I’ve watched TV, napped, answered quiz questions, read a poetry magazine, eaten  massive plate of vegetables, left eBay feedback, read and replied to comments and suddenly it’s late. And I still have a post to write.

I really don’t know what happens to the time. It’s probably something to do with TV – I seem to be able to spend a couple fo hors watching without really noticing the passage of time. Then there’s the internet browsing. I rarely notice it, but I’m fairly sure that I spend too much time doing it. Sometimes it has a purpose, but often I just realise I’ve drifted off subject. This after noon at work I was researching a pilot who was injured in 1917, and somehow drifted on to TV personality Fearne Cotton. She’s a distant relative of the band leader Billy Cotton. Billy Cotton was a pilot in the Great War. However, there must have been several stops along the way of my journey of discovery, none of which were useful to the job in and and few of which I can remember.

We are having a new set of coin designs to celebrate the changing of the monarch. We have some on order but there is an eight week wait for delivery. They are going to release them for circulation about that time too, though I’m told one has already been seen. The video shows them producing proof coins. The ones fro circulation are produced a lot faster and you wouldn’t want to get your fingers anywhere near the machinery.

This may get people interested in coins again. I’m sure the Royal Mint is hoping so because it makes a lot of its money from sets for collectors rather than just making loose change for the nation.

British West Africa 1/10th of a Penny

Header picture is some of the Alphabet design 10p coins they made – a real damp squib in marketing terms. They didn’t make enough and they didn’t develop the series. They actually ran an advertising campaign when they had already ensured, through low production and tightly controlled distribution, that there was no stock to sell. If a shop assistant can spot the faults you’d think highly paid marketing executives could do the same.