Aug 18^th 2024.

Next club meeting Monday 2^nd September 2024.

Subject – Decisions, Decisions, Decisionsby Graham Kirby

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

Notices

Member Subscriptions renewals are due. If you haven’t already done so, please renew at the next meeting, and the 2024-2025 membership cards will be issued then.

Coin News has been in touch, they’d like some articles from us if anyone is interested?

“COIN NEWS would be interested to hear from members who would like to share details of their collection in the form of an article with our readers. This could be a general collection or a particular coin, banknote, token or medallion you own, once owed, wish you owned or are trying to locate.”

You can e-mail them on Jayne@tokenpublishing.com

July Meeting

At this meeting club member John gave a presentation on Metal Detecting, in which he covered the history and physics of metal detectors, the benefits to be derived from the hobby, and looked at the equipment needed and the wide range of finds that were likely to be encountered. But above all he emphasised the need for detectorists to act responsibly at all times.

The basis of all metal detectors is through the interruption to the electromagnetic signals from the two coils of the detector by a metal object in the ground. The experienced detectorist may be able to distinguish between ferrous or non-ferrous metals by the nature of the signal heard, and the tone of the signal may give further identification e.g. high tone for a precious metal while a lower tone is indicative of iron or foil object. Display instruments on some detectors can also indicate whether the target object is large and/or shallow or small and/or deep, and on some modern machines there are settings that allow the user to adjust the discrimination, sensitivity, frequency, reactivity and audio tones and several other facilities. As well as the detector itself, the pin pointer (a small detector) is useful in guiding the exact position of the target during an excavation.

John suggested some other useful items were a sieve, a bottle spray and a finds bag or pot – and suitable wet or cold weather clothing.

Other than the chance of finding a hoard or an artifact of great significance, John said pursuing the hobby offered benefits to physical and mental health, in meeting like-minded people, it is educational, and there is a possible financial reward.

Some examples of detectors Buttons galore!

John went through some of the finds he has made, and exhibited these on a table top display. The most common types of find are buttons, nails and horse shoes. One of the most intriguing was a steel car wheel found at 3 metres blow ground! Other finds included rumble bells, axe heads, cartridge cases, keys, metal toys … and the occasional coin.

Reminiscent of childhood William III, George III & Victoria coin finds

John emphasised the symbiotic relationship of detectorists, numismatists and archaeologists. One unearths the artifacts, others interpret the findings, and museums and coin collectors can benefit. He went on to stress the importance of conducting searches responsibly. Permissions to search and dig are essential, as are compliance with timely reporting to the Local Finds Liaison Officer and Portable Antiques Scheme of any finds, and an understanding of the Treasure Acts.

Some more finds….

Baldric of Kent Penny Obv & Rev George IV Sovereign

During the Q&A session John said most beaches did not need permissions.

He had already mentioned that public park permissions varied, for example Reading BC will allow detectors to be used with permission, but Newbury Borough will not permit the activity.

In all cases it was important to understand the ownership limits of the areas for which permission had been granted, whether farmlands, gardens, parks etc.

Finally, John displayed his finds, explaining what some of the less obvious artifacts exhibited were.

The Finds Table

Note the pin pointer detector at the bottom of the picture

August Social Outing

Nine intrepid members of the club braved the long journey west to Llantrisant to visit the Royal Mint, and partake in the Royal Mint experience.

Our entry to the experience was by timed ticket, and together with a dozen others we received a short briefing from Tom, our guide, before commencing our journey. It was emphasised that photography in the production areas of the Mint is not permitted. Leaving the reception area we were taken out, through the security fencing to the entrance of the production building, passing en route three antique blanking and coining presses.

In the first area of the Mint, we were introduced to the various metals used in the coining processes, and saw one of the strip coils of a basic alloy displayed. The weight of the coil was about 3 tonnes, and this coiled metal would be run through the rolling mills to reduce it to the desired coin thickness, and then fed into the blanking press which punches out the coin blanks (at the rate of 10,000 per minute). The waste metal from the process is returned to the furnaces to make new strips of alloy. The punched-out blanks are then annealed to soften the metal to make it suitable for coining, and pickled to remove any blemishes.

The final part of the process is that the blanks are fed into the coining press, where the raised rims are formed, the reverse and obverse struck from the dies. This was demonstrated on a model press, and included showing the method of creating edge legends. In production the presses exert a force of around 60 tonnes.

The mint makes all its own tools, including the dies and engraving equipment. On display there were dies of recent and current coinage.

Following this first area of the mint we were ushered into the viewing kiosk within the main plant to see the coining presses in action. Coins for Kenya and Liberia were being produced, and delivered into stillage bins. Small quantities of the coins from each press were checked for quality, before the whole batch was scanned and counted.

Leaving the production area there was a chance to strike the Olympics 50p commemorative on a small local press before proceeding into the exhibition area. Here many interesting coins and other items are on display. Some examples are: