Syntax error in Confirm

Good day all!
We are getting an error in the logs:

../.bin/extraddr: subscription request from [email protected]
[email protected] - assigned cookie s03261058491490
sed: -e expression #1, char 4: Unexpected ','



Would this refer to the comma in the maxcookies line near the bottom of
confirm_add? How to fix? 

  $cat $confirmtxt
  $echo ""

  $rm -f _dummy_ `$ls -td cookies/* | $sed -e '1,'$maxcookies' d' `

  $sed -e 's/^/>/' $tmprequest
) | $SENDMAIL $sendmailOPT $authaddr


I don't know enough about sed (find all shell hard to grasp), but other
programming experience tells me the two sets of ' are ambiguous or
confusing. Is this what was meant - a delet range 1-to-maxcookies - okay to
drop the inner quotes? 

      $sed -e '1,$maxcookies d'


Many thanks in advance for any assistance.
Jo