JANUARY NEWSLETTER

Next meeting: Monday 4^th February 2013 : Annual Club Auction. Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, Reading, commencing at 8.00 pm, doors open at 7pm.

NOTICES:

• At the January meeting the Chairman announced a change of roles. As of the 1^st January the Chairman is James (ex Secretary) and Mick will become Secretary, as well as being Librarian and Publicist.

• The annual skittles evening will take place on Saturday 4^th May, (7pm for 7.30pm) at the Red lion pub in Theale. This is a jolly good evening of traditional skittles + buffet for both members and partners, priced at around £15 per head. If interested please sign up at the next meeting or contact Peter.

• The catalogue for the February auction is attached to this newsletter. We will try to display lots from 19.15 for an 8pm start. With over 200 lots, and needing to be finished by 10pm, the auctioneer will go quite quickly and start at the reserve – so be prepared to bid smartly on items of interest. Please get your paddle number before the start of the auction. The auction is only open to paid up members of the club.

January Meeting: As a finale, the Chairman thanked those persons who organized the December bourse activities, namely Henry (Food), Gavin (Quiz), Tony (Raffle, which made £33 thanks to donated prizes) and James for organizing the very pleasant Christmas dinner.

The meeting then continued with short talks by members competing for the Mark Myhill memorial shield. Five talks were given.

Graham’s talk was titled “Growing a collection & promoting numismatics”. He described his involvement with numismatic Reading & Oxford clubs and showed several pictures of our club nights. He then told of how he achieved some interest from local businesses, like the local undertaker being intrigued by an article in Coin News about a Roman coin with a reverse depicting a crematorium. This sparked further interest from the florist who wanted some roman coins for Christmas presents. The creation of talks for both our club and external bodies provides both interest and many queries, and sometimes the acquisition of actual coins. To conclude Graham then showed many pictures of his growing collection of ancient coins. The two specimens of the classic Greek charioteer driving a Quadrigula were outstanding, albeit they were superb copies at one thousandth the price of the real ones

Next Neil gave an illustrated talk on the countermarks of the mainly Scottish mill owners. These marks, which are mostly quite rare, usually appear on the Spanish American 8 Reales. Neil showed a picture of each piece and then described the background to each one. We were shown pieces from Cromford Mills of Spinning Jenny fame, Campbell’s thread works, Muir’s straw hats, Lanark mills with connections to the great reformer Robert Owen and several others by the Rothsay Mills, the Thistle Bank, the Aldelphi cotton work and the Paisley Society. Two slightly different ones were from Danzil farm presumably functioning as workers tokens and the Alloa

Colliery only known as struck on base metal. Neil brought along the actual pieces for inspection – a truly superb collection given the difficulty in obtaining examples today.

Then Michael spoke about the founding and history of Reading Abbey. The Abbey was founded on royal land in 1121 by Henry 1^st. A small monastic brotherhood grew up led by the first Abbot, Hugh de Amiens. While Reading was but a small settlement the Abbey was massive and became very wealthy thanks to the many pilgrims; hence the abbey motif being the badge of the pilgrims, namely an oyster shell. The Abbey had a large population, predominately lay people who ensured self sufficiency, while the monks concentrated on education. The Abbey finally failed due to avarice and the dissolution by the greedy Henry 8^th. Despite King Henry 1st being buried at the Abbey very little exists today thanks to the ravages of time and site being used a as quarry for the stones. The extant gatehouse was rebuilt by the Victorians at a huge cost.

To conclude Michael spoke about some of the surrounding religious buildings and showed several maps of the area.

John entertained us with his personal reminiscences of coin and banknote collecting. From a box of coins provided by his mother John decided to collect every coin in the Yeomen Coin book. Later, realising this was a daunting task John downsized has ambitions and focused on East European, Oriental and Asian coins, particularly India and Afghanistan. At this point John side tracked with an anecdote that the fireman shot in America had the unusual name of an acquaintance at the Oriental society, namely William Spengler – luckily the latter is not the fireman. After the theft of his collection all that was left were a few banknotes and this became the primary direction for his collecting. John then spoke about his adventures to Budapest. First his abortive encounters in an overpriced coin shop and ending with a church like building where the walls were plastered with banknotes available for purchase. To conclude John handed round some fine examples of his Hungarian banknotes.

Finally Mick gave an illustrated talk on Matthew Boulton’s medallion known as the Medallic Scale. With a French reverse it is both unusual and a bit of a puzzle. Using illustrations Mick showed how Boulton had employed French engraver die sinkers in anticipation of much wanted orders for regal coins, but in the interim had used them to produce tokens. Thus with these engravers Boulton had the capability to produce a medal in French. The numbered concentric rings on the reverse represent the size and number of coins he could strike per minute; hence the Medallic Scale. The words, when translated, are clearly an advertisement for his capabilities to produce coins. The obverse is just his effigy and titles. The puzzle is two-fold. The suggested date of issue is 1802, but at this time France was still at war with Europe (a la Trafalgar in 1805). So why in 1802 would an English business man bother making a French advertising piece? Secondly the accepted engraver is Dumarest, but all the French engravers had departed Soho by 1795. So is this medal an earlier piece overtaken by events, but later modified and issued for collectors? – a practice quite typical of Soho’s later modus operandi.

The joint winners of the Mark Myhill memorial shield were Neil and Mick

Upcoming Events

• 2^nd February - London Coin Fair + Argentum Auction, Holiday Inn, London Bloomsbury.
• 6^th February – DNW auction of Hammered Coins, Washington Hotel, London Mayfair
• 4^th February – St James Auction, Cavendish Hotel, London.
• 10^th February – Midland Coin Fair, Motor Cycle Museum, near NEC.
• 17^th February – Warwick and Warwick Auction, Lord Leycester Hotel, Warwick.

Club Secretary 21/1/2013.