July 2007
Next club meeting Monday 3rd September 2007.
Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church. Entrance off Abbey Square.
Meeting commences at 7.00pm.
Summer Social
The Summer social is a trip to the National Army Museum which will take place on Tuesday August 14th. They have a collection which is mainly composed of medals but also contains siege coins, tokens and emergency money. A guided tour will be given. We currently plan to arrive there at about 11-30am but this is yet to be confirmed. Will members who wish to attend please contact the Hon. Secretary at the number above (or e-mail to johnny.quinn@lineone.net putting Reading Coin Club in the title).
July Meeting.
The July meeting was a talk by Peter Preston-Morley on “Coins and Collectors – an Auctioneer’s view”. Peter started the talk by pointing out that he didn’t start as an auctioneer, but as a collector in 1961. He cycled twelve miles to his local coin club meeting, attended his first auction in 1965 at age fifteen. He noted that there were few people attending and that many lots were knocked down to ‘Graham’ but didn’t realise that this was a name given to all commission bidders. When Peter left school he went to work for ‘Coins, Medals and Currency’ magazine and therefore attended auctions in a professional capacity. He was suprised to find that the auctions were now much busier and much better attended – there had been a huge increase in interest.. The watershed was the Burstall collection when prices reached new highs. The Fishpool hoard and the treasure from the ship ‘The Association’ attracted huge numbers of bidders – he remembered about 500 attending the ‘HMS Association’ sale (1968-9). The Doubleday sale and the Bridgewater House sale were memorable sales and there were many smaller sales in between. At the peak Glendinings had 25 sales in one year. In 1972 the magazine closed down and Peter went to work for an American company. One of his first jobs was to catalogue a number of coins for auction. He sought advice from Bill French who told him to always be conservative in his grading. In 1976 he went to work for Spinks and stayed there for ten years. Just in time for the new style of auction catalogues – glossy paper, coloured illustrations and generally more upmarket. In 1986, Peter left Spinks and went into advertising although he still did some catalogues. In 1993 he joined Dix-Noonan-Webb for their first auction and has been with them ever since. He has auctioned many items other than coins. In fact, recently, he took a charity auction in Berkley Square – great fun.
Coming back to coin auctions he classified collectors into a number of categories. First there are experts/serious collectors, such as Lord Stewartby, Michael Dolly, Blunt etc. . Secondly there are wealthy collectors such as locket and Mrs. Norweb who were significant buyers and also were prepared to show coins to people wanting to study them. Other serious buyers were Douglas Morris (mainly interested in medals but also built up a good collection of gold coins) and Dick Ford who went all around the World in pursuit of coins. Coming nearer to home, Arnold Mallinson of Oxford was also an important collector.
Another category were those buyers who buy for future profit. The classic example was Nelson Bunker Hunt of whom everybody knows. Another such collector was Virgil Brand. He kept coins in cigar boxes and when he died his collection was sold over a number of auctions. Duncan Beresford Jones was another investor/collector. Michael Freeman was another such collector who specialised in Bronze. Peter valued his collection at £95,000 but michael was hoping to get £100,000 and he eventually sold through Christies for about £62,000. Another such collector was F R Cooper who put together a number of collections. He was very keen on the provenance of coins and did very well, especially with his Crown collection.
The next category of collectors Peter called the enthusiasts, not necessarily looking for profit in investment. In this category he placed Bob Arnold (of the Archers) who collected mainly ancient coins. Laurie Bamford was another enthusiast collector as was Pat Brittell who colleted coins of Devon and Harry Pegg of Nottingham. Walter Allen used to be a dealer in Glasgow had done considerable research of Scottish countermarks before Manville.
The final category are those people who just like coins – this covers most of us. typical examples were Edward and Irene Judson who loved to collect coins – real characters. On one occasion Peter Mitchell was told to stop bidding on a coin that Irene Judson wanted! He was so suprised he did stop bidding and Mrs Judson secured the coin.
Peter went on to say that coin clubs are very important to the hobby and he felt that Reading and Wessex are two of the most flourishing and important coin clubs in the South of England.
Finally he showed catalogues of Bekshire tokens (held by Reading Coin Club) A Wessex Society Auction (they hold two a year) and a proof of a small collection that DNW will be selling in November of Berkshire tokens. He also showed a catalogue of the Godfrey Burr collection of paper money – a very important collection - to show how rapidly the market had developed. Many thanks to Peter for an interesting and well presented talk.
Bans Annual Congress
This will be held at the Chatsworth hotel, Steyne, Worthing, West Sussex from 4th-6th April 2008.
Club Subscriptions.
Will members yet to renew their subscription please see Peter at the next meeting or send same to the club secretary. Membership cards will be sent shortly to paid-up members.
Future Events.
Monk coin fair at Jury's Hotel, Russell Square 28th July and 8th September
Bonhams Auction Montpelier St. London, - 17th July
Midland Coin Fair, National Motorcycle Museum – 12th August
London Coins Windsor Room, Grange Bracknell Hotel – 1st & 2nd September
Croydon Coin Auction, United Reformed Church Hall – 4th September
Past Events