Next club meeting Monday 5^th September 2005.

• Subject - The Life & coins of the Emperor Aurelian by John White.

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

Meeting commences at 7.00pm.

To kick off our 41st year the curator in charge of all things numismatic at the Birmingham museum, Mr David Symons, gave an overview of the collections held by the institution. The museum has some 50,000 items of coins, medallions and paranumismatics, and is particularly strong in items related to the Midlands. In this context the term Midlands covers a very wide area including not only the Black Country (Staffs, north west Worcestershire, North Warwickshire) but also the remainder of those mentioned counties plus Herefordshire and Shropshire.

With regard to the Ancients, that is Greek and Roman, Mr Symons explained that the museum only has a representative collection. This is because the nearby University has the Barber collection of ancient coins, hence an arrangement not to compete against each other. Nevertheless David showed several slides of some representative examples. Furthermore the museum does hold over 600 coins of Alexandria from the Welcome collection and some early coins from Eastern Europe, particularly from the region around Bulgaria. While somewhat weak in holdings of Ancient coins the opposite is true for early British coins, namely Celtic and Anglo Saxon, the latter being the speciality of Mr Symons. The museum has some exceptional examples of each series donated by Mr Finney, particularly the very rare specimens minted in the Midlands. Slides shown included pennies of Edward the Martyr and William minted in Worcester and an Edward the Confessor specimen minted in Droitwich; also the Edward IV rose Noble of Coventry.

The first application of steam power to the coining process occurred at the Soho mint of Matthew Boulton in Handsworth. As to be expected the museum holds a good selection of Soho pieces, a few of which were displayed e.g. 1795 pattern 1/2d, 1798 pattern 1/4d and the die used to strike the medallion to commemorate the marriage of the future George IV.

Another infamous personality of the Midlands was the Birmingham forger, William Booth. This gentleman of 1776, once accused of murdering his brother, lived at Perry Barr where he produced counterfeit bank tokens, coins and bank notes. Over the years some artefacts have been discovered near Booth's farm, including fake 1/6d bank tokens and a plate for making a £5 of Dudley Old Bank which are now in the museum. These were illustrated with slides, as was the Perry Barr 1d token of 1812 said to be a cover for Booth's illegal activities (your editor would suggest the 1d is too rare for this to be true)

Perhaps the most famous coin company in Birmingham has to be the mint founded in 1862 by Ralph Heaton. It is sad that in recent times the superb collection of the Heaton archives ( Ed note- for many years held in trust by the museum) has been sold and dispersed as part of the firms liquidation. Fortunately the museum has a good representative collection. The slides of Mr Symons illustrated some examples for China, Guernsey and Paraguay and some of the original dies. Additionally the museum does have some world coins produced by others.

To close his talk Mr Symons showed several slides illustrating the paranumismatic productions from B'ham including Pub and Market checks, tramway tickets, calendar medals, enamelled coins for jewellery and advertising pieces.

Many thanks to Mr Symons for travelling some distance to give us an entertaining talk.

So far half the members have renewed their subscriptions. Will members yet to renew their subscription please see David at the next meeting or send same to the club secretary. Membership cards will be sent shortly to paid-up members.

Summer Social - Visit to the Museum of London - Thursday 11th August

For details of the event please refer to enclosed details. We are very limited to numbers so it is first come first served. In view of the short notice if you are interested in participating please call the secretary direct at the above telephone number. If I am not there please leave a message on the answer phone including name and contact number.

Autumn Social

The committee is considering having an informal lunch/get together in late September at the Crown pub at Playhatch. At the next meeting we will be assessing interest and whether it is preferable to meet Saturday evening or Sunday lunchtime. Give it some thought and let us know your thoughts.

Future Events.

Rather quiet in August, presumably the B'ham coin fair at the National Motorcycle museum will take place the 2nd Sunday in August.

Past years

• 30 years ago a very heavy talk was given to the club on the Continental context to English medieval coinage and with special reference to Sterlings
• In contrast 10 years later in 1985 Frank Milward took a lighter view with many anecdotes in a talk entitled `tales of a coin dealer'

A summary of a talk previously given to the club by - Mr. Howard W. Linecar

From Vigo Bay to Lima

There have been many accounts published of the naval action at Vigo Bay in 1702, many referring to the vast amount of treasure which was recovered - up to £1,000,000 in silver, but little gold. Recent research, however, seems to show that many of the reported accounts are very one-sided as to what actually happened.

The story commences with the sailing of a fleet of Spanish merchantmen from Havana on 24th. July, 1702, comprising 56 ships of which 22 were French. There were few armed ships among the Spanish vessels and the French ships dwindled away from the convoy as the Atlantic was crossed. In latitude 300 north, a small Spanish ship was sent forward to San Lucar arriving there on 13th. September, l702. Meanwhile, the remainder of the convoy had heard of the outbreak of the war of the Spanish Succession which lined up England and Holland against France and Spain.

The die was cast when Admiral Rooke, in charge of an Anglo-Dutch fleet, set sail from home waters with the object of capturing the Spanish port of Cadiz, where the plate fleets from South America generally unloaded. The Spanish convoy, having learned of this movement, decided eventually to put into Vigo after a good deal of debating.

The fleet arrived there on 23rd. September, 1702, and went far up the bay into the inner harbour at Redondela and shut itself in behind a boom. The unloading at Vigo could not start until the inspectors, valuers and royal officials arrived. When they did, preference was given to the bullion. We shall now read what happened to it.

Rooke, bitterly disappointed at having failed to capture the stoutly defended port of Cadiz, was on his way back to England by October, 1702, when he intercepted a small ship from which he heard of the ships at Vigo. He at once set sail for Vigo, arriving there on 22nd. October, 1702. At the same time, the government at home had learned of the arrival of the plate fleet at Vigo and thereupon sent Admiral Cloudesley Shovell to intercept it. Troops were landed from Rooke's ships to silence the forts, and the action was all over by the 24th. October. Shovell arrived on the 27th. October, and was left to destroy what remained of the fortifications and the remainder of the ships.

According to Sir Isaac Newton, then master of the mint, by June, 1703, 4,5041b. 2oz. of Vigo silver and 71b. 8oz. 16dwt, of Vigo gold had reached the mint. £1,000 of this was turned into coin and the rest, one supposed, into the prolific number of Vigo medals. Thus the total value of the silver captured was about £14,000. Contemporary reports mention a figure of about C1,000,000. It looks as if everything was done to exaggerate the amount of bullion captured, presumably for political propaganda reasons for the benefit of the Spanish and French, and possibly to lessen the disappointment at the failure to capture Cadiz. Furthermore, the Spanish-French fleet was the last to sail before the start of the war of the Spanish Succession, so a large portion of the merchandise and about a third of the bullion belonged to English and Dutch traders. The true facts of the Vigo raid may never now be related, but recent theories put forward lead one to believe that it did more harm than good.

Most of us are familiar with the gold and silver coins minted with the word VIGO below Queen Anne's bust to denote , the origin of the bullion. Crowns, half-crowns and sixpences were minted in 1703, and shillings in 1702 and 1703. Gold five guinea, guinea and half guinea pieces bear the date 1703, with the first-named being extremely rare.

To relate the similarly misrepresented story of the Lima coins we must move on almost 40 years, when on 18th. September, 1740, Admiral Anson set out from St. Helena, Isle of Wight, with six ships. St. Helena, now a forgotten port, is between Ryde and Bembridge, on the eastern point of the island. On rounding Cape Horn, two ships were driven back and one wrecked, thus leaving three. These limped on to Juan Fernandez, and arrived in June, 1741. Juan Fernandez is the island on which Alexander Selkirk was left for about 3 years (1706-1709). Daniel Defoe based "Robinson Crusoe" on Selkirk's adventures, but moved the setting to Tobago in the West Indies.

In spite of the poor state of his force, Anson manage to carry out his mission to harry Spanish trade up and down the coast of South America, and to blockade some of the ports. He also managed to sack and burn Paita where he acquired about £30,000. By now it is 1741 and Anson was hoping to catch that year's Acapulco plate ship, but unfortunately missed it. He set sail for Tinian and here, of the three ships left, one is condemned and the other deliberately set on fire, leaving only the Centurion. Anson now proceeded to Macao, not far from Hong Kong, and arrived there in November, 1742. He cruised the Philippines area the following year and captured the 1743 Acapulco plate ship on 20th, June. He returned to Macao, sold everything but the silver, and arrived back in England with f500,000 in June, 1744.

In the following year the "Royal Family" force, commanded by Captain Talbot, captured two large French ship off the Grand Banks. They were carrying bullion from South America, thought to have been taken overland and shipped from Cartagena. The prize consisted of 1,093 chests of gold and silver plate valued at £800,000, and it arrived at Bristol in July, 1745, and at the Mint in mid-October, 1745.

The total bullion from these two sources thus amounts to £1,300,000 from which the obverse counter-marked LIMA coins were struck as follows:

One may now ask, "why Lima"? It is most unlikely that Anson's force ever visited this port during his voyage, and this question still remains to be satisfactorily answered. It will be gathered from a comparison of the amounts of bullion obtained from the so-called "Vigo" and "Lima" expeditions, that the latter coins are generally much more common.