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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2110811, member: 19463&quot;]Did you notice that each of the three &quot;nice but&quot; examples are struck on slightly oval flans which, had they blank been rotated 90 degrees, would have included the top of the column.&nbsp; It appears that the striker intentionally placed the blanks on the die in horizontal format even though this particular design was extremely vertical.&nbsp; I note that acsearch currently shows about ~20 Trajans with full columns including a really nice one that sold in 2013 for 240 GBP on a 100 GBP estimate.&nbsp; Other than that one, most had other &quot;buts&quot; but the huge numbers of this popular type pretty much guarantee that you will be able to upgrade these spaceholders and send them to Steve.&nbsp; He will need new coins since Bing and I have already started on our journey North to pick through his trash.&nbsp; He won&#039;t be able to change his mind and fish them out later. </p><p><br /></p><p>I only buy &quot;but&quot; coins and expect to get a suitable discount for each and every &quot;but&quot;.&nbsp; I could have passed up many coins with big problems but that would have meant I never would have had an example of the coin.&nbsp; My most recent is that horrid scab of a doublestrike where it looks like Constantius Gallus was wearing a diadem.&nbsp; There is only one person in the world who finds that interesting and he owns that coin.&nbsp; Dealers who advise against &quot;but&quot; coins are investment counselors not numismatists.&nbsp; You can play different if you never plan to sell your coins.&nbsp; There is nothing wrong with having high standards and buying the finest you can find.&nbsp; Our difference is what we do when the finest available is a &quot;but&quot; like a half dozen of my favorite Septimius Severus denarii which are hard enough to find with multiple &quot;buts&quot;.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;Let me also point out that there are positive &quot;buts&quot;.&nbsp; For my Septimius collection, a big positive is &quot;but Martin doesn&#039;t have one&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; The British museum has a denarius I was looking forward to buying &quot;but&quot; it was recognized as Septimius overstruck on Pescennius Niger so it got pulled from the sale it should have been in.&nbsp; Can you imagine both a museum and I preferred a messy coin to a mint state one? Overall my favorite seems to be &quot;but I want it&quot;.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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