LawrenceChard

... and it looks OK.

"A coin I desperately want to add to my collection and am umming and arring about purchasing the one in the below video. I’m not to sure on it polished/cleaned/brushed perhaps? The obverse seems worse than the reverse to me. Any and all opinions welcome and would be gratefully received." I was trying to use the "Quote" function without including the video, but it is almost impossible to do so, unless you create a line break under the video when posting. "polished/cleaned/brushed" It is difficult to tell from the video, but some wear and tear is generally to be expected on a century old coin made for circulation. It is what it is. It does not look obviously polished, and if it has been cleaned or brushed, it does not really matter if it has been done carefully enough to be undetectable. Whether it is genuine would be of more concern, although that is even harder to tell from the video. I presume it is the seller's video, not yours, otherwise adding some still photos would help.

Quite typical hype from a typical American dealer. (I presume they are American, but after spending about a minute scanning their linked page, home page, and about us page, I could not find their address to enable my to confirm my guess. I feel sure it will be there somewhere, but that's poor web design, in my opinion) The writer completely omitted any mention of platinum, possibly because their compnay does not sell much of it.

From memory, the Royal Mint does seem to have an erratic profitability record. I have read the RM report, or at least the most important and less waffly bits of it. I may need to check it further for any mention of quality control. In my opinion, there should be no excuse for what seems to be a lack of awareness on their part about the problem. The net profits generated in the last year do not sound excessive bearing in mind the turnover (revenue), and the fact they have a monopoly over the production of United Kingdom coins. I suspect some of the apparent RM indifference to quality control problems may be because its management believes its own propaganda and hype.

On Friday, we noticed another production error problem on 2021 silver Britannias. We will be taking photos on Monday, and post them here.

Dear Chris, Will do. I guess someone asked me a question on the Photos Only section, and I answered it directly. I will re-read the "how to...", and look for what I got wrong.

Don't forget to tag people in using @(username) to get their attention, for example @Gordy. Acceptable Forms of ID One from each list may be required. For more information, visit HMRC. Proof of name Proof of address Current signed passport Utility bill (gas, electric, satellite television, landline phone bill) issued within the last three months Original birth certificate (UK birth certificate issued within 12 months of the date of birth in full form including those issued by UK authorities overseas such as Embassies High Commissions and HM Forces) Local authority council tax bill for the current council tax year EEA member state identity card (which can also be used as evidence of address if it carries this) Current UK driving licence (but only if not used for the name evidence) Current UK or EEA photocard driving licence Bank, Building Society or Credit Union statement or passbook dated within the last three months Full old-style driving licence Original mortgage statement from a recognised lender issued for the last full year Photographic registration cards for self-employed individuals in the construction industry -CIS4 Solicitors letter within the last three months confirming recent house purchase or land registry confirmation of address Benefit book or original notification letter from Benefits Agency Council or housing association rent card or tenancy agreement for the current year Firearms or shotgun certificate Benefit book or original notification letter from Benefits Agency (but not if used as proof of name) Residence permit issued by the Home Office to EEA nationals on sight of own country passport HMRC self-assessment letters or tax demand dated within the current financial year National identity card bearing a photograph of the applicant Electoral Register entry NHS Medical card or letter of confirmation from GP’s practice of registration with the surgery But having a beer and waiting until Monday sounds like a good idea! 🙂

Brilliant, thank you!

A 10 Baht Cast Gold Bar tdc 965 The initials were not quite clear to me, and I asked so if anyone can contribute a better guess, please do so. Thanks to @CollectForFun for providing the answer! This Niton test result confirms the gold purity as accurate. Weight 10 Baht, or on our metric scales 152.74 grams Dimensions: 57.5 x 23.50 x 7.06mms

More translation: Using Google lens, the wording in the two line of the oval cartouche translate as: Silk Shop of Gold or Diamond Shopping Mall or Petchthong Mall and Sirikorn University or Siriporn University or Korn University or Complete It seems that Thai can be quite a difficult language, some words having different meanings in different contexts. Additional information: Siriporn is always a female name. Thai ศิริ (sir) meaning "glory, splendour" and พร (phon) meaning "blessing". Google lens translated it as Daughter. Alert: Searching for "Siriporn" in Google with "Images" selected fails to find any gold bars, but does find an interesting selection of other images, some probably because of the last 4 letters. 🙂

I think they only use that in the dodgy places for the tourists. Oil is better, sweet almond mixed with a little lavender, jasmin, lemon grass, or ylang-ylang. Coconut is also good. The baht is or was also called a tical, so when I next see my friendly local Thai masseuse, I will ask her if she would like a tical, and see what happens. 🙂

The weight is stamped on the front of the bar "5 บาท"! 🙂 Of course, it helps if you can read some Thai. บาท = baht. The original meaning of the word baht was as a unit of weight equal to 15.244 grams. The standard purity of Thai gold is 96.5 percent, the actual gold content of one baht by weight is 15.244 × 0.965 = 14.71046 grams; equivalent to about 0.47295191859437 troy ounces. A quick spot of mental arithmetic (well, a spreadsheet) gives 2.36475959297185 troy ounces of fine gold. When I originally posted, I had only seen photographs of the bar and the test result. A member of our warehouse team had done the testing, but when I was in the office today, I gave him some further training to complete the missing fields. He also used calipers to measure the dimensions: Length 43.61mm, Width 18.16mm, Depth 5.55mm I will add the above to the original post.

Hah, I didn't even notice those, but they are the caratage as shown by the Niton machine. It assumes some users are dummies who can't understand percentages or decimals, and therefore work for or as jewellers.

The photos are of a medallic piece in hallmarked 9ct gold. We found one in a 2012 London Coins auction described as a replica sovereign, and the sold price was £110. I don't know off-hand whether they charge a buyers' premium in addition. Today, I got the opportunity to measure one of them 22.73mm diameter x 1.93mm thick. They actually looked far too big to be sovereigns, so I was surprised at the relatively small difference. If my reading of the slighly obscure hallmark is correct, they were assayed at Birmingham in 2003, and the sponsor's mark appears to be POC. Dumbo! I forgot to mention the weight 76.35 grams. Correction: I think that should read 6.35 grams! I must have been half asleep when I typed 76.25 grams. that would have been an impressive replica. 🙂

OCD Old Coin Disease? 🙂