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Medal News
May 09
Vol 47 No.5

You are not alone…

FIRST things first — a big thank you to all dealers and collectors who made it to a very successful inaugural MEDAL NEWS Britannia show on March 29. We had over 300 people there throughout the day and I think everyone who attended were pleased with the result. We’ve already had a raft of bookings for the next fair (November 22) both from dealers who came along this time and others who hadn’t stalled out but were keen to “get in on the action” next time around. Comments from attendees such as “just like the good old days” and “I haven’t been elbowed like that since the 80s” show that the collectors were impressed too!
That all said the point of this Comment isn’t just one of self-praise — yes, the fair was a great success, yes, we’ll be doing it again and yes, we are very glad that we have been instrumental in keeping a medal fair in the Capital — especially now the OMRS Convention has taken a different route and the “public” per se won’t be able to attend (see MEDAL NEWS, April 2009 for more details of that). However, there was more to Britannia than simply a very good medal fair — indeed a number of the most positive comments have come not from dealers or successful buyers (although both groups also declared themselves well satisfied) but rather from collectors who actually didn’t buy very much at all — if anything. It seemed that those who came to look, to chat to fellow collectors to be “part of something” enjoyed the day just as much as those who walked away with a treasured addition to their collection and the acquisition of yet another group was not the sole motivation behind attending.
One thing those of us who attend the fairs regularly tend to forget is that for many this hobby is a solitary one, we aren’t part of a team, we don’t attend huge “swap meets”, don’t share our passion with our mates down the pub and don’t tend to share our interests that much with our families. The reasons for all this are obvious — there simply aren’t that many collectors around for huge meetings to ever happen, we don’t want to start talking about our expensive collections to all and sundry (who knows who may be listening) and let’s be honest we’d be horrified if our better halves did take too much of an interest — they’d know how much we were spending then! But just because our hobby is quite insular doesn’t mean we necessarily want to be, and whilst the various internet chat rooms and forums are fantastic (particularly at shrinking the hobby globally) they don’t necessarily have that human touch and often their true worth is by introducing people virtually who are then eager to meet in real life.
Therefore I suggest that the success of Britannia, and the continued success of the other shows “on the circuit” isn’t necessarily about wanting to acquire new medals (although let’s be honest that’s a pretty powerful lure) but has just as much to do with feeling that we are part of something, feeling we’re not alone. We like the feeling that we’re around like-minded souls, like knowing that we can talk about “clasps”, “IGSs”, “suspensions”, “MIDs” et al without feeling (too) anorak-ish or being met with blank stares. We like the feeling of pride when we show off that group we’ve been eyeing up for ages and the feeling of approval from our peers when we manage to snap up a bargain that, quite frankly, would leave any “normal” person scratching their head and wondering what all the fuss was about. All this can be done at a distance of course and indeed there was a time when it was mooted that the medal fair would be a thing of the past — but I put it to you that not so long ago medal clubs and societies were also considered a dying breed but now they’re thriving with new branches of the OMRS and independent clubs springing up all the time. Whether medal club or medal fair, it’s all part of the same thing—our need to be part of something, our need to belong and that’s no bad thing. So might I suggest if you aren’t a member of a medal club or society or don’t attend at least a few fairs a year then you really should; sitting at home doing research and buying your medals purely by mail order or from eBay is all very well but, if that is all you do, if your only contact with fellow collectors is by email or similar, then you may well be missing out. Many of our readers, particularly those in the US, Canada and Australia simply won’t ever be able to attend a club or even a fair, distance prohibits it but for those of us less geographically challenged I really do feel you owe it to yourself to get out there a bit more. Who knows you may even have some fun.
The next Britannia show is on November 22, 2009 once again at the Carisbrooke Hall, Victory Services Club, London, for other fairs before that — and there are lots of them — see our What’s On Section on page 53. For some pictures from the last Britannia see page 9.

Coin News
May 09
Vol 46 No. 5

Forging ahead

AS we go to press another report on the prevalence of fake £1 coins in circulation has come to light. The findings of the report, this time coming from Willings, a company which makes machines to check coins for businesses and other organisations, apparently show that upwards of £73 million worth of forgeries could be out there. According to the BBC story into the report, car parking firms, vending machine operators, etc., have been sending coins to the company for checking and they have discovered that the percentage of fakes is far higher than, in fact over double, the Royal Mint’s estimate of last year.

In the last quarter of 2008 the Mint removed some 270,000 from circulation and it was estimated, from that, that 1 in 50 of the £1 coins in circulation was a forgery (see COIN NEWS, Editor’s Comment, November 2008). Now apparently Willings are claiming that as many as 5 per cent, that’s 1 in 20, are “wrong ’uns” and hysteria has once again broken out amongst the media who are claiming that “something must be done” and that with such a huge amount of money in fact not money at all, the country’s economy is in far worse shape than was ever suspected. Of course this is all sensationalism and it will die down very quickly, but numismatically the issue still remains—there are a great number of fake £1 coins out there and something really should be done.

Just how many fakes are in circulation will never be known, everyone’s just guessing, it’s the only way. But the fact that a company that specialises in checking coins for car parks and vending machine companies has estimated the number higher than the Royal Mint should come as no surprise. Anyone who has ever held a fake £1 will know they are relatively easy to spot—maybe the obverse/reverse die axis will be wrong, maybe the wrong edge legend will appear, or perhaps the strike will be shallow and indistinct. They are, in short, pretty shoddy with nowhere near the attention to detail given to forged notes. Anyone with knowledge of coins can tell one apart from the real thing, but once they have . . . what do they do with it? To pass a forgery on is an offence. To keep it or throw it away is to lose a pound—so what better way of getting rid of it than trying to put it in a machine! There’s no human interaction, no chance of being embarrassed by having your cash handed back—an easy solution, still illegal, but who’s to know . . . ? Most machines reject them of course, the “electronic signature” being wrong, but other less sophisticated machines that work mainly on weight and diameter may well be fooled. Problem solved. Until that is, the coins are sent to Willings or similar and checked. Suddenly a huge percentage are found to be forgeries and of course the car park or chocolate seller (or whoever) is out of pocket, prices go up and we all suffer.

That the fakes go into machines then is no surprise and I truly believe that skews the figures somewhat and I’m more inclined to err on the side of caution. But there is no denying the fact that there are a great number of forgeries out there and what is particularly interesting is people’s attitudes to them. I’m willing to bet that if you were unwittingly in receipt of a forged £20 or even a £10 note which you only spotted later when you weren’t sure who’d given it to you, you probably wouldn’t try to pass it off on your nearest retailer. You probably wouldn’t want to run the risk of that forgery being spotted, of your being quizzed by shop staff or being seen as somehow linked to the counterfeiters. You know that if you’re caught spending fake notes then there are all sorts of potential consequences and I think that what you’ll end up doing is actually cutting your losses and throwing the thing away. Being £20 down is better than being wrongly branded a crook! With £1 coins we have no such qualms, apparently we palm them off quite happily—or, as has been seen, try to fool machines with them, even though deep down we know there’ll be consequences somewhere. We are apparently prepared to put a fake note down to bad luck and curse the fates for our loss but not prepared to do the same for a sum twenty times less! And as long as we don’t do that, the forgers will carry on and our currency will be further debased. However, as I discussed in November the options are somewhat limited—just what do we do with fake £1 coins? We should just throw them away, treating them as worthless junk, but somehow we seem loathe to do so. Well, I have a solution. All you have to do is send them to us! Just stick them in a (padded) envelope, put a stamp on and send them in. We’ll catalogue them for Ken Peters’ study (see COIN NEWS, January 2009, page 16) and then send them on to the Royal Mint for eventual destruction (after they’ve examined them and, hopefully, come up with even more ways to counter them). We can’t reimburse you of course, you will lose your pound (to actually pay to have these taken out of circulation as some are suggesting just plays into the counterfeiter’s hands) but you’ll be doing some good both numismatically and to the economy—and let’s face it Mr Brown can do with all the help he can get right now! So do your bit for Britain and the coin world and send us those fakes—just don’t try to pay for your copy of COIN NEWS with them . . . !

Coin News
April 2009
Vol 46 No. 4

Counting down with coins

WHILST the news is depressing us daily with talk of doom and gloom in recessionary Britain, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that it was only four years ago that the country was riding on a high of optimism following the announcement that London was to host the 2012 Olympics. It’s a trifle worrying, here in 2009, that we’ll be holding a traditionally mind-blowingly expensive event on the back of the biggest economic downturn for decades. But no matter, host it we will and hopefully we’ll get it right. Of course in the UK we always seem to leave things to the last minute—look at the Wembley Stadium debacle or the Millennium Dome—we’d only known for 2,000 years that the Year 2000 would be upon us one day, so the fact that it seemed to come as a surprise to those organising the celebrations was a surprise in itself. We all know that come 2011, indeed early 2012, the papers will be full of stories about stadia being unfinished, transport links behind schedule and planned regeneration projects on the back burner—it’s the way we seem to do things and so it is a nice surprise to find the Royal Mint actually ahead of the game with their Olympic coin programme. Olympic coinage has a long history and the host nation is always expected to lead the way, a challenge the Mint has risen to a very un-British three years before the Games.
Billed as “Britain’s biggest ever commemorative coin programme in honour of the momentous 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games” there are actually three strings to this particular bow. The first is the Countdown to London 2012—a series of four £5 coins issued in limited numbers in gold, silver and cupro-nickel at a rate of one design a year for the next four years. The first depicts a rather stylised pair of swimmers with the number 3 superimposed upon them; one assumes that next year’s coin will feature another sport and a number 2; 2011 will feature a different sport and a “1” and that the coin for 2012 will either have large “0”, the word “go” written upon it or depict a starting pistol or similar—hence the “countdown” of the programme’s title. The consensus in the COIN NEWS office is that whilst the idea is a sound one the design is a little too “radical” for our tastes—but that’s just us, we’ll leave our reader ’s to make up their own minds.
The next “string” comes in the form of an ambitious 18 coin series of silver £5 coins in the Celebration of Britain range—a series that is due, according to the press release, “to celebrate Britain, its history, its people and its culture”. Apparently the coins are to “embrace the themes of Mind, Body and Spirit” with each theme being represented across six individual coins. The first three coins in the series feature the Angel of The North sculpture outside Gateshead, Stonehenge and the famous clock-face of the tower that houses Big Ben, all worthy symbols of Britain showing our achievements across the years, although whether these represent Mind, Body or Spirit is something we’ve yet to deduce. Although we haven’t been told of a rigid time frame, the number of coins planned leads us to assume that the next three coins are due out later this year with six more next year and six in 2011. To remind us that this isn’t simply another set of coins but should be intrinsically linked with the Olympics, all of the Celebration of Britain coins have the London 2012 logo picked out in green on the reverse.
The Countdown to London series also features the logo, in blue on the precious metal versions and as an integral part of the design on the BU version. Of course £5 crowns, whether in base or precious metals, are all very well but they aren’t necessarily inclusive. We all know that the 18 silver coins will be bought up by a certain type of collector, the gold and silver Countdown coins have a limited release so undoubtedly will all be snapped up almost before they on sale and the BU coin, whilst more readily available, still won’t circulate and be part of everyday life—which makes the forthcoming 50p series even more exciting! For those of you who don’t know, there is currently a design competition underway to find 29 designs featuring an Olympic or Paralympic sport—these 29 designs will then be immortalised on 29 different 50 pence pieces to be released at the rate of one design a month from March of next year. Just like the famous “American Quarters” programme in the States this particular “third string” is designed to get the general public “checking their change”, designed to get everyone looking out for the new coins and get them talking about what they’ve got in their pockets and it is this, far more than the £5 coins that will mark the Royal Mint’s contribution to 2012 as being one of the most innovative in Olympic coin history. Commemorative coins are all very well, and they were to be expected, but everyone does them for the Olympics—hosts or not—and had the Royal Mint done what countless other issuing authorities have done before them and just gone with a pleasant but uninspiring collection of “commemoratives” then they would have missed a trick. But they haven’t, they have gone for something different and done it in good time too. It almost seems a bit un-British of them—but for once that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Medal News
April 2009
Vol 47  No.4

All change for the OMRS in 2009

The annual Convention of the Orders and Medals Research Society has, for th last 31 years, been a highlight of the medal enthusiasts’ year. Apparently, however, this year things wil l be slightly different!
Back in the late 1970s, Convention was launched with the aim of allowing members to meet, dealers to sell and the Society to benefit from the income generated, but recently a declining level of members attending convention , a reduction in the number of dealers  and a spiraling level of costs  has resulted in the event becoming a cost to the society  as opposed to an income generator. It has therefore decided that something had to change.  As a not-for-profit organisation, but fortunately with a reserve of funds, the OMRS Executive was able to look at three options: either to continue as present thereby allowing Convention to die on the vine, to cease running altogether,  or to invest and radically change. Fortunately for the society and the hobby, the latter option has been decided upon!
The most obvious change was the venue, especially with the financial troubles the New Connaught Rooms are now facing. A change was perhaps long overdue, but the survey conducted for the Society’s Diamond Jubilee clearly indicated that London as a location should continue and this is supported by the demographics of the membership, the dealers and the strong support received from overseas members. In all, six major venues were identified, with cost, facilities available and location being taken into consideration, with BMA House in Tavistock Square, London WC2 quickly becoming the preferred venue . However, to simply continue with a “medal fair” no matter how good, was not deemed to be sufficient. To cater for the widest number of members’ needs the society felt it necessary to offer a “comprehensive medallic programme”. Peter Helmore, the General Secretary of the Society, explained to us that the real dilemma was how to present this in a manner which did not conflict with the medal fair. It was felt that both could not be conducted simultaneously and a two day event would be required.
As Pete reminded us, the Society is all about Research, it’s a key objective as set out in the constitution. It was decided therefore that the first day of Convent ion should carry a very big emphasis on this aspect and approaches were made to the principal archives and museum who expressed a keen interest in supporting an event which allowed them to share with members their research potential. A similar approach to two of the main website databases or genealogical research also received a positive response and both the Royal Mint and the National Army Museum have agreed to provide speakers. With the long established Members’ Exhibits taking place on the same day (in three classes Open, Single Medal and research Project) a full and attractive Research based programme could now be offered on the Saturday with the medal bourse taking place on the Sunday.
Al l of this of course comes at cost. Peter explained how the Society’s policy of greater financial control over recent years now means that member s can benefit from a major subsidy for Convention —for 2009 this figure has been set at a substantial sum. Therefore entry this yea will be £15 per member for the two days. Along with the BMA security requirement s, this is the main reason why the event will now be restricted to members only. Peter emphasized that he and the Executive felt that it would be very wrong for non-members to benefit from the use of Society funds and so the message now is very firmly that if you re not already an OMRS member and wish to attend Convention you should join now! Those who don’t simply won’t be able to attend Convention .
Anyone wishing to join the Society can do so online t www.omrs org.uk or write for an application form to OMRS, PO B x 48, Snettisham, Kings Lyn PE31 7TA. Family members wishing to accompany attendees to Convention may join the Society in advance for a reduced fee of £3.
Medal News hopes to be there, we’ve traditionally launched our MEDAL YEARBOOK at the event and are intrigued to see how the changes implemented this year will be received; we wish the OMRS every success of course. Other dealer s who have not yet been contacted direct and wish to attend should email events@omrs.org  or telephone: 01926 312176 (evenings).
The OMR Convention 2009 will take place over he weekend 19/20 September at BMA House, Tavistock Square WC2.

Coin News
March 2009
Vol 46 No. 3

Every cloud . . .

WELL that’s it then, global meltdown, the end of capitalism, society is on the brink and the world as we know it is about to be swept aside. As we go to press with this edition in mid February 2009 we know that most of the “developed” world is in recession and most of the developing world is struggling to cope now that their own mini-booms are over. This was of course inevitable—ever since the seven fat cows and seven thin cows of the Joseph and his Technicolour dream-coat story in the Old Testament the world has experienced cycles of boom and bust, of good times and bad—despite any politicians insisting they’ve made such scenarios a thing of the past! Look back down the years and you’ll see a pattern emerging, of prosperity followed by paucity. This particular recession is just history repeating itself and anyone with an ounce of economic sense could have told you that it, or something like it, was the logical conclusion to a decade or more of unprecedented expansion. The media, of course, are making it worse, in this age of 24 hour global communications the slightest bit of bad news is jumped upon almost gleefully by the news agencies and made ten times worse by sensationalist reporting, making us all feel that this particular downturn is affecting us far harder and deeper than any before it. Any piece of good news is conveniently played down, or completely ignored, and we are all left feeling that there is no hope and that we may all just give up now. The media, it seems, isn’t suggesting that the light at the end of the tunnel is a train but rather a searing fireball destined to burn away the very fabric of society as we know it. But that simply isn’t true, there are some pieces of good news . . . it isn’t all doom and gloom and whilst, yes, things may well be tough at times, there are also reasons to be cheerful—in our hobby more so than many other places.
Of course, you may well think I’ve gone completely mad: “good news? In this day and age?” Well actually, yes. The first thing to look at is the most obvious—the fact that there are still an awful lot of people out there who do have money. They’ve swiftly removed their savings from any Icelandic banks still standing, sold off their ailing shares and closed their Northern Rock accounts. So what do they do with it? Well there’s no point in just putting it in a bank, they hardly seem safe and if they are they are offering ridiculously low returns. No point in buying Premium Bonds now the prize fund is slashed, and property is still decidedly iffy (that’s if they can get a mortgage with the banks apparently using our money to shore up their books rather than actually lend to anyone). So it seems that those who do still have some spare cash are once more turning to good old fashioned assets like collectables, gold and the like, and money continues to come into our hobby at a very healthy rate. Now we never encourage outright investment in coins, as you know we far prefer that people collect for enjoyment rather than with a view to making a profit, but let’s be frank about this, the way things are we’re not about to start actively turning away those who want to spend cold hard cash now are we? Needs must . . . as the saying goes . . . !
So on the one hand you have people actively buying coins, at a time when they aren’t buying much else, and on the other you have people actively looking to sell them. As times get tougher so we see more and more people looking to sell off bits and bobs, eager to make a bit of spare cash to cushion the impact of any prolonged downturn; often those “bits and bobs” will include coins and banknotes, hidden away for years when the collecting bug left them or else handed down by a now long gone collector and never really looked at until now. Unfortunately most of these jam-jars, cigar boxes and the like yield little except disappointment, but every now and then gems do turn up and so for the first time in years new coins are coming onto the market in stronger numbers. For the last seven or eight years the major complaint we have heard from dealers has been the lack of stock coming into the hobby—they had the buyers but they just couldn’t find the coins to sell to them. That’s still the case, there is certainly not a glut of decent material, but some pieces are surfacing as old collections are dusted off and sold on and so a few collectors at least may well benefit.
In addition to these very compelling reasons to look on the bright side of this whole recession business we also have some very interesting side effects of the “crunch”, all of which will benefit us in the long run. Take for example the latest “Provincial Pound” in Lewes that made the national news recently. Following the success of the “Totnes Pound” and its almost protectionist basis of keeping money within the town, it seems other places are eager to print their own currency for use within their own area—an interesting combination of provincial banking and trade tokens. It’s something engaging people’s interest now and also has huge potential for the collectors of the future. We also have the prospect of Pound/Euro parity, something that has once again ignited the fire of debate on the whole single currency issue and has got the national media once more talking about the coins and notes in our pockets.
OK, so if you’re about to lose your job such things as these pale into insignificance and I accept that for many out there things will be looking bleak. But for those of us who aren’t facing the full brunt of this downturn and are instead just being constantly worried by what we see on TV and in the papers, it’s worth remembering that it isn’t all bad and that if you look hard enough every cloud has a silver lining—or a gold one!

Medal News
March 2009
Vol. 47 No. 3

All the fun of the fair

YOU will forgive me, I hope, if I use this “comment” to once again plug the forthcoming Britannia Medal Fair on March 29. I realise there are other medal related things going on and they do deserve a mention, but just for this month please indulge me because we truly believe that this is quite important!
After I had announced in the February issue that we at MEDAL NEWS were taking over the Britannia Medal Fair we had a flood of emails, letters and ‘phone calls from dealers and collectors alike all wishing us the best of luck, pledging their support and promising they would attend. The dealers have been as good as their word and as you will see from the feature on pages 28–29 we have a full house for our inaugural show—and I am sure that all the readers who have promised to come along will honour their pledges too—it should be a good day!
Of course, the vast majority of correspondence came from those who had visited the Britannia Fair in the past—they were all keen that the event should continue so that London, indeed the UK, shouldn’t lose such a specialist event, however a few missives of goodwill came from those who had never visited the show at all, and in some cases from people who had never visited a medal fair of any kind. And that got me thinking.
I have always assumed that most collectors are like me, inasmuch that they will do everything they can to add to their collection, take every opportunity to seek out their next acquisition and explore every avenue to ensure that they get as many bites of the cherry as possible, but that plainly isn’t the case. Whilst most of us do indeed collect like that, there are still others who collect very differently. Some will only deal with one trusted dealer, others will only buy at auction, some will only buy on-line and others only via mail order—now these methods are all well and good but may I venture to say that if you do only collect in one particular way then really you’re missing out. All the methods mentioned will yield good returns, of course they will, but if you don’t combine one or two of them then can you really be sure that you are really getting the best out of the market? Probably not, in which case I ask, what better way to expand your collecting ways than with a trip to a medal fair? Britannia specifically!
Of course, no medal fair will be perfect but when you have a large number of experienced and helpful dealers, not to mention fellow collectors, in one place then you’ll be amazed at what you can learn and see. But what is that exactly? Just what can a medal show bring to the average collector? Just what can you expect if you turn up to the Victory Services Club on what I hope will be a balmy spring day? What can the virgin fair-goer expect? Well, the first thing, of course, is medals—lots and lots of medals. We have dealers from up and down the country taking tables at Britannia—some of the best known and respected dealers in the country will be there and all will have some fantastic stock with them. Every aspect of collecting will be catered for and just about every permutation of this fascinating hobby will be covered. Whether your interest is Victorian singles, World War I gallantry or modern campaign groups (or indeed anything) you WILL find something of interest—whether you decide to buy it or not will be up to you!
As well as the medals you will also find a lot of camaraderie—most collectors, us at MEDAL NEWS included, realise that actually we’re all in this together and that helping each other really is one of the great plusses of this hobby. Britannia has always been a great place to come to meet fellow collectors and share stories and information and we really want that to continue—there’s a great bar at the Carisbrooke Hall and decent catering too, so why not sit and chat to collectors who share your interests over lunch or a cup of coffee? And as if a sea of medals that you can actually look at and handle and a chance to meet fellow collectors who share the very same passions as you wasn’t enough, there will also be the opportunity to meet some of your favourite authors and experts, get your copy of their book signed or maybe just ask them a question or two (see pages 28–29 for who’s attending). You’ll also have the chance to win £100 to spend at any one of the dealers stalling out at the show—either on the day or for up to six months later—what more could you want!? But don’t take my word for it, come along on the 29th, come and visit us at Britannia; if you’re a MEDAL NEWS reader it’s completely free (don’t worry if you lose your ticket—just tell us on the day that you’re a reader and we’ll sort it out), so what have you got to lose? And if you have never been to a medal fair before then you could do worse than take this one as your first experience. Go on, give it a go—you may well be pleasantly surprised—we’ll do our best to ensure that you are!

Coin News
February 09
Vol 46 No. 2

There are two sides …

TAKING delight in the mistakes of others is not a pleasant trait. However, I think we at COIN NEWS, and indeed the wider numismatic community in general, can be forgiven for raising a smile at the mistake that came to light late last year. After a quarter of a century the Royal Mint’s usually impeccable quality control somehow slipped up and, for the first time since the “NEW PENCE/TWO PENCE” error of 1983, a mule has escaped the confines of Llantrisant! During the minting of the new design 20p a mix up occurred, somehow (and we can see how easily it might have happened) an obverse die from the earlier “old” design was used (remember that before April 2008 all coins needed were minted with the old designs). Now, for most of the other coins that wouldn’t actually have been a problem—the “old” 2008 obverse and the “new” 2008 obverse being identical. But the 20p is different. It, along with the £2 coin, always had the date on the reverse and the obverse bore no indication of strike year. However, with the new designs that feature was removed and the lettering on the obverse changed to accommodate the year of minting. What has happened with this mule is that the old obverse, bearing no date, is married to the new reverse, again bearing no date, so for the first time in modern numismatic history a UK circulating coin has been struck that bears no year on it at all! Now, we’ll bow to knowledge superior to ours in this matter but we really can’t think of a single milled, circulating, coin that has (or rather doesn’t have) this feature. Certainly there was a gold piece struck without the date but we aren’t aware of any others, and certainly none we could come across every day—and this means that the 20p mule really is something special.

Just how special this is will depend very much on how many are out there, which is a factor that will, logically, greatly affect the coin’s value. The 1983 2p mule is currently worth a couple of hundred pounds, but we don’t really know how many of those were minted (they appeared in special “Martini” promotional packs back in 1983, but, crucially, not every pack had one). With this latest error we have been told by the Royal Mint that a “small number” have been produced. When pressed further they tell us that this number is likely to equate to a “batch”. which could mean anything from 100,000 to 200,000. Now to most of us this will sound like an awful lot, and I can already hear the interest in this mule waning, but before it does let me put things into perspective: since the introduction of the 20p coin millions have been minted every year, the lowest number ever struck (apart from 1986 when they only appeared in sets) was in 1992 when just over 31 million were minted. When it was first seen in our pockets, in 1982, there were over 740 million around! The annual mintage regularly exceeds 80 million, often topping 100 million, and you can bet that with the introduction of a new design the Royal Mint would have wanted a significant number out there, so a mintage in excess of 80 million is not unlikely. So, if you think 200,000 is a lot think of it in percentage terms: it is approximately 0.2 per cent of the estimated total mintage! If there are actually more like 100,000 struck and the total 20p mintage is higher (we’ll let you know as soon as we know!), then of course that percentage falls even lower. And if you look at the potential spread of these coins (so far we know of only two examples: one from Yorkshire and one from Exeter) amongst 60 million people in the UK, you will realise that even with every coin collector in the country looking for them it’s most unlikely that anything other than a very small number will ever surface, and those that do will have been circulating for some time and thus bashed about as “ordinary coins” are. So, condition is going to be of the utmost importance. As to values . . . we have been told by one leading dealer that he doesn’t think they’ll be worth very much and yet we have heard rumours of one example being sold online for over £100. What the true value is will only become clear in time as the number of decent examples available becomes known. But think of it this way: even if it is only worth something from the lower end of the scale—say £5 or £10—that’s still a huge bonus when you initially thought all you had was 20p! So time to check your pockets and purses ladies and gentlemen. It is time to stop and look carefully at your change again. Who knows, you could well be in for a pleasant surprise! For some time we’ve been urging the powers that be at the Mint to produce a limited number of “special coins” for circulation—maybe with a unique design or mintmark—not many, just enough to get people interested in the coins in their pockets again, just as everyone did in the years leading up to decimalisation or even before, when we were all searching for that elusive 1905 shilling, the mythical Edward VIII threepence or even the lost 1933 penny. Well, it seems they have, albeit unwittingly, obliged and whilst we are sure they won’t be overly pleased that their strict quality control has been breached, I do hope they aren’t too upset about it as it’s a real New Year bonus for collectors and, who knows, it could actually get some of the general public hunting around too—and that can’t be a bad thing, can it?

On the subject of the new designs we now know that all have been spotted in circulation. In December the new design £1 coin was seen as far afield as Scotland and Milton Keynes—thus completing the “jigsaw” and I had a 2008 £2 coin (with the traditional “technology” design) given to me in change just last week. Now the key thing is to find out how many of the mules we can spot and how many of the old design coins bearing 2008 are out there. I’ve seen a penny, 2p, 5p and we know of the 20p but what of the 10p and 50p? Did the Royal Mint make many of those before the April cut off date? Do let us know . . . !

Medal News
February 09
Vol 47 No. 1

Rule Britannia!

SOME months ago we featured a small piece on the Britannia Medal Fair—mentioning that after more than two decades of organising the show Fred Walland and Jeannie Robinson had decided to bow out. The news wasn’t entirely unexpected but it was greeted with much sadness by all within our hobby, dealers and collectors alike, especially as this left the capital (indeed the whole country) with no specialist medal fair bar the OMRS Convention bourse. At the last show, in November, you couldn’t escape the feeling that an era was ending and the consensus of opinion was that the loss of the fair was a loss to the hobby. We thought so too and so, after much to-ing and fro-ing with the Victory Services Club (where the event is held), we at MEDAL NEWS are proud to be able to say that as of March 2009 we will be the organisers of the Britannia Medal Fair!
Our first show will be held on Sunday, March 29, with the second one coming on November 22—we’re only looking to do two a year. There are already dozens of medal and militaria fairs up and down the country, not to mention coin fairs that also feature medals (and that we have to attend with our COIN NEWS hat on) and we don’t want to clash with any of those if we can avoid it. We plan to keep things at Britannia more or less the same as when Jeannie and Fred ran it—it will still be at the same venue (just by Marble Arch, central London), there will still be the bar, still be the chicken curry, still be the friendly, welcoming atmosphere that made it so popular, but in addition we hope to bring our own brand of sparkle to the show. Needless to say we’ll feature it heavily in MEDAL NEWS along with advertising elsewhere, entry to the fair will be completely FREE to all MEDAL NEWS subscribers via a ticket inside the magazine (so look out next month for that!) along with a prize draw that everyone who comes along will be eligible for. In addition everyone coming in will get a “money off” voucher to spend at our stand and we may even be able to persuade some of the dealers to run promotions too (we haven’t actually asked them yet, but who knows . . . !).
So far the response to us taking over the show has been unanimously positive with all of the regular dealers very keen to carry on “stalling out”—those who have confirmed so far include Fred Walland, Steve Sewell, Malcolm Gordon, DNW and Chelsea Military Antiques to name just a few. A full list will appear in next month’s magazine. We’re under no illusions of course—we can’t just trade on the goodwill that Fred and Jeannie built up over the years and in the current “economic climate” (which isn’t as bad as the media makes out, not by a long shot, but it isn’t all rosy in the garden either), we realise that taking on new projects like this might seem like a risk, but we don’t see it like that. It’s true that fairs have changed in recent years—the advent of the internet means you can collect without ever leaving your front room—but doing that and nothing more means you really are missing out on so much. There’s no real substitute for meeting fellow collectors, chatting to them over a coffee (or a curry!), no real substitute for looking at medals first hand, for handling them, weighing them up, studying them and actually feeling you’re part of something and not simply connected to it via your computer. There are no guarantees of course. It might not work, it might take a few shows to get the momentum going again—but no matter, our view is a long term one. We want to be part of the great hobby for many years to come and, in order to ensure we are, we have to support the hobby in any and every way possible. We aren’t planning on becoming organisers of huge events like “Who do you think you are? Live” (which we’ll attend once again on February 27–March 1 at Olympia), but we do believe the hobby in London, indeed the UK, will benefit from the Britannia show continuing, so we’re going to do our absolute utmost to see that it does. So come along on March 29, come and say hello, bring a friend, arrange to meet some fellow collectors, come and meet some dealers, have a look at their stock—or just come along and say hello to us—who knows, you may get a taste for it. We believe in the show, we really think it can work—we hope you do too. See you there!

Coin News
January 09
Vol 46 No. 1

The Atlas Experiment

I AM sure you are as fed up as I am with the seemingly endless talk on television, the radio, newspapers, etc., about the credit crunch, the recession and the fact that we are all going to hell in a handcart (apparently). There is no doubt that in certain sectors times are tough but how much of that has been created by the media is a matter of debate. I know that if I were working in the car or construction industry right now I’d be fuming at some of the irresponsible reporting going on at the moment. Unfortunately the media are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy and as they talk up fears of a recession so the public at large, fearful of the bleak future being portrayed, rein in their spending. As soon as the spending stops so just about every other sector of the economy begins to suffer—and that’s without the problems caused by banks unwilling to lend because mistakes of their own making have put them on the edge of collapse! What you may ask has this to do with our hobby? Well to put it simply if we are about to enter a period of recession, artificially created or not, we need to know what that means for us. Let me make one thing clear at the start: numismatics is not suffering in the same way as so many other areas are—you only have to look at the record prices being paid at auction and witness the very healthy attendance at coin shows to realise that we are in an exceptionally fortunate position. Indeed  collectable metal—be it in coin, token, medal or jewellery form, is bucking the trend set by just about every other market area at the moment and it seems that even those who have no interest in numismatics per se are increasingly happy to put their money into coins—well, with interest rates at record lows and the stock market in turmoil they have to put it somewhere!
That doesn’t mean though that we can be complacent, so we at COIN NEWS have drawn up a few pointers to keep our readers happy, no matter what the wider economy throws at them!
The first thing to realise is that in a world where money is tight, for many the chances are that there will be those looking to liquidate their assets and make some cash by selling their old coins and banknotes. Maybe they inherited a collection or some odd coins and didn’t really know what to do with them; maybe they were once collectors themselves but moved away from the hobby. Whatever their motivation the end result is the same—suddenly there are opportunities for us active collectors to pick up choice pieces that had hitherto remained undiscovered. So straightaway we see how a “crunch” can actually be a benefit for us; after years of being unable to find decent coins to swell our cabinets we might, fingers crossed,  be able to use these lean times to our advantage. Unfortunately it’s not as easy as that (you knew it wouldn’t be) because whilst the lean times might bring the good coins out of the woodwork you can guarantee it will bring the unscrupulous money grabbers out too. Of course we at COIN NEWS would always, and I mean always, suggest buying directly from a dealer when purchasing for your collection. With a bonafide dealer you know you’re getting what you expect to get . . . the grade will (usually!) be exactly what you thought it would be, the coin itself will be genuine and, if you’re not entirely satisfied, most dealers will be confident enough in their own stock that they’ll offer a money back guarantee (as long as you don’t push it too far—asking a dealer to take a coin back many months after you bought it isn’t really on, unless there’s a very good reason!). However, we do realise that in these days of global commerce you may well be tempted to deal directly with collectors, either through internet auction sites or other media. If you do it’s worth remembering a few basic things. The most important is that whilst you, as a dedicated collector, know just what EF should be, most people don’t and a coin marked up as “excellent” by a layman usually won’t be—pay accordingly! Also be aware that there are out and out crooks around. The internet especially allows anonymity and it is easy for those intent on conning you out of your hard earned money to remain hidden in a way a “real” dealer can’t. The crooks will sell you forgeries, they’ll sell you stolen coins, they’ll not even have the coins they say they have and cash your cheque and disappear, only to pop up again under a new username a few weeks later. I’m not trying to scaremonger, the cases of collectors being ripped off are still relatively rare, but just be vigilant, you don’t want to become a victim needlessly. Just remember that whilst there may well be some bargains out there as people look to make some cash, if it looks too good to be true the chances are that it is!