September 2007.
Next club meeting - Monday 1st. October 2007.
Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
September meeting
Philip started with a history of the numismatic publications he has worked on. Coins and Medals was first produced in 1964 subsequently changing hands several times. John Mussell took over as managing director for Epic publications in 1981. Epic decided to move back to the United States, leaving John with a dilemma. He decided to buy out Coins and Medal News (as it had become by then) and formed the Token Publishing Company. The magazine was split into Coin News and Medal News, with no loss of circulation! Token Publishing Co. is one of the largest in the World, even larger than some of the US publishers and even acts as agent for many others such as Krause and Mishler
Publishing is not as easy as it seems... First you need interesting material and you also need to be accurate and informative. You also need a good readable style. To fill 96 pages every month with these criteria is really hard work. It is impossible to cater for the very specialised reader except occasionally and if they do the chances are that the specialist will know more than the article. Another problem is to come to a working arrangement with larger retailers – obviously they would rather sell hundreds of copies of Hello magazine a day rather than thirty copies of Coin News a month. A further problem is the internet – a wonderful tool but also has many drawbacks. Forums on the internet are a source of much disinformation and tend to be dominated by a few individuals. They don’t have the pictures or the editorial content of a magazine. Token Publishing is hoping to put Coin News online – in addition to the published magazine – not instead of. People still prefer a magazine to read on trains or in waiting rooms or even on the loo.
Medals are very popular at the moment and Philip likes them himself. He has found that there is little crossover between coin collectors and medal collectors. Another problem is Ebay, too much rubbish is offered and people get ripped off, which puts them off – so often things that we think should be good for the hobby are in fact, not so. Philip and his step-mother want the hobby to flourish, so that they can continue the publishing business. Philip liked marketing and is interested in finding ways to make the hobby more popular. If anybody has ideas, please let him know!
Philip concluded by saying that publications are very good instruments for dissemination but is still looking for other ways to expand the hobby. For the next twenty minutes many interesting questions followed examining different aspects raised by Philip’s talk, including the United States Quarter program and issues from the RM for the UK.
Many thanks to Philip for such a stimulating talk.
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 for newly paid up members are included with this issue of the newsletter.
Summer Social
On 14 July, seven Club members met at the National Army Museum for a brisk tour of the coins and medal-related items. The Museum is organised on the basis of army campaigns and our tour, led by Keith Miller, started with the English Civil War, and moved on through various conflicts to Afghanistan today. Although vast numbers of medals and military tokens are held in other army collections, the ones exhibited in the Museum often relate to a particular soldier, and are displayed with other memorabilia, a short personal history and a campaign context. Thanks go to Keith for the explanations (and for dragging us away from the skeleton of a horse allegedly belonging to Napoleon and other fascinating exhibits) in order to focus on what we had come to see. Keith has offered to help Club members with military-related coin or token problems. He asks that queries be directed through the Club Secretary, and preferably include a picture of the ‘problem’.Past Events
30 years ago, Mr. Linecar gave a talk on the designs of the new Decimal coins.
20 years ago, Frank Milward stepped in at the last minute to give a talk on "Coinage of German East Africa".
10 years ago, Frank Milward was back again and spoke on "How to Start a Collection from Current Coinage"
Future Events.
Baldwins Coin Auctions - 11, Adelphi Terrace 25-26th September
DNW Washington Hotel, 5, Curzon St. - Official Coinex Auction 26-27th September
Coinex at Earls Court Conference Centre - 28-29th September
DNW Washington Hotel, 5, Curzon St. - 4th October
Bonhams - Montpelier St.- 16th October