Next club meeting Monday 2^nd September 2002.

• The subject was to have been a talk on Ancient coins by Alistair Mackay. Unfortunately however, our chairman has suffered a personal tragedy, which has adversely affected the arrangements, hence the talk is being postponed to a later date. The September meeting will therefore, be devoted to short talks by members. I know this is short notice but we are asking for volunteers. If any of you feel you can offer a 10 minute talk please call the secretary. The talk can be on any numismatic related topic or in the form of a display of one or more coins and simply talk about them for a few minutes - or simply bring along something to show without talking. Another suggestion to fill the evening is for each person to bring along something to trade, a sort of mini fair. Lets all see what we can contribute to this meeting.

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church. Entrance off Abbey Square.

Meeting commences at 7.00pm.

At the July meeting Pam West entertained 17 members with anecdotes related to her passion of Banknotes. She first explained how she became interested in banknotes and then told the story of how a breakdown with the family car led to her first banknote purchase. As her collection developed so her interest focussed into specific areas, particularly specimens and errors, which formed the basis for the first part of her talk. Pam bought along an extensive selection of banknotes to illustrate the points of her talk. She showed several examples of mis-cut notes, wrong colours and some with parts of the design missing.

Further examples of notes with no watermarks were displayed while Pam explained some history on watermarks. She also spoke about forgery and the severe punishments that could be metered out for merely passing a forged note. Then an example of the 'hanging note' was discussed.

Pam explained that the printing of early notes was far from sophisticated - hence the ease with which they could be forged. Then in the 1820's a certain curtain printer devised the idea of using printing registers for the production of high quality multi coloured notes. This technique was used by Applegarth & Cowper to produce a very rare trial £5 for the B of E. In the mid Victorian period Mr Bradbury introduced the concept of anti forgery measures, such as devices within the design and the use of colour shading. Examples of Bradbury notes were shown to illustrate the high technical achievement and exceptional design. To close this part of the talk examples of notes with special numbers, such as the millionth note numbered 999999, and special letter sequences such as IOW, SL0B.

In the second half Pam spoke about cheques including one from Buckingham Palace, funny money in paper wallets and post cards with pictures of banknotes somewhere in the design. The postcards from Pam's extensive collection covered a wide variety of subjects from, 'Good Luck cards', to wallets appearing to hold money, toilet humour and figures (particularly girlies) holding money. A vote of thanks must go to Pam for bringing along so many fine examples of notes and cards for members to view, particularly as some are so very rare.

Twenty one members attended the meeting and there were four dealer tables.

Annual General Meeting

The minutes of the 2000 AGM, deferred from the June meeting, were read by John and accepted by the membership

Summer Social

Unfortunately we did not make it to Birmingham to visit the Art Gallery and Boulton Museum, because the National Council strike resulted in closure of the buildings. I was only advised at the 11'th hour so there was much frantic activity to cancel the travel arrangements. In some ways we were quite lucky in this disappointing situation I was in fact due to be on a business trip the 2 days prior to the Wednesday visit. Fortunately my trip was cancelled so I was able to receive the e-mail notice of cancellation while sitting at my desk on the Monday!! afternoon. As I do all my corresponding e-mail from work, if I had been away I would have never seen the cancellation, and the first we would have known about the closure would have been when standing outside the locked doors of the Art Gallery.

For those who have not yet renewed their subscription for 2002/2003 these are due and now cost £13 + £2 for tea/coffee if required. Please send your subscriptions to Maurice or hand them to a committee member.

Future Events.

Sunday 8^th September. Coin Fair, National Motorbike Museum, Birmingham.

10^th September Croydon Coin Auctions

14^th September Davidson Monk Coin Fair at the Commonwealth Institue, Kensington, London

20 years in July, Mr W Smith gave a talk on the history of Berkshire from the Stone Age to the 20th Century. In August members gave short talks. G Scott spoke on his research into countermarks on base coins, Tony on numismatic matters related to Farnham, P Hall on the affordable collecting of lesser grade Roman coins, while Graham presented a numismatic miscellany.

10 years ago in July Tony related his experiences in being an expert treasure trove witness, in relation to the finds at Wanborough and Neatham. In August the Summer social took place at Mark's residence.