Red Riley

I do have some sympathy with him but perhaps the way to have dealt with it would have been an abject apology, refund your money and give you a £10 voucher off your next purchase. Not in accordance with the letter of the law I know, but it may go some way towards pouring oil on troubled waters. You knew it was a mistake. He knew that you knew it was a mistake, so there are probably some grounds for a friendly handshake and move on. If it was a mega-corporation (or perhaps a large dealer that we all know...) I'd suggest you see your solicitor but a little guy like this? Hmmm...

Depends on your definition of BU! Deja vu? What's that? Deja vu? What's that?.......

There does seem to be some disparity between the content and the potential readership. For me, this month's is a prime example. It contains a fairly interesting article on brass threepenny bits which I read; a rather long piece taking a look at gate type reverses on Roman coins which I started to read and ultimately just ended up by skimming through and one man's experiences metal detecting in a field near Tewksbury which was interesting enough but rather like looking at somebody else's holiday snaps. The rest included three articles on banknotes, which is fine if it's your thing - it isn't mine; an article on British colonial issues in Africa and another on New Zealand tradesmen's tokens. The final piece was a look at platinum as a coinage metal illustrated with pictures of Beyonce and Paris Hilton which ultimately made the cover look a bit like OK magazine. I suspect this final article would have limited appeal to any regular member of this message board. So, out of 9 main articles I found one interesting and two moderately so. The rest were the sort of thing I would only read if faced with an extended period in a dentist's waiting room and even then only if somebody had pinched Country Life. As an aside, I know that advertising is the lifeblood of such magazines, and without it there would be no periodicals at all, but isn't three pages of advertising from Coincraft perhaps two pages too much? I suppose the question is, am I a typical British coin collector? The evidence from this forum and from events such as coin fairs is that I am, in fact I would say my range of interest is wider than most. I therefore find it hard to work out quite who the target readership is. Of course, the answer may be that the genuine collector of British coins is too small a constituency to warrant an entire magazine to him or her self, so it has to attract as wide a readership as possible. But this runs the risk that by widening the potential market, you end up by alienating those who you would regard as your core readership. Now, I don't wish Coin News or its publishers ill, and there may be some truth in the argument that in restricting their articles to largely those covering British issues of the last 2.3 millennia there would be insufficient material and the same topic might need to be covered over and over again. Is this however, something that would really bother a more committed readership? Is it preferable to have two very similar articles on Victorian sixpences in a 5 year run rather than one on Victorian sixpences and another on say, Outer Mongolian silver issues of the 1990s? It also strikes me that the pool of writers for such comparatively narrow subject matter might be rather shallow making it difficult to source appropriate material without overworking the willing horses. If Bob has stayed with me this far (or indeed even started…), I wonder if he could enlighten us on American coin magazines, especially if there are any that deal almost exclusively with U.S. coins (i.e. the equivalent of what we would appear to want here). If so, how do they cope with publishing a magazine which has a comparatively narrow subject matter? Are articles repeated? Sorry to go on, but it does seem to me that we need a magazine which reflects our interests within the hobby, and at present it is far from clear that we have one.

Petrol?................. Check Oily rag?............... Check Worthless coin?......... Check

I had this vague recollection of hearing somewhere that the original grades were poor, fair, fine, very fine, extremely fine and that was it. I guess the ancients of coin collecting were more concerned with eye appeal than with slight wear to Britannia's fingers. It might also suggest that the definition of EF has become less stringent over time.

They were still legal tender at the time, so I'm sticking with my 'pissed mint worker lobs old sixpence into blank hopper' hypothesis. People tell me I have a deeply unromantic nature...

It was certainly about before then. I remember it back to the 1960s but it's never really had any official standing which makes me think it's a comparatively recent phenomenon. I wonder if an (even) older coiny than me has any recollection?

Strangely neither I nor many of the other dealers that I speak to use Spink for pricing purposes. What I do use it for is to check the price of one coin against another e.g. in my opinion a 1916 half crown in EF is worth £x; I have just acquired a 1917 in similar condition, will this be worth more, the same, or less? The actual prices, I tend to ignore.

Personally I think if it's one of those things we can over-analyse. I suppose that Spinks' Unc for currency pieces is what, MS66? But by the same token does their FDC equal MS70? If it does then I would guess that many of the prices they list are below market value. Perhaps the guide is produced as much on gut feel as on hard market evidence, which is in itself a very erratic yardstick. As I said, don't take it too seriously...

Well it's always been around from my recollection but I do have a hunch that it is pre-dated by both Spink's and Seaby's who with that special kind of snobbery reserved by august English institutions refuse to accept that the world didn't stop the day they were established.

I think the problem is that Spink's don't acknowledge the BU grade.

The whole point is though Dave, that no coin, particularly in the higher grades, is ever an exact grade. If the UNC (100% lustre) figure is quoted as £100 and EF as £50, the theory is that everything EF to UNC will fit somewhere between the two and let's face it there is plenty of leeway. Sometimes an EF with lustre will fetch more than an AU without; that's just the way the cookie crumbles and shows that you should never give an undue amount of credence to Spink's or any other price guide without a pinch, or even a handful of Siberia's finest.

Oh come on! Haven't you heard of the '1914 missing toenail' or '1917 cauliflower ear'? Clearly you've not been paying attention.

Aah...! Perl? MySQL?

I have a website but not the foggiest idea what PHP is...

You can use anything on my site. Quite a few pennies (e.g. 8 different varieties of 1874), and varieties under florins, sixpences and farthings. I may also still have the photographs/descriptions of coins already sold, so will have a look through the darkest recesses of my PC.

I frequently find that I don't notice the verdigris until the coin has been photographed, and that is simply because the act of correcting the colour (toned copper/bronze is a nightmare to photograph) makes even the slightest speck of verdigris stand out bright green. At that point I have to do something about it...

Ouch! I have never seen one of these or seen one offered for sale. If I did see one then I would expect it to be in a worse condition than that one. Very nice find and free at that! Freeman states the rarity at R18 (6-15 known) this could be the 16th so you have dropped the rating to R17 Who knows what that could bring at auction!! The Verdigris seems to be superficial (still soft) and should be easy to remove, carefully but I would have to disagree with with Vickysilver about using copper coin agents on this coin due to it rarity! Personally I would be inclined to leave it. That way, the onus passes to the new owner and given its rarity, it's really a case of whether you want it or not, the condition being of only minor importance. I suppose the obverse isn't smothered with the green stuff?

I haven't checked your assessment, but assuming you are right, it is an extremely rare coin and moreover is one of the most sought after of the 20th century penny varieties. Given the current condition of the market and some less than exciting pennies recently sold at auction for phenomenal figures, it could be worth thousands.

Good to argue without falling out. Now what contentious issue can I bring up next...?

My recollection is that from 15 February, the old money was only legal tender in lots of 2 1/2p (6d), so if you had 5d, hard cheese!

John, 'a pissed up speeding rugby player on cocaine killed 4 innocent female members of the same family as well as himself.' It would depend on how contrite he was and whether he had ever done anything like it before, and just as important was he ever likely to do it again (e.g. was he addicted to drugs). Ban him from driving for life and make him clean care homes for 3 years - cheaper and much more useful. Having him in the community is something we would have to face up to in the end anyway, as he would eventually be released. The 20 year old you mention had previous and so falls into my category of 'persistence', see earlier in the thread, so I would support a custodial sentence in that case, yes. As has been said before, hard cases make bad law and you are quoting extreme examples here, there are many, many more which are nowhere near as clear cut, and people can and do show an overwhelming level of remorse. There was a case around here only two weeks ago where another 20 year old was speeding and became involved in a crash in which his two young passengers were killed. There will be no point in the judge sending him to prison, because it would have to be in an urn. He hanged himself. And although it's going to sound like Monty Python's Three Yorkshiremen sketch, I was born and brought up in a tough part of London (think Steptoe's yard and you wouldn't be a million miles away), so do know a bit about crime from the receiving end. We are all the prisoner of our experience and our upbringing and I appreciate and respect that you are an ex-policeman, it is a job I would hate to do but seeing a disproportionate level of death and destruction can colour your judgement, being divorced from the immediate experience of related crime is, after all why we have juries. From my point of view, if you can be reasonably certain that an individual is not going to commit a similar crime again (and it wasn't violent), then what is the Earthly reason in spending a fortune sending them to gaol for 5 years, feeding and clothing him, and then sending him back out on the streets as a newly qualified safe-breaker. As I said though, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree...

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. The difference between driving without due care and causing death by dangerous driving is frequently bad luck and the difference in tariff is a £50 fine or 3 years at her majesty's. I know people aren't going to like this, but you can't let the familes of victims dictate the penalty, it would be like letting football supporters referee the game. We've all done stupid things in our lives, just most of them don't turn out to be fatal, and there but for the grace of god go us all. Generally speaking, Britain is at the top end of the European league in terms of the percentage of its population incarcerated in gaol and I suspect it is very unlikely that the likes of Gary Hart would have ended up in prison in any European country other than here.

I was right at the front end working the till in my Dad's shop on the actual day. Lot of confused pensioners who just trusted what you gave them. Being young, it never really bothered me - I used to have more trouble with Quadruple Green Shield stamps

And decreasing... Seriously, this is the sort of over-hyped coin you want to avoid, at least for some years by which time the only people interested in them will be us collectors.