ozjohn

That's a pretty accurate set of scales you've got. +/_ 10 mg. Where do you get one?

Yes HF propagation can amaze us. A few watts of ERP can be heard clearly over 1000s of Km. Not so easy at VHF as the radio waves penetrate the ionized layers surrounding the earth. Meter showers and solar storms can enhance the ionized layers to allow propagation over long distanced. When I was working for the Dept. of Aviation we had a troposcatter link between Point lookout in Northern NSW to Mt. Glorious to the West of Brisbane about 3 to 400 km. In this case a high power microwave transmitter was aimed at the troposphere to graze it. Sufficient power was received at the far end to complete the link. This link worked reliably for many years carrying radar and communications over the distance. From memory it operated at about 2 GHz using a Traveling Wave Tube (TWT) as the transmitter tube. As it happens I live in Brisbane at a place called Redcliffe which is on the shore of Morton Bay.

I've given up on ebay removing fakes from their listings. They are not interested. With the G III 1818 halfcrown was it coin or medal alignment? With regard to London Coins not detecting this coin as a fake raises the question of their ability to authenticate coins. I have always wondered about their expertise in this area.

I think at the time BBC1 TV was on about 50MHz which is just above the shortwave band where long distance propagation is far more possible. However the UK to Oz is pretty impressive.

Perhaps a little off subject. I was in South Australia 900 km from Gosford NSW where I was living at the time. My wife was fiddling with the car radio which had 2GO (Gosford) on 107.9 MHz. Anyhow this station came in loud and clear. Obviously the signal was reflected off the ionized layers surrounding the earth. As a retired electrical engineer specializing in antennas and propagation I was impressed to experience something normally described in text books.

One story is the Chinese saw St. George slaying the dragon as an insult to China.

Hairlines? Cleaning with a "wire brush " seems more appropriate.

I saw a coin on Ebay graded by IGC and having no experience of them wondered if they were any good.

Has anyone heard of IGC? https://www.icgcoin.com/

Possible but I have not heard of an proven case.

Not sure if you would be too keen on this one as they can reach dinner plate dimensions. My wife was taking a shower and felt something and brushed it off not realizing the size of the spider. The next thing I heard was Johnnn! The best way to deal with them is a rolled up news paper or a pint beer glass and a piece of stiff cardboard if you are charitable. not that they are dangerous. However a few years ago I had an encounter wit a funnel web spider which is deadly. I was down stairs where I lived and about to put my thongs on (flip flops) and this spider reared up at me. It was dispatched but it was a deadly funnel web. We have plenty of venoms animals here.

A "welcome " garden visitor? A huntsman spider, a medium sized one as they can get much bigger but their venom is not dangerous although they can inflict a painful bite.

Quite right. Tire is from attire, honor is older English. Note Honor Oak a suburb of London. Plus many other words. The fall, for example is older English autumn is a more recent addition from French. A good reference is Fowler's Modern English Oxford University Press which incidentally I saw for sale at the New York City Library.

Thanks. Ozjohn.

Excuse my ignorance as I only collect dates. What is the difference between Rev E and Rev C?

Thanks Vicky. Yes I was forgetting about the lions. Of course my comments regarding possible wear refers to the second coin which was not very clear in my first post.

Two 1914 florins I have one a NGC MS64 and the other one I brought on Ebay some time ago. Both are nice coins but I was wondering which was the better coin. I value any comments as it helps me to improve my grading skills by having a second opinion in addition countering my bias regarding ownership of the coin. My view is the NGC coin is better as there seems to be some wear on the top of the King's ear and eyebrow but this could be due to a worn die Thanks.

With the above example I think the results speak for themselves. As for the original coin and the QM disturbance of the atoms who knows as you will never know what the original was as it has already been destroyed by the toning.. All I can say is if carefully done the effect seems to be minimal. From memory I think the immersion in the Bicarb/ Al foil bath was less than 1/2 a minute with most of the original lustre being preserved. I don't think I could have wished for a better result.

Are we taking coin cleaning to a quantum mechanical level? On a serious note I have tried the process and it seems to work well. Before doing this I tried it on some worn coins as well to check the process and get some idea of how long to immerse the coins. I also took a long time to make up my mind to do this. Before and after on an NGC MS 62 encapsulated coin are shown below. I have previously posted these results. Perhaps I could have pushed the cleaning further but in accordance with my extreme caution I minimized the amount of ceaning

Rob, We are not talking about coins that have been sealed in some fashion. The coins I was referring to are ones that have been randomly put away in a draw closet etc. and rediscovered later. Your example is not typical for the treatment of most coins however a very nice coin indeed. Sword, It is possible to remove tarnish chemically by use of the Al foil bicarb. of soda method that returns the oxide and sulfides of silver back to metallic silver again therefore not removing any of the surface of the coin. As with any cleaning to be approached with caution. jeldia, I think your response to this topic is a good commonsense approach to a serious subject. In general I think a hoard of coins buried for a thousand years in a porous clay pot would be effected in some way by the environment with all of the conditions for corrosion present in the soil water , corrosive chemicals etc.No plastic sealants in those days.

As serious question about a serious subject as many coins are traded online where it is very difficult to determine if a coin has been cleaned. Also pointing out the difference on how a museum treats coins against some collectors' opinion. I think I have seen somewhere that services are offered in the US that offer conservation services which I assume include cleaning. As it happens the most common form of "cleaning" is dipping which has such minimal impact on the coin can it be considered to be cleaning? Also in my original post the decision to clean is not one to be taken lightly.

I was watching the news today concerning a hoard of medieval coins recently discovered by metal detectors in SW England. The commentary went on to say that they had been cleaned by conservators of the British Museum. Which raises an interesting question. When should a coin be cleaned and when shouldn't be cleaned? The coins when they were discovered were filthy (not unexpected as they had been buried for the best part of a thousand years) nevertheless they were cleaned by expert conservators and this action must impact on the coins in some way. Given the cleaning of these rare coins has taken place and seems to be standard practice for ancient coins why does cleaning of more modern coins attract such negative comment on theseforums given any cleaning performed is performed with minimum impact of the coin ie only dirt and ugly tarnish is removed from the coin's surface as what has occurred with this hoard. Insteadany suspicion of cleaning seems to brand a coin for life often on the flimsiest of evidence as the coin cannot be examined properly from a photo or scan. As I have said before any high grade coin George V coin that has been put aside for close to hundred years or more and probably tarnished (toned ) during this period. Sometimes it becomes so bad that it detracts from the coin and cleaningwill enhance the coin's appearance and hopefully it's value. Of course the decision to clean or not to clean is a decision not to be taken lightly and my advice would still be if in doubt then don't. I still maintain that any bright hundred year old coin has probably been cleaned at some time in that period.

ouch!

Ok amputate? In answer to Paulus . Had another look at Paulus' execlent scan. We can relax the leg's attached what I saw was the gap between the top of the lion's thigh and the body. Sorry about the scare.

I was looking at upgrading my 1917 florin with the view of upgrading it which made me look carefully of scans of the coin. When I looked at the reverse I noticed the RH leg of the Scottish lion has been decapitated. Is this a premonition of what will happen if Scotland parts from the UK. All jokes aside it there any reason for this as it seems to be a pretty definite and I wonder if there is some meaning to it.