June 30th 2022.
Next club meeting Monday 4th July 2022.
·
Varieties in
Milled coinage - Where to draw the line By Mick Martin
August 2022.
·
Summer Social – TBC - tour of numismatic sites in the
City of London
September 2022.
·
Medallions Issued
for the Bridges of London By David Young
Meetings are held
at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
Notices
The club has been
informed of the death of Doug, our condolences go to
his family. The funeral is to be held at Reading Crematorium.
June Meeting
This was the Annual General Meeting and Display Competition.
1)Apologies were received from Peter, Tony, Ian
and Martin.
2)The 2021 AGM minutes were adopted, no matters arising.
3)There was only one point raised by the members concerning a further possible
internet entry for the club. Will to investigate further and report back to the
committee.
4)There were no points raised by the committee.
5)Gavin was re-elected President, proposed Michael, seconded Derek
The committee members were re-elected as a lot, Peter, John, Henry and Jawaid. Proposed Graham, seconded Michael.
Neil was re-elected as auditor, proposed Graham, seconded Alastair.
John congratulated the membership on having got through Covid and said
how pleased he was that the club was getting back to normal. Graham proposed a
vote of thanks to the committee for its actions in keeping the club going.
Henry reminded us that its not long until the club’s Diamond Anniversary and we
need to start thinking of suitable ways to celebrate the occasion.
Next season’s programme is almost complete, to
date we have:
July Mick Martin January Short Talks
August Summer Social February Neil Beaton
September David Young March Auction
October Kevin Clancy April TBA
November Ros Farmer (TBC) May Michael Gouby
December Xmas Party June AGM and Display Competition
This completed the Annual General Meeting and we moved on to the Display
Competition.
There were four displays plus one exhibit. First to describe their display
was Will. Will collects by countries that he has visited. He attempts to
collect a full set of coins for each of the countries he visits and finds this
a good reminder of the various places he visited. In this way he gains an
impression of the history of the country, especially if he goes back a few
years later and finds the coinage has changed, then that leads him to work out
why.
He organizes his collection by having a folder for each continent. For one
half of his display he had brought along the folders
for Africa and South and Central America for the second half he brought along some
of the folders containing the coins he has bought at the club or elsewhere.
Altogether an impressive mix of coins. Questioned about his storage method,
Will revealed that he uses blu tak
to keep the coins in place in his folders and that he hasn’t had any ill
effects in over twenty years of collecting.
Next up we had Stuart who had brought some coins he had recently acquired
in Poland. Each of the coins is in a type of photo frame with a connected picture
behind the coin that Stuart took on the holiday. He recounted his trip to a
coin dealer, who initially showed no interest in talking to him till he showed
him pictures of some of his hammered collection. This prompted the man to
return with a Celtic type half coin which had been
found in Belgium, another coin came from Sopot near Gdansk, yet another was
acquired at our coin auction, a three Polker of
Sigismund. The last coin was a museum coin available for five Zloty from a
machine. There was a strong maritime theme linking the coins and it turns out
that a lot of Stuart’s ancestors have been involved in the trade.
After that we had Graham to give a talk on ‘Tactile’. A lot of graham’s
collection is kept in folders or such but he has a
drawer where he keeps ‘tactile’ coins. Some coins should be handled, for
example Graham had a well worn hammered shilling and
handling that gives one a sense of history, this is clearly not something that
was made yesterday. You can speculate on how it came to have so much wear and
how many hands it has passed through.
Graham also had some ‘canoe’ money, used in Siam and Thailand about 1850 and
some Manilla or Oxpobo money from West Africa, which
became known as slave bracelets since they were used to trade in slaves as well
as other merchandise. They continued in use until 1948!
The last coin was a Piece of Eight, though the one Graham brought with
him had been recovered from the sea, it is a classic part of what people regard
as ‘treasure’, being silver. Allowing people to handle such coins would surely
be good for the hobby as a whole, particularly if we
start with children and lead to more coin collectors in the future.
Neil began his talk with a short presentation about a coin that had come in to his local church.
It is a one hryvnia from Ukraine, very topical.
Following this he talked about another topical topic, namely previous UK
Jubilees. There haven’t been many over the years but
Neil began with QueenVictoria’s Golden Jubilee, illustrated
with commemorative pieces from Neil’s own collection with examples from Exeter,
Plymouth and Reading. These were produced in their millions
and many were distributed to children in the various towns. Some even had gold coloured crowns that allowed you
to clip them on to your clothes and were made with a hole drilled in the top to
allow them to be fastened. Local dignitaries were not above advertising
themselves on the medals and one from Plymouth even quoted a Biblical text,
Romans 13 – 1
Everyone must submit
himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that
which God has established.
The next set were from Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. First off was the well known medal produced by the Royal Mint, with both old
and new heads on either side, followed by further medals from Plymouth, Torquay
and Windsor. Again some were produced by local
businesses.
George V Silver Jubilee was illustrated with a National
medal featuring King George and Queen Mary on the obverse and Windsor castle on
the reverse and also a medal from Plymstock.
The final coin was a brand new Royal Mint 50p
issued this year to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of our present Queen.
Following a very close vote, the Michael Broome cup for the Annual
Display Competition was jointly awarded to Will and Neil. Well done to all the
members who entered displays.
Future Events.
·
Midland Coin Fair – National Motorcycle Museum 10th
July
Past Events
June has traditionally been
the Annual General Meeting.
Club Secretary.