14th January 2025.

 

Next club meeting Monday 3rd February

Talk on Viking Money by Zheng Tao Chong

 

Monday 3rd March

Club Auction

 

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m. NOTE: The February and March meetings will be held in the Sanctuary room on the Ground Floor of the church.

 

Notices

If you want to enter any lots for the March club auction, please ensure that they reach Ian by the February meeting at the latest.

 

Please consider whether you could join the committee, we need new, or refreshed, blood now!

 

January 2025 Meeting

As usual the January meeting was an opportunity for members to give a short talk to the members. This year three talks were delivered.

 

First up was Graham with a talk titled In Conversation With…

In this talk Graham looked at various ways to determine how to collect coins, understanding the market and its pricing mechanisms, especially for lower graded coins. Starting with himself and ruminating on the similarity between youthful trainspotting and adult coin collecting Graham moved onto conversing with Token Publishing and how they priced the lower grades in their Year Books. The answer was mainly on auction bulk lots and guesswork! When he asked how much reliance club members placed on the prices quoted in Coin Year Book, especially with decimal issues there was merely some nervous laughter!

 

Graham quizzed dealers and stall holders at the Kidlington Antique & Collectors fair, and found the popularity of collecting £2 coins had waned considerably, and indeed stall fees were sometimes paid in these coins! Conversing with friends and club members gave him cause to think of reviewing the prices of some items, and in conversations with dealers and customers and at the Midland Coin Fair were useful in assessing current customer interests and demands. He also found some of the lower grade prices (i.e. lower than UNC or Proof) in Coin News’ listing for £2 decimal coins were estimated on the basis of asking prices on eBay!

 

 

 

Finally, Graham advised that conversations with young collectors should encourage                                        

them to spend less time viewing smart phones and social media, and more time in conversation with knowledgeable people and handling coins to get the best out of a very rewarding hobby.

 

 

The second talk was by Tony on the so-called King of Lundy – the financier Martin Coles Harman, and looked at his life and family rather than just his period as the owner of Lundy Island and the issuing of his Puffin coinage.

 

Born 1885 in Hove, Sussex (most sources say Steyning, but this was the registration district), one of 11 siblings born to William Harman and his wife Florence Coles. William appears to have been a successful and prosperous builder having moved from Dingle Cottage in a lower middle-class part of Caterham to a much posher 13 room house at Deans Place, Chaldon (1911 census). Martin was schooled at Whitgift Grammar School, and around the age of 17 or 18 he had visited Lundy Island and become enamoured of the natural beauty of the island. 

 

Martin and his brothers Sargent Terry and Denis Richardson (it would be interesting to investigate how these second forenames came about) were all in banking from the Edwardian period, and his youngest brother Lewis followed later. Martin’s career in finance rapidly progressed and by 1921 he had become head of the household at Deans Place, with his wife Amy Ruth Bodger and their four children in residence. Despite a busy career in the city, the local press in Surrey attests to a keen interest in his home village and he was involved in several social initiatives reported there.

 

In 1925 the opportunity to purchase Lundy arose and from this time he was often referred to as the King of Lundy, and in 1929 issued his Puffin coinage, that led to a conviction and a fine of 15 guineas for contravening the Coinage Act of 1870.

 

             

             

 

 

                       The coins were minted by Ralph Heaton of Birmingham.

 

 

 

             

It has been claimed that by 1928 he controlled companies to the worth of £12 million. However, by this time his financial activities came under increasing scrutiny and following a libel case in 1931, he lost an appeal against bankruptcy in 1932 and in 1933 after he, and others, were charged with defrauding shareholders, he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment but released after 14 months. He died in 1940 in Surrey. 

 

An intriguing personage and while caring greatly for the natural environment and supporting his local community at Chaldon and Lundy, he was also a wealthy but fraudulent financer.

 

 

The last of the three talks was by Stuart on the Coinage of the Dark Ages and some early medieval halfpennies. Stuart commenced with reading extracts from the book Lost Realms by Thomas Williams describing the bad state of society and coinage in the late 5th century and onwards. In particular the apocalyptic description of the decline and abandonment of Lincoln summed up the state of affairs during this period, and unsurprisingly, the fall in use of coinage in everyday life. To illustrate this Stuart showed typical imagined dwellings of the period in the area of Chisbury, and the Wansdyke. As well as the defensive earthworks at Chisbury Manor, there is close by St Martin’s chapel – a small barn-like structure. The Wansdyke is a major dark age linear earthwork spanning the Wiltshire Downs and is now a popular hiking route.

                         

             

 

 

A typical dark age village                   Wansdyke                              St Martin’s Chapel, Chisbury

 

Stuart then went on to talk about his collection of halfpennies, of which some were gleaned from dealers in Poland and other east European spots. Examples of these are below: 

 

             

 

 

 

On conclusion of the talks a vote was taken for the best talk, and Tony’s talk won most votes. Henry presented Tony with the Marc Myhill Memorial Shield

 

 

Future Events.

•                  London Coin Fair – Shortlands, London W6 – 1st February 2025

•                  Midland Coin Fair - National Motorcycle Museum –9th February 2025

•                  Spinks Auctions – 11-25th February 2025

•                  Noonans, Mayfair, W1J 8BQ –18th -19th & 26th February 2025

Warwick & Warwick – 19th February 2025

St James Auctions – 1st February 2025

 

Past Events

Ten years ago in 2015, Peter Hall won the Marc Myhill Memorial Shield for his short talk on Roman emperor Phillip 1st.

 

 

 

Club Secretary