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Medal News
June 2008
Volume 46, No.6

Losing its shine

THERE can be no doubt that eBay has opened up our little hobby to a far wider audience. Where once we collectors and dealers simply bought and sold amongst each other and, if we were lucky, “from the family”, now there is a whole world out there that, thanks to the wonders of the internet, we are able to reach, both as potential buyers and, when necessary as sellers too. Suddenly what was once hidden, or popped up occasionally at boot sales, is now readily available as thousands of people realise that their old medals are worth something and sell them via the auction site. And the market place for sellers, once restricted to a few of us die-hards who subscribed to lists or visited shows, is opened up to include not only medal collectors but all those with an interest in local or family history too. eBay has allowed our hobby to be understood by many, many more people than we thought it could ever reach when we started MEDAL NEWS as a magazine in its own right 19 years ago. However, that’s the good side of eBay. There is, sadly, a downside to consider. You all know my feelings about the curse of the “copy” medals that proliferate on the site—one or two less-than-scrupulous individuals happy to destroy our hobby by purveying cheap and nasty rubbish, with no thought for the consequences and an eye only on making a fast buck. However, there is more to worry about than that. The fact that the internet has opened up the hobby has meant that anyone and everyone can become a dealer—and many do just that, inevitably leading to a decline in stock levels of the “proper” dealers. In the past, individuals not in the hobby wouldn’t know who to sell medals to except a dealer; now those same individuals often just hop on their computer and sell that way—meaning that dealers, if they want stock, have to buy from the same pot as the rest of us and, in order to make a living, inevitably have to add a percentage. This increase in “part -time” dealers inevitably leads to some dodgy goings-on,

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Portcullis coinage of Elizabeth I

Coin News
June 2008
Volume 45, No.6

Another View

The recent unveiling of the new designs for the reverses of the UK circulating coins has been greeted by a mixed reaction in both the numismatic world and beyond. In the main the response seems to have been much as outlined in this Editorial last month (“A fistful of pennies”, COIN NEWS, May 2008)—that as a design concept the new coins are a triumph (for those of you who don’t know, all seven coins from the penny to the one pound have been redesigned, with the six smaller denominations each making up a part of the overall design of the Royal Shield of Arms and the £1 depicting the shield in its entirety), but perhaps as individual numismatic pieces there are some things that should have been better considered.
My personal concerns about the new coinage (namely that Wales wasn’t represented, that the £2 coin now looked out of place and that there were no denominational numerals on the coins) seem to have been the ones echoed by most correspondents to this magazine and indeed in debate further afield in the “general” media. The Royal Mint has responded to these criticisms and whilst I don’t fully agree with their sentiments their replies do make some sense.

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