September 2003 Coin Newsletter

By Steve Hill

This latest report reaches you in early September as we are just putting the finishing touches to some significant physical changes to the layout of the first floor here at Spink. The changes have therefore affected Books, Medals, ATS Bullion and Coins and we hope that they are changes for the best to benefit our customers who call in personally to see us.

The first floor has remained unchanged since we moved to this building in February 2000 and after more than three years it was time to react to the needs of the customers and staff to make everything much more user friendly. One of the best changes I feel is for the book department which previously had only limited browsing facilities. Now as customers exit the lift and enter our floor gone is the old four position counter and welcome to the refreshed book department with shelves of book stock to browse at leisure, and with all book department staff close at hand.

Straight ahead is a small counter dedicated to those customers wishing to buy and sell bullion or modern issues, Sandra and Linda will be pleased to serve you at this counter for all your modern needs.
For coins and medals customers will now walk to the right of the books and find our new three position counter and waiting area for all numismatic needs with plenty of staff on hand to help you. The area beyond is open plan with some great natural light streaming in from the windows at the back end of the floor. This will be a vast improvement and will also save the staff so much leg work in fetching and bringing coins for browsing.

These works have been conducted in what is traditionally our quiet period of the year and August has proven to be a less active month as most people take their holidays at this time of the year especially those customers on the Continent. We hope these changes will be for the best and look forward to welcoming customers old and new to our premises.

Speaking of old and new, on the night of Tuesday 2nd September, we held a party at Spink for staff members old and new. This was a very well attended party with good food and drink and everybody enjoyed themselves. There were some staff members in attendance who even left Spink in the 1960’s, and most had not even been to our new premises. It gave our new owners a chance to meet the “old school” and chat with some of today’s best independent dealers in their own fields.

As we enter September we are again gaining momentum for the busiest part of the year, the Coinex season of October and our November auction. The next Circular is due out at the beginning of October to coincide with Coinex. There will be a good list of Greek and Roman as well as welcome list of ancient British coins. There is also a separate hammered list and one of European medieval. I am currently working on a good collection of milled silver coins for this October edition. There is a nice type run of Crowns as well as some good quality shillings and sixpences. There are also a few good Maundy sets. There will also be a listing of 17th Century tokens of Yorkshire and Ireland, many of which come from the famous Norweb collection. In future editions of the Circular we hope to have a good selection of new 18th Century tokens but this will not appear until December at least.

Our next show will be the Kensington International Coin Fair at the Commonwealth Institute on September 20th 2003 from 9.30am, just for that one day. Paul Hill, Emily Reid and I will be in attendance at this show and look forward to welcoming you to our table.

The October Coinex auction catalogue will be out imminently now and will contain a plethora of good ancient and foreign coins and an interesting group of touching ceremony pieces and gold angels. The Coinex auction has been written up in a report more full elsewhere on this website.

Enjoy your coins during the month of September and we look forward to what October will bring.

Stephen Hill
Associate Director
Coins