Ætheling

I've been thinking, i don't actually have any pretty coins.

What is that exactly?

A while back, I bought my wife some Buffalo Nickel ear rings. I like them but she never wears them!

Very sensible.

Now, I wonder what you're referring to there!   

Hmm indeed, but no coin on this planet however, dipped, battered and abused can look as bad as that monstrosity that passed for a coin. Whoever designed that piece of junk should have been shot.

I put up the Franklin to offset it.

Franklin's are good, i'm fond of them even if i don't collect them.

The ugliest coin is yet to come, actually there are three that would win a prize straight off before any damage occurred to them. And they'd all win that award straight out of the mint.

Two are US coins and the other, the worst coin in the entire world bar none is British.

there is one Tiffibuny.

Can you imagine one of those as a pocket watch fob piece... eek. Something that big swinging about could be uncomfortable, but one hack of a conversational piece.

Well that killed this thread.

You can't really top that one can you?

Hmm nice! I like old objects myself though.

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I never have had any interest in stamps and have only had a mild interest in banknotes which stated here.

Hey funny that, i was other way around. Limited interest in stamps, absolutely none in banknotes. I dunno why but banknotes never really did it for me. I don't mind designing them, but collecting them is something i've never properly considered. If i ever did then i'd be exclusively British notes and at a push US notes. I tend to favour the monotone type notes with subtle colours. I don't like the really bright and modern notes at all.

I think 1970s/80s UK notes are about the cream of the crop from what i've seen, very regal held back feel.

Well i can see exactly why you say that Stu because i myself am leaning towards that perspective anyhow.

Although i do find old written documents and books interesting, sometimes more interesting than metal objects although generally not. The question perhaps is why?

Well the best way i can possibly think of explaining it is this;

About two weeks ago i was walking around an antiques shop and i saw the usual stuff, plates, knives, forks, spoons, figurines and all that kinda stuff, most of it i don't bat an eyelid to. The odd coin here and there. Then i saw something that had the 'wow factor', for me at any rate.

Victorian (1837-1901) and Georgian (1714-1830) wine glasses, decanters and a whole host of other glass bits and pieces. Seeing a small rose tinted wine glass dating to the 1780s and 1790s was to me more stunning than any 1933 Double Eagle or death mask of Tutankhamen. How can thin and brittle glass last over 200 years when a building made of strong solid stone might not even last half that.

I haven't bought one of these glasses yet, but i dare say i will.

I agree with your point on tangebility, but to me the fact that paper and glass are so easily destructible actually gives them a certain amount of wonder. Look at the Domesday book, an 11th century written document still surviving. How many castles, bridges, general buildings, dams, ships and all other big objects don't even last anywhere near that length of time.

I still think the biggest thing that always makes my jaw drop is when you go round the Egyptology section of museums, Saracophaguses and the usual run of the mill stone, gems and stuff doesn't do it so much. But seeing say a little wooden box dating to the old kingdom period found in a residential kitchen, looking intact and as good as the day it was made is a stunner. Why?

Well firtly it's wood and organic an thus easily decomposable material, secondly because most archaeological finds come from places of religious/spiritual significance, tombs, temples, palaces etc. So finding one from an ordinary household is a double 'wow' for unusual.

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Some people just have more focus, obviously

Although you might say these days the tables have turned somewhat...

Sounds like you still can't be persuaded to come down to that one! 

Too right! Me in Birmingham? Not on your nelly.

One more addition whilst i'm here on this, this captures history i think;

This is the envelope of a letter sent to my great, great grandmother in August 1943. The letter was from the British Royal Admiralty.

On the right examples of the coins that could have been used to purchase such stamps. (Hosted on Omnicoin only temporarily, until i can figure out somewhere else to put them!)

A penny (1912), two half pennies (1927 and 1946) and two farthings (1885 and 1917). The 1885 farthing actually came from my great, great grandmother's son shortly before he died in 2000.

History is everywhere, if you look for it.

I'm shure yu'll enjhoy tHat

Not entirely coin related, but i have a purpose to adding this one in here.

How many coin collectors can honestly put their hand up and say when they started out collecting they focused on just coins? Many might have also considered other money collecting related fields such as banknotes and the absolute classic of all that is untrendy, stamps. The initial interest in these other areas may have gone after a month or two as you became more aware that coins were the thing for you.

Well when i started out i actually had a choice, coins or stamps. My father had been kind enough to provide me with both of his old collections. So i had a chance to sit and ponder. Naturally i chose coins. The reason why is because they have existed far longer and therefore older specimens were around, think medieval. Even if i didn't have the money for them as a young six year old, i hoped one day i would be able to get into the old coins. The other reason i favoured coins was the metal bit. I was naturally more drawn to metals and generally metal objects... the shininess, the strength and durability, the silver, the gold and even on a really good day, the copper. I was a snobbish child, i knew copper was way beneath me back then, although admittedly this attitude issue has softened of late.

But stamps being merely paper weren't entirely out of the window, i did half heartedly collect them for many years. I never bought any from stamp shops, but i'd take them off of envelopes or buy the new ones from the Post Office. Although i never bothered with the commemoratives, there were just far too many, and in the end the commemoratives were what killed stamp collecting for me, i was fed up of the trivial forced drivel being produced so i quit collecting stamps altogether.

Although i haven't actively done anything with them in years i kinda just stumbled upon them again after a long, long time and i realised that these things have value. By value i don't mean financial/economic resale value, but rather historical value.

How many times have i heard coin collectors from the UK chunter on about the problematic nature of Edward VIII; "I don't want a gap!" or "i'd have to buy a modern fantasy piece to plug that gap"... and alot of these fantasy pieces are, well naff.

For someone who perhaps collects for historical reasons, the 1930s are a very important period, 1936/7 especially so, the entire Edward VIII fiasco, The end of the golden dreams of the 190X and 192X period, the reality of depression and a full scale war beginning to cast it's shadow as it loomed in the distance, a war that would change the world forever in more ways than any war yet. Air Raids, Air Battles, Rockets V1 and V2, Atomic bombs... it was a frightening time ahead, with a hard time in the present and a dream of a lost idealised grandness behind that was really a facade for another frightening time, the horrors of the battles in the trenches of WWI. Great icons and ideas of the late 19th and early 20th century were being torn apart either in theoretical ways or in very real terms as exemplified by the events of 1935/6 at Palmer's Shipyard in Jarrow where the RMS Olympic and at Rosyth, Scotland where the RMS Mauretania were stripped and scrapped. Two ships that once epitomised the whole ethos of the early 20th century. The class divisions, the regality, the style, the sheer grand overbearing power of technology over mother nature. The age of dreams... dreams they were indeed as anyone would be quick to point out exactly what happened to their sister ships. The mid 1930s were an important period.

Thus as you might note having a modern repro or a modern fantasy piece really doesn't catch the vibes quite like something contemporary. Edward VIII coins ain't cheap unless you've got a house going spare...

But to fill the void stamps can come to the rescue...

The most interesting thing about them is they were there, and they saw events at first hand. Were they on the very envelopes containing letters being sent back and forth from government departments as the events of the late 1930s unfolded? Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin perhaps sending a letter to some department showing concern over Edward VIII's political views? Wallace Simpson sending a letter to Edward?

The designs were also of note. George V issues and the later George VI issues look very much 1930s, they have an olde worlde look to them, almost straight out of the Victorian era. But the Edward VIII issues look very much like something that reasonably could have been produced in 1990. Infact looking at modern regular issue British stamps they're not that different.

Therefore perhaps a somewhat unfashionable hobby, or a hobby you sidelined can sometimes come to your rescue when you least expect it. Thus i have something contemporary of Edward VIII with his portrait on, that were issued and used.

Here's some Machin Obverse bronze and with mint lustre these coins are summin' else. Needless to say you can't find anything from the 1970s (or even earlier than 1992) with as much lustre as this in circulation. Thus i had to buy these for £1 each.

1971 Halfpenny

1979 Penny

1971 Twopence

Here's another one;

Henry VI Annulet Issue silver Halfpenny (1422-7)

(Annulets are the small round circles on the reverse)

Obv; HENRIC REX ANGL (Henry King of England)

Rev; CIVITAS LONDON (City of London)

Henry VI

Ended.

Congratulations to Kuhli and please PM me your shipping address.

I am well and truly impressed with the artistry.

 

The underlying social factors are another wow    for me.

 

Michael

Pity you didn't come along sooner Michael, i just gave a few sets away. But i've finished printing them now and shipped them all off.

Art will be auctioning two sets off later though, an S set and the signed A sets. So if you want one that's how you get one.

Even there, assuming that you start with the Twelve Olympians, would you do Roman or Greek?  Apollo is Apollo and popular, but some of them (Zeus/Jupiter, Hermes/Mercury, Athena/Minerva, Artemis/Diana) would be easier than others.  Hestia might be harder as a Greek than as Vesta the Roman.  Hephestion/Vulcan would be a toughie in either case.  Ares appears easily on only one series of Greek coins I know of, though Mars is pretty common for Roman coins of the military anarchy, which figures, of course. And still, the congruencies are often of our own design.  I mean is Hermes really Mercury?

 

Beyond that are minor deities.  The manheaded bull is often called a "river god."  Similarly, when we have a generic coin from a generic town with a generic female on it, we call her "Nymph" by the name of the town.

 

"... i've nearly bought an Athenian Owl, the only thing that stopped me last time was the hole that had been drilled into the coin. (Were these not done by bankers? Or someone similar to test for either the purity of the coin or to see if it was real?

 

Usually -- without seeing the coin -- a hole drilled through it is for hanging the coin as jewelry. Testing with a cut usually meant making some kind of cut at the edge into the coin along a radius, or perhaps punching it on the surface, to see if the surface is just plated.

 

Like everything else in numismatics it seems, Owls are going up in price. A nice one -- genuine from a reputable seller -- will run about $900 or so. Not that you cannot find a bargain. Centering, wear, etc., are in the eye of the beholder, as always.

I'd just stick with the 12 Olympians and although i know that the Roman/Grrek equivalents do differ somewhat on some aspects i'd not diffentiate much between the two. I do tend to favour the Romans more than the Greeks though.

The Owl had a hole going only half way into the coin, it didn't go the whole way through.

Hey Auld one!

That York one, i saw a few of those in York when i was there. A bit overpriced they were (i would think at any rate as they were in an antiques centre) but they had a heck of alot of lustre left on them. I recognised them immediately after i'd seen a picture of yours!

It's weird where things can turn up, i would never have noticed them if i hadn't have seen yours first. When i go coin browsing i tend to tune out (brain switches off) to all the coins i don't need so i stroll past them without batting an eyelid, saves me a heck of alot of money in the long run but i sure miss alot!

Mr Bruce on his home soil.

York's technically my home soil too, well i live in the county if that counts?

I didn't even know there was such a think as coin notgeld.

I always though it was those fancy notes.

As for a definition, coming at this from a rather green and totally unexperienced angle in this field i'd probably say exnuwhatsit. (Can't we have a better word for that, that i can spell?)

Simply put notgeld, is not real official 'regal' currency and thus accepted or not it's something other than money, so it's outside money, so it exnuwhatsit. Don't you just love solving problems semantically?

Only because the earlier ones are either very expensive or look like coins that have been folded in two

Or chipped, or clipped, or ex-mounts, or still mounts, of general jewelry, or holed, crimped, 'broken but brilliantly repaired', weakly struck, filed, waterworn, pitted or otherwise below standard.

I'm hearing you all too clearly!