secret santa

I always struggle to understand how 3rd party graders can hope to achieve consistency given that the same person won't always grade a particular denomination of coin, the lighting conditions (whether natural or artificial) will always be slightly different when examining the coin, and it's not possible to make comparisons with other coins of that denomination other than via photographs and we all know how photos of the same coin can differ dramatically depending on conditions and technology used. Theoretically, the only way to grade truly accurately would be to have a library set of every denomination of coin in every physical (not photographs) grade to make side by side comparisons. Given that that's not practical, we have to accept that 3rd party graders will have to work from previous photographs of similar coins and written descriptions of grades, much like the rest of us, and can only be accurate to within a range of uncertainty.

I'm sure it's obverse 11 - see my halfpenny website to get you more confused !

Absolutely - they are spherical beads quite separate from the rim and linear circle. Sometimes, parts of a toothed border may appear to be beaded but they will not be separate from the rim. Beaded border Toothed border with some teeth looking like beads, particularly between the I and A.

What are you testing ?

Sadly not - toothed on both sides.

Can someone remind me of the approximate costs of slabbing/grading please.

Even on a fairly well worn specimen the thinner heel of the thumb and the 4 teeth to the right of the trident are still visible. Additionally, reverse D has 2 clear teeth between the central and right hand trident prongs whereas reverse E has just a single clear tooth midway between the prongs.

Not a huge difference in Britannia's fist, in my view. Reverse D on left; reverse E on right. The major difference in the fist appears to me to be the heel of the thumb which looks much fatter on rev D, but this needs verifying on more specimens. Alternatively, the trident prongs and the upright of the P meet the border teeth in slightly different places. Reverse D on left; reverse E on right with 4 teeth clearly visible between the white line and the right hand trident prong.

Interesting - very similar to the F15 repair.

The tail of the G looks a little taller and pushed out to the right than the definite VIGTORIA maybe ? Difficult to be definite.

The other benefit of the dimpled mug is that, with the general preference for straight glasses nowadays, it's easier to find your beer amongst all the others when you forget where you left it.

Always a dimpled Mug - the rest are for flowers only.

Here it is.

Colin Adams coin £1550 plus commission !

Bob I just clicked on your website link and got some chinese site with Stephen Gerrard on it ??????? Visit My Website

The whole set is integrated and sealed into a single pack so that no individual part of it can be replaced and so withdrawing the set and re-issuing a new one is the only practical option. I bought mine through the Westminster outfit so they would have my details rather than the Mint. The set cost £55 so I don't think that they would consider sending a replacement without receiving the faulty set first. And they have only offered this replacement as an option rather than a request, so I suspect that most people won't bother. Expensive mistake, rather like product recalls.

Hi Jack Collect what you want to collect and what you find interesting and attractive - it's your hobby and your money. But do read all you can about your subject as that may well affect what you end up collecting or specialising in. And do keep detailed records of your purchases together with the best photographs that you can manage (the examples above are pretty good). You will have years of pleasure (with a little frustration and envy thrown in). Best of luck.

When you think about it, this blatant spelling mistake (in very large letters) plus the grammatical error I mentioned earlier represents a pretty p*ss poor effort by the Royal Mint.

No, only the packaging.

Absolutely right - I've read the packaging a hundred times and not spotted that ! Mystery solved - and not likely to be worth a fortune in the future !

This was not the set that I was offered an exchange on.

I'll be very interested to see how they progress as I have the feeling that penny collectors of the more esoteric varieties are dwindling.

When I was at school, reported speech always comprised a verb followed by a phrase/sentence in quotation marks, e.g. He said "Hello". Can someone explain how the world has adopted the egregious - I'm like "Hello" and he's like "How are you doing ?" Or perhaps one doesn't even use quotation marks - I was like yeah and he was like whoah. Is this now being taught in schools ?

The Search facility on their site is absolutely appalling. It has been pointed out on here before but they do nothing about it. It's a disgrace that such a prestigious name should have such an awful website.

As I recall, it was only ever issued as a hard copy glossy, with a few articles and some coins for sale. I actually had one or two small articles published in it.