Upcoming club
meetings:
Monday 4th July.
·
Subject - “Medallions from the Female Perspective”
by Francis Simmons
August
- Summer trip to the
Freemason’s Hall
Monday 5th September.
- Coinage of William III By Ben Arthur.
Meetings are held
at the
Annual General Meeting 201
Apologies for absence – Dennis
Dunkerton
Previous AGM minutes – Accepted as written – Proposed Michael,
Seconded – Tony
The annual report from the Committee Officers published in the May
newsletter was not repeated. Instead just the points where the Committee
required feedback, any member’s issues and the election of officers were
covered
Committee Discussion Points
Mick outlined the speaker programme for
the coming year, with the exception of February 2018
the programme is complete
Subscriptions to the
club have been raised to £20 and there is no longer any distinction with regard
to whether teas/coffees are taken. There was some discussion about this point,
with various members pointing out that other clubs who have lower subs all tend
to be subsidised in some way, for example by meeting in a pub, where the
landlord provides a subsidy on the grounds that the members will be providing
custom for the business.
1.
The reports were
accepted by the membership –
Proposed Neil, Seconded – Tony
Points raised by membership – no specific
issues; current Committee are doing OK.
Election of Offices
There were two nominations for the committee from the floor Jawaid and Derek. Three members of the existing Committee stood
on, hence for the first time in quite a while, the committee is up to five
members, as it should be. The membership
then voted unanimously to accept the nominations for the committee (Proposed
Tony, Seconded Graham). Mick was thanked for the contributions he has made to
the club over a number of years of service on the committee, both as chairman
and program secretary. Mention was also made of the work he put in arranging
the Summer Socials as well as giving talks to the club.
Nominations by the Committee were accepted for President = Gavin, VP
= Henry, Hon. Auditor = Neil. A further nomination was received from the floor
by Neil to also appoint Mick as a vice president, which was seconded by John
and then voted for unanimously.
.
AOB
John said that he was currently sending out both Word versions of
the newsletters and PDF versions and that he felt that this was overkill and
wanted to only send out PDFs in future. There were no objections.
Graham offered a vote of thanks to the committee for the work they
had put in during the course of the year.
That concluded the Annual general meeting.
Annual Display Competition
There were 5 entries.
Tony presented his collection of hammered crowns,
which he started in 1954. These were the silver crowns and not the very first
crown, from the reign of Henry VIII which was in gold. The first example was
the 1551 silver crown of Henry VIII, a Scottish Crown from James VI of
Scotland/ I of England, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I and Cromwell rounding
off the set, the last hammered halfcrown being in
1656. Just to finish off with, Tony also had an example of the Irish Ormond
crown.
Jawaid displayed a collection of high grade George I/II
shillings. He had also brought along provenance for each of the coins, in the
form of the catalogues from the sales they were bought at. There were examples of four different
George I types, all the different types for George II and a date run for the
old bust.
Stuart had a display of Elizabeth I shillings, funded
in part by a PPI payment! It was collected over 2-3 years and each coin was annotated
with a short note detailing contemporary events from Elizabeth’s reign,
including the introduction of the screw press, the death of Mary Queen of
Scots, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake and William Shakespeare’s exploits
were all included in the supporting text.
Neil had put together a display of pub tokens
displayed on a map of Devon. Such tokens were in use between
the 1850s and the 1920s. Generally they would have the name of the pub or its
landlord and sometimes the town or street the pub was in. In all there are some
4-500 known, half of them for pubs in Exeter where there was a well known maker
of tokens. In addition, Neil also had three temperance tokens for coffee shops
and some for soup kitchens.
Chris & Rachel presented a display entitled ‘Law
and Disorder’. This was to do with the big political changes that were taking
place at the end of the 18th Century, American Independence, French
revolution etc.. . Tokens were produced variously,
because the Government did not have the money to provide sufficient coinage.
One particular type are the ‘specious’ tokens, truly political tokens with
moral statements on them, for example, “Industry is the source of content”.
Perhaps the most famous one is an anti slavery one, “Am I not a man and a
brother?”. A major producer of these tokens was Thomas
Spence, who originated in the North-East, who was actually tried for sedititon. Members of the bar were known to advertise on
the tokens, for example “Acquitted by his jury Counsel Hon. T. Irskine-Gibbs Esq. Even though such advertisements weren’t
allowed. Throughout the presentation, Chris was wearing his roes and showed one
particular feature, which was a strap hanging down the front, which was
attached at the back to a purse. When a particular barrister felt he had said
enough to warrant what he had been paid, then he would stop until he felt the
weight of some more money going into the purse.
After this, the establishment
began to fight back, issuing tokens, for example one proclaiming “The Wrongs of
Man” and a picture of Thomas Paine hanging from a gibbet on the back. Finally
he spoke about ‘evasion’ tokens. These were thinner and easier to produce, so
made to ensure that you could not be prosecuted for passing counterfeit coin as
these were clearly not coins.
This year, the first time for some time, we had a draw
for first place and hence the Michael Broome Cup will be shared between Stuart
and Rachel and Chris. Well done!
Subscriptions
Be reminded that
subscriptions are now due. It would be most appreciated if members yet to renew
their subscription would please do so at the next meeting. Please see our
treasurer Peter. Membership cards will be available for collection at the next
meeting.
Future Events.
- Bloomsbury Coin Fair, Holiday Inn – 1st
July
- Midland Coin Fair - National Motorcycle museum – 9th
July
- Bonhams Auction, Medals, Bonds,
Banknotes And Coins, Knightsbridge – 12th July
Past Events
In previous years,
June has been the date for the AGM.
Club
Secretary.