Next club meeting - Monday 8^th January 2006.

• Subject - Short talks by members, competing for the Mark Myhill memorial trophy.

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.

Some 26 members braved a cold December evening to attend the members meeting and everybody appeared to thoroughly enjoy it. There were 10 sellers, some with full tables some with just a few items but business seemed to be brisk with plenty of items changing hands.

Thanks to Henry there were hot sausage rolls and mince pies, cheese, biscuits and other goodies. Plus hot and cold drinks (self service as usual). Judging by the way the food disappeared it was well appreciated.

There was an unusual quiz courtesy of Michael where the clues equated to an amount of pre-decimal money - and when the amounts were added up they came to a given total. The first to get to the right amount was Tony who won a bottle of wine as the prize.

Another lighthearted quiz arranged by John, was to match the pictures of a number of coins to their descriptions as they appeared on Ebay. Heaven help anybody who relies only on the description as the quality of the coins ranged from nearly fine to perhaps cleaned very fine whilst the descriptions spoke of beautiful EF and such like. Your chairman got none of them right.

There were also a number of interesting displays ranging from

• a rare Berkshire pub cheque
• the circulating coins of 2006
• a coin identification
• a ringed farthing.

Club Auction

The club auction will take place at the February meeting. So please bring along your coins, medals, tokens, banknotes and any other numismatic material to the January meeting and hand them to any committee member. The club fund commission for selling at this years auction will be 10% of the hammer price.

There will be no charge for unsold lots. The committee reserve the right to question and discuss with vendors reserves and grades considered unrealistic.

If we all put in just a few lots we can make this an enjoyable and successful evening.

• Monks Coin fair, Jury's Hotel Russell Square – 13th January
• Birmingham Coin Fair - National Motorcycle museum – 14th January
• Spinks Auction, 69 Southampton Row 24th January
• Baldwins Coin Auction, 11 Adelphi Terrace – 10th February

In December 1976 Tony Merson gave a talk on “Silver and Copper coins of France".

In December 1986, the Club held its Annual Social Christmas party.

Ten years ago in 1996, Tony Merson was back again to give a talk on “French Grand Tournois”.