April 22nd. 2016.      

Next club meeting Monday 9th May 2016.

·         Some Stories Behind Writing a Book and Other Miscellaneous Token Tales By Stuart Adams.

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

 

Notices:

  • The June meeting is the AGM  where the Committee officers report the status of the club and  initiatives for the future. It is also where the membership voice their opinions, concerns and ideas for the future. The committee welcomes/needs direction from the membership, please start thinking about it now.
  • The committee also needs members. Please consider joining, it is not fair to leave the running of the club to the same small number of members every year. If you are willing to become a member of the committee please notify one of the current committee, namely Mick, Peter, Ian or John.
  • Remember the AGM is when the Annual Display Competition for the Michael Broome Memorial Cup is held. Please try and bring an entry along this year.

 

April Meeting

Unfortunately the programmed speaker suffered a significant delay of over an hour while travelling to Reading, due to a signal failure. Unaware of the speaker’s whereabouts, we started the evening with a reserve talk given by Peter Hall about the exit of the Romans from Britain. Some 15 minutes into the talk the scheduled speaker arrived so we curtailed Peter’s talk for a future evening.

Having loaded the slide projector our scheduled speaker, Tony Holmes, started his talk entitled ‘Symbols on Coins’. By way of introduction Tony explained that generally symbols imply a meaning other than what is actually depicted. He then illustrated many examples and explained the significance of each symbol or design, covering many countries from ancient to modern. A few of the many examples Tony talked about are as follows.

1)      A Roman denarius of Julius Caesar with Venus on the obverse – Romans believed her offspring founded the Rome and Roman civilisation.

2)      A Roman coin of Probus where the radiate crown means double the unit value and the reverse ‘Justice’ and scales signifies fairness.

3)      A coin from Pergamon depicted a distinctive vessel for collecting water. As athletes used it for washing the reverse symbolised ‘games’. A similar coin also depicting a specific type of water vessel was located near the market of money lenders so the reverse symbolised ‘money lending’.

4)      A Graeco-Roman coin had a reverse depicting two baskets. As there was an alliance between two states the symbolic message was one can shop in both places with the same money.

5)      Two modern coins from Egypt & Syria had the same reverse to signify their unity.

6)      In a country where depicting the head of the ruler was not acceptable the obverse had a canopy to signify the crown.

7)      A coin with a raised hand symbolised Buddha.  Another depicted a reclining female represented the prosperity of the Nile.

8)      A French coin of Henry 6th had a Lion and a Lis either side of a cross symbolising that Henry was King of both France & England.

9)      An interesting Jetton had a dolphin which was a play on dauphin meaning heir to the throne. However, when said prince became King he kept the symbol of the dolphin as he had no heir.

10)  Other coins are more for giving a political message. An East European coin depicted a thrusting industrial worker coercing a farmer. The message being Communism is advantageous to all. Another Italian coin had a Lis signifying French domination.

11)  Finally we saw a 1913 German 3 mark coin that was pure nationalistic propaganda. The obverse showed the Kaiser on horseback surrounded by a crowd and with the legend ‘Where the Emperor goes the people follow’. Quite interesting because it was only 1 year before the Great War. The reverse depicted an Eagle (of Germany) trampling a serpent (of France) to commemorate 100 years since Germany defeated Napoleon – 2 years before Wellington did the same??

Our thanks go to Tony for giving us a thought provoking talk, having had such a terrible journey getting to Reading.

 

Future Events

  • Baldwin Auctions –  Strand, London, 4th - 5th May
  • Bloomsbury Coin Fair – Bloomsbury Hotel, London 7th May
  • Midland Coin Fair – National Motorcycle Museum 8th May

 

Past Events

  • 40 years ago the club event was a member’s evening
  • 30 years ago Edward Besley gave a talk entitled “Medieval German gold with the focus on the Holy Roman Empire and King Richard”
  • 10 years ago John Wilson gave a talk on  “Life Saving Awards”
               

Club Secretary.