Next club meeting - Monday 6^th. November 2006.

• Royal and Rose farthings of James I and Charles I by Tim Everson

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

Tony Holmes gave us a talk on “Having Fun with Junk Boxes” and then proceeded to mystify members with some of his finds. He had always enjoyed the feeling of having 2000 years of history in his hands while sorting through a mass of coinage. Whilst most are easy to identify, and some very difficult, he used slides to give a number of illustrations, concentrating on the clues they provided.

A silver 20 soldi of Sardinia, 1796, showed the king acquired the title of King courtesy of Savoy.

A first glance a one rupee for King Birendra and Queen Aiswara of Nepal dated 2032 may seem in advance of itself. But, the date is given in the vikrama-samvat era which is known to have begun on 18 October 58BC, although the reason for this date is not known. It may have marked the accession of Azes I and Azilises to the leadership of the Scythian tribes. It is also a coin that reflects a tragedy in the Nepalese House whose reign ended in 2000. The Crown Prince, Dipendra, who had been forbidden to marry a woman of inadequate lineage, walked into a family party dressed in combat gear and proceeded to shoot dead his parents, his brother, his three sisters and some other relatives before turning the gun on himself.

Look for the detail and, for example, on a half real of Charles III of Spain (1760-88), the M in the legend, plus the pillars on either side of the Spanish Arms (i.e. the Pillars of Gibraltar) will tell you that it is a colonial piece of the mint of Mexico.

A lovely modern piece depicting a peacock turned out to be a token for the Tashkent metro.

A small curiosity was a Rose farthing of Charles I (1625-49). It had been issued under Royal Patent granted to Lord Maltravers and a small hole in it showed where an anti-forgery brass plug had fallen out.

A coin not in Krause and Mischler's 'Bible', a one dinero of Charles II (1665-1700), with a very worn legend that only just enabled the reign to be ascertained, gave itself away as a piece struck in Mallorca by the long cross with a lily in one quarter.

A bit of a puzzle with a strange alphabet and an eagle and a lion as supporters of the arms, was a 2003 coin of Armenia.

Hard economic times in 17th-century Spain, when the country became bankrupt three times, were well illustrated by a battered piece of copper, one of the countermarked 'calderilla' coins. Much needed revenue was raised by calling in all the copper coinage and re-issuing it an enhanced value. Mint letters can be spotted near the new value, so a four ­maravedis at Madrid could become a six maravedis at Seville. The number of countermarks and conflicting edicts must have caused great confusion.

Baffling amongst the Anglo-Saxon series are the sceattas - a primary sceatta 'Porcupine' type, c. 690-725 (Metcalf type G) was probably made (? inspired) in Dorestad in the Netherlands and the engraver almost certainly intended to represent a boar, not a porcupine, with a military standard on its back.

A three-headed coin, two heads on one side and one on the other was a copper coin of Nejm ed-din Alpi, Atabeg of Mardinn, 1156-76, and it had a vaguely Byzantine inspiration about its design. Although it bore the name of Al-mustajd billah, the Caliph of Baghdad 1160-71, the actual issuer of the coin appeared on the other side and, unusually, at this period some Islamic coppers are struck with images of living things, normally unacceptable to Islam.

A coin simply marked ‘60’, and nothing else, could be difficult but it was a 60 reis or one tanga of Portuguese India under Maria II, 1834-53.

Crossed, keys can mean different things. Together with a double eagle of the Holy Roman Empire on the other side indicates a coin of Regensburg, Bavaria, in this instance a one kreutzer of 1642. However, crossed keys with a cross in quatrefoil reverse, is papal, but not of Rome. It is an issue of Pope Urban VIII, 1623-44, a one patard, and the AVEN = Avenio, the Latin name of Avignon. The Popes no longer lived there but retained the ownership of the city until1791 when it was taken by France.

Six balls on a shield indicated the Medicis, in this instance a billon quattrino of Ferdinand II de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany 1621-70. The Medici arms combined with a tiara and crossed keys indicated a Medici Pope, here a silver giulio of Clement VIII, 1523-34, with SS Peter and Paul on the reverse.

The name HENRlCUS on a coin can be very misleading. The short-cross penny introduced in 1180 with that name on it continues through the reigns of Richard I and John (1199-1216) into Henry II. It is only the minute detail that shows that a silver penny is actually Type 5b or 5c and so struck under John; his name only appears on his Irish issues. To counteract clipping the coinage the long-cross penny was introduced in 1247, the cross extending to the edge of the coin, and all four ends of the cross need to be present to make it legal tender. Once again detail can reveal all. On a long-cross penny of Edward I, 1270-1307, the date of its issue can be closely narrowed down from the inscription VILL NOVI CASTRI = mint of Newcastle. This coin is a type 9b that is dated to 1299/1300, but the mint of Newcastle did not open until May 1300, which closely dates the coin to May – December 1300.

In illustrating a ‘wire’ kopeck of Ivan the Terrible, Tony explained that kopecks showed the dragon being attacked with a lance, dengas with a sword.

A tiny one pfenning of King Johann of Saxony, 1854-73, with the arms a coronet diagonally across a field barry, indicated the kingdom, F the mint of Dresden, and KSSM = Konigreich Sachsen Scheidemunz ­small change of the Kingdom of Saxony. Although there were lots of duchies within Saxony, only one part ranked as a kingdom. Another pfenning with the Saxony arms but also the letters SWVE indicated Saxe Weimer und Eisenach which, together with the date, identifies Duke Carl August who had a seventy year reign, 1758-1828.

Most German land laws made land descend to all sons equally. That only applied to the country itself, so Saxony was divided in 1485, 1486, 1532, 1554, 1572, 1605 and 1662; by which time it was in small pieces with the name of the town or area preceded by Saxe. All the rulers were equally dukes, apart from the one who was the Elector. By adopting primogeniture, Prussia made itself the most powerful of the700-odd German states and took over all the others in the German empire.

Constantine I, The Great, issued small bronze coins with obverse helmeted head of Roma and reverse wolf and twins to commemorate the millennium of Rome, from many mints across the empire, differentiated only by the letters in the reverse exergue. These were widely copied and spawned many barbarous copies. A similar, but thicker piece, with XX in the exergue was actually an Ostrogothic issue of Theodoric, 478-526, and ended up in a' junk box' because it was unrecognised and thought to be another Urbs Roma copy.

Tony continued his talk with many slides which, to list them without illustrations would merely become a catalogue of curiosities. The audience proved to be amazingly successful at identifying most of the pieces from slides of frequently worn specimens (hence their arriving in the junk box!) and received congratulations from the speaker!

Will the few persons yet to pay their club subscriptions please do so at the next club meeting. If you cannot attend please send your subs to David. Please help the committee in concluding the job of collecting subscriptions.

The committee is proposing to hold an Autumn dinner/ social evening on Saturday 18th November at the Toby Carvery, Caversham Bridge, Reading for members and partners. So far some thirteen people have signed up. The cost will be a fixed price of £20 per person for the meal, wine and pre-dinner drink. Typical menu main courses are choice of roasts, turkey, beef pie, braised lamb, chicken + starter & sweet.

If you wish to come please contact a committee member or add your name to the list at the next meeting.

The December meeting will be a members evening along the same lines as last year. The main feature will be a bourse (coin fair). We need as many members as possible to bring along those unwanted items to sell and for others to buy. Tables will be available at no charge. For those with just a few pieces there will be a collective members table.

As this is a members evening we need you all to participate to make it a success. If you have any other ideas we would like to hear them - please contact a committee member.

The subject for the January meeting is short talks by members, competing for the Mark Myhill memorial trophy. As usual we are short of entries. Members willing to give a talk should please contact a committee member either at the November or December meeting, or by phone so that the committee can schedule the agenda for the evening. The talk can be on any numismatic related topic and need only last for 10 -15 minutes.

The club auction is due to take place at the beginning of February. This may seem a long way off but you will need to start thinking about pieces you wish to include in the sale. Please bring along your coins, medals, tokens, banknotes and any other numismatic material to any of the forthcoming meetings and hand them to any committee member.

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

• Croydon Coin auction - 31st October
• London Coin Fair Holiday Inn, Bloomsbury, Russel Square - 4th November
• Midland Coin Fair, National Motorcycle museum - 12th November

Ten years ago the club auction took place.

By coincidence, twenty years ago the club auction took place, with particularily keen bidding for two Reading Bank notes.

Proving that numismatists are creatures of habit, thirty years ago the club auction took place!