FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

 

Next meeting: Monday 4th March 2013   :  Banknotes of Cyprus – Mr A Georgio.

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, Reading, commencing at 8.00 pm, doors open at 7pm.

 

NOTICES:

 

 

 

February Meeting:  This meeting was devoted to the annual club auction. We had a respectable 246 entries from just twelve members covering coins, medals, badges, tokens, books and banknotes, including 31 lots for club funds from Peter, Neil and Tony. Of the 27 persons who attended the auction 23 were buyers who paid £2048 to secure the 173 lots that sold. Interestingly, just 6 buyers secured 72% of the lots that sold (= 82% by value), with most of the remaining members securing just 1 or 2 lots.

Top prices were:

 1708E Anne Half Crown - £55,            1746 George II Lima Half Crown - £76

1698 William Half Crown - £48            1694 1/4d + 2 others - £280

1860 Victoria Halfpenny - £68,             1887 Victoria Penny - £72

1893 Victoria LVI Crown - £75,           1891 Hong Kong Fifty cents - £55

1835 Rupee - £40,       1861 Coronation Thaler £41,       Reading 1/6d token - £40

At the other end of the scale several of the lower value coins were well contested and there were several 10p bargains. The commission to club funds amounted to a respectable £268.

In line with previous years some 30% of lots (= 73) did not sell. This 30% seems to be constant year on year and while some ambitious reserves no doubt account for some no sales there were also many no sales with very low reserves.

One final comment - from the Committee’s point of view it was disappointing the so few members submitted items. Excluding the Committee members & donations, only 7 members made submissions, which hardly bodes well for the future.  

 

Upcoming Events

 

 

Numismatic Interlude.

To enhance the interest in the newsletter it is proposed to periodically publish short articles written by members. I am therefore requesting that you the membership consider writing a short piece on a numismatic topic and send it to the secretary for inclusion in the newsletter. For starters here is something I prepared earlier.

 

The Story of British 19th Century Tokens

This is the story of how a Reading man had a major impact on the extinction of British tokens.

 It is 1811 and life is difficult. The harvest has been poor so food is expensive and in short supply. To make matters worse Napoleon has imposed restrictions on the export of food to England. Additionally his rising dominance is causing much apprehension resulting in the price of silver soaring to record levels. There is minimal regal coinage about for trade since silver has been not been minted for years, and much of the previous copper issues have either been melted or amassed in the offices of large traders because no redistribution system exists. What gold and silver coinage is about is being traded at a premium or melted, despite the government rushing through legislation outlawing such practices. Even the tokens issued by the Bank of England are disappearing - either being melted or bought back by the Bank at a premium in order to minimise account losses. Bank notes are not popular because they are merely promissory paper and the smallest value is £1, totally useless for paying workers wages who need small change for the lowly transactions of a working family.

So once again trader’s and their tokens came to the rescue. But this time they did something different. They issued silver tokens, as well as copper ones.

Was the government concerned about the situation – yes, but not about the plight of the population deprived of coinage or the impending financial crisis. Instead they focused their energy on the abuse of their sole prerogative to mint gold and silver coinage. From time immemorial they had disliked the issue of tokens despite doing sweet nothing to alleviate the dire need for regal coins. However, they had tolerated copper tokens because for some in authority copper was not really considered coinage. But in 1811 there were now many silver tokens issued by numerous traders, industrialists and bankers etc. This was seen as a direct challenge to the Governments sole prerogative to mint silver. The Government justified their lofty stance by denouncing these traders who had the audacity to issue light weight tokens and were therefore cheating the public. Never mind that it was the light weight of the tokens that ensured their survival and how can one determine what is lightweight when price of silver is rocketing.

But still the government did nothing to manage the situation.

Enter a prominent resident of Reading, the popular and well liked philanthropist Berkley Monck – well known for championing the plights of the poor and issuing the Reading 2/6d &1/6d.

 

 

He was so appalled at the government’s ineptitude that he wrote directly to the prime minister of the day, Spencer Percival. He expressed the view that a return to a fixed metallic gold/ silver standard was the only solution to the economic crisis. In order to get back to an agreed gold standard he proposed a light weight representative guinea (ie a gold token), the value of which, over time, would be incrementally adjusted to eventually coincide with the face value of regal guineas. Quite how this scheme was meant to work is not at all clear.

And the response from Percival - total silence. So then Monck did something that put a rocket up the Government. He not only proposed, but made, his own gold representative guinea, known as the Reading 40/- (200 off, each made with 34/- of gold)

 

 

Prime Minister Percival went ballistic. He threatened Monk with treason and contacted the issuer, Thomason, who agreed not to supply anymore tokens to Monk. But then Percival went on a crusade, determined to end the issue of tokens once and for all.

In a matter of weeks (May 1812) he rushed in a bill to make tokens illegal. The ensuing complex debates split the various parties. Essentially one camp was all for getting rid of tokens no matter what. The other camp said ‘so what replaces them’. Despite no answer from the government the bill was rushed through – well almost because in the days before the bill’s final reading Percival was assassinated. So all the proceedings came to an abrupt halt.

The Government banner was then taken up by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nicholas Vansittart, a person not noted for engaging brain before speaking. His primary opponent was the fiery and eloquent speaker Earl Lauderdale. However, despite Lauderdale’s cleverly crafted arguments, including a census proving that many silver tokens were hardly light weight and evidence that tokens were fulfilling a dire need, the Chancellor won the day. Lauderdale’s concerns about ‘what fills the place of tokens’ were brushed  aside and the bill was passed on the 29th July 1812 outlawing tokens from 25th March 1813.

However, Lauderdale did not give up. He was not going to allow Briton to fall into another financial crisis and he went on the attack. His timing was perfect because the Napoleon effect saw silver soar to new heights – even the Bank of England became very worried about soaring losses on it Bank tokens. With Lauderdale’s battering of Vansittart’s feeble statements, and empty promises of a life after tokens, the Government was forced to postpone implementing the token act until December 1813. However, well before this time many issuers of silver tokens had called them in, for fear of future losses due to concerns as to what the mistrustful Government might do next. Thus despite the Governments ineptitude, the Chancellors bungling actually achieved the demise of silver tokens, a process unwittingly started by our Reading man. And what did Vansittart do to reintroduce a regal silver coinage, absolutely nothing for the next 3 years.

And was this the end of the saga for Vansittart, certainly not. In answer to a question during the later debates he astounded all by announcing that the act was not intended to cover copper tokens. This opened up the flood gates to all kind of arguments once again. The details of this new chapter are for another time, but suffice to say one of the advocates most vocal against the continuation of copper tokens was Pascoe Grenfill. This at first sight may seen somewhat surprising since he was assistant to, and then inheritor of, the copper king’s fortune- the very one who had issued the Druids tokens by the ton. However, it is easy to see why he was in favour of new regal coppers, and the demise of tokens, for he himself was now a copper magnate hoping to supply copper to the Royal mint.

With Vansittarts continuing blunders and indecisive answers he manage to completely undermine the long term legal status of copper tokens and effectively brought a halt to their production in 1813, despite their legal status not coming to an end until New Years day 1818. However, in the provinces people continued to use copper tokens well into 1830’s. Since many could not read if it looked like a coin, then it was a coin, whatever may be stamped on it.

And the final irony in this story. The success of the great re-coinage of 1816 was down the introduction of light weight silver, the Governments principle argument against silver tokens – but that’s politics for you.

 

 

                                                                                                            Club Secretary  21/2/2013.