 less than I was prepared to pay not to mention a whole raft of tokens that I wanted, which p'd me off no end. Today was much better, though as you say, still with the dire audio. Video I can do without, but hearing the auctioneer makes life a lot easier. To eliminate the problem, I submitted a bid in advance for the piece I specifically wanted and it even demonstrated that the system was coherent as it told viewers that I was winning by giving my geographical location as part of the feed. First time I've seen that. All this is way out of reach to my unreliable coal-fired rural broadband.

There were two; 294 '1825 farthing D/U in DEI about uncirculated' (est. £180) and 295 '1825 farthing uncirculated nearly full lustre' (est. £42)

Up and down but everybody says the same. Seems like you've had a complete change of occupation too, quite envious at the moment but December... Wherry's OK but don't get me started on poxy Greene King IPA!

The lamb chops I got from Tesco's the other day must have been 'clear date' and they'd been artificially toned. Haven't seen you around much lately 400. Still on the Armada?

It's a trend unfortunately. Went to the last Warwick & Warwick and for the first time came home with nothing. Not a sausage. B*ggerall. Two people, one seemimngly called Mark(?) seemed to be hoovering everything up and nobody else got a look in.

No, go ahead.

Pity about the hole in the 1854 sixpence. It is one of the rarest years for Victorian sixpences. Spink 2011 prices them at £150 in fine condition, rising to £1750 in UNC. This is probably the reason someone attempted to fill the hole with solder. Given its rarity it may have some value but how much would depend on what somebody is prepared to pay. The other is more straightforward but I would still need a photograph before committing myself. Can you post one?

The other two aren't coins at all but commemorative medals. Bit out of my sphere bit they will have some value; question is how much.

There was an earlier thread on here - could be 3 or 4 years ago now, in which somebody pulled out a newspaper article from 1960 which said that of all the bronze farthings minted from 1860 to 1956 only about a third were returned to the mint for melting down. So if this situation were to apply at all times across all denominations (which I guess is unlikely), there would still be a million 1829 farthings kicking around out there. The opinion was expressed that the number of coins simply mislaid or lost was dramatically underestimated by pretty much everybody. With so many coins doing the rounds, I would, in the nicest possible way, suggest that a database is not really a practical proposition and we will always be reliant upon price guides etc. for estimates of rarity. One further point is that the official mintages simply record the number of coins minted or issued in any one year, many of which will carry the date of the previous or the succeeding year (e.g. 2.5 million pennies were minted in 1869 but it is reckoned that only 400,000 actually carried that date), so unfortunately any figure produced by the Royal Mint must be taken with a massive pinch of salt.

Lichtenstein too. The French however have the best National Anthem by a country mile.

The British (or whoever...) have got to be the least patriotic people in the world, and I think we've just proved that. We cringe when others wear their nationalty on their sleeve - when the Americans play 'God bless America' I hide behind the sofa! Their genuine national anthem however is way better than our dirge.

I don't know about the Britanny bit but wasn't Ireland named Hibernia by the Romans? My understanding is as follws; 'Britain' excludes Ireland 'Great Britain' is Britain plus the bits of Ulster that became Northern Ireland 'The British Isles' are the two main islands of Britain and Ireland (Britannia and Hibernia) plus all the little bits between and around the two 'The United Kingdom' is the lands of England (plus Wales) and Scotland

Yes, but it only applied to copper coins (pennies, halfpennies, fathings and half farthings) which were replaced with the familiar 1860-1970 bronze series. Both sets of coins continued in circulation, with the copper coins gradually dwindling in numbers until they were demonetised in 1869.

Actually, thinking about it, have you thought of putting some of your stuff on e bay, Derek. You might shift one or two bits of stock that are presently just sitting there dormant, as it were. I do sell the bum end of various bulk lots on e-bay but that's about it at present. I know it is not unusual for coins to sit in dealers' trays for many a year and that's okay, these pieces can happily hang around with prices periodically adjusted to reflect market trends until the right buyer comes along. I had considered starting an e-bay shop but for the moment I am happy with my website. Like many dealers I do frequently buy coins on e-bay which I consider to be undervalued and this has so far been reasonably successful both in terms of buying in and selling on. I have however noticed a trend away from items being sold in the auction format towards Buy It Nows which, if it continues could restrict the supply of stock to the trade.

Of course, it was merely an observation that coin quality if not technology had gone backwards in the 700-odd years between the fall of the Roman empire in the west and the reign of Henry II. Tealby pennies are rare and interesting things but in terms of their actual quality of workmanship when compared with those of the earlier civilizations, they are indeed... rubbish.

I appreciate the historic value of early Mediaeval pennies etc. but when you compare them with Greek or Roman and even some Saxon coins, they were rubbish.

Now I think we might just disagree on that one...

At the expense of sounding like the archetypal Daily Mail reader, some while ago I sold a batch of nice but not devestating coins to a customer through my website. They are now appearing on e-bay, each one with the grade increased by up to a couple of points e.g. GVF becomes EF etc. Where is the 'rage' emoticon when I need it!

Thanks Rob. I had a feeling that was going to be the answer but in filling the die they seem to have produced a whole lot more than just the appearance of an 8 over a 7.

I have had this 6d for over 40 years, but being low grade and common as muck I have never looked at it in great detail before. On examination, the 8 is clearly struck over something but what? ESC only lists one overdate for this year i.e. 8 over 7 but the line in the lower loop of the 8 seems to be veering off at the wrong angle and the left side seems to contain a large bulge, in fact the only evidence for it being a 7 is the small projection to the upper left hand corner of the 8. I'm foxed. Any ideas? Apologies for the poor quality of the photograph which is just a modified stock photo.