Research Articles

A collection of Durrani Mohurs, property of an Indian Prince

On December 5^th Spink is to auction the most extensive collection of Durrani gold Mohurs ever offered. The Durrani dynasty was to Afghanistan what the Mughals were to India, uniting the Pashtun tribes for a generation; long enough to mould Afghanistan into the form it takes today. The coins themselves speak of the extent of the empire, with mints as far flung as Shahjahanabad (Delhi) in the east and the holy city of Mashhad, now situated in Iran to the west. They date from the first year of Ahmad Shah's rule in 1748 to the reign of his grandson, Shah Shujah in the early 19^th century.

The dynasty's founder, Ahmad Shah, was born into the Sadozai family of the Abdali tribe of Pashtuns. He first served as a military commander under the infamous Afsharid ruler Nadir Shah on various campaigns. While probably not present when he seized the Peacock Throne from the Mughals in 1739, he gained skills in both warfare and the administration of a great empire, and was on hand when Nadir was killed by his Persian generals. This proved a pivotal point in his career as he took the opportunity to seize much of Nadir's portable wealth, including the famedKoh-i-Noordiamond and flee with it to Qandahar at the head of the army's Pashtun contingent. A fortuitous encounter with a treasure convoy destined for Nadir's camp ensured he reached Qandahar with both tribal support and wealth enough for him to be formally crowned as Shah in July 1747, accepting the titleDurr-i-Durrani(pearl of pearls). Qandahar was renamed Ahmadshahi in his honour, and became the capital, bearing the epithetAshraf al-Bilad(most noble of cities).  The Abdali tribe, from which he sprang, were henceforth styled the Durranis.

The time was ripe for Ahmad to launch an exhaustive series of campaigns that capitalised on the demise of the Safavids, the disruption in the Mughal Empire and the sudden collapse of Afsharid power. His empire expanded rapidly, at its height being bounded by Delhi to the east, the Amu Darya (Oxus River) to the north, Persian Khorasan in the west and the Arabian Sea to the south. It included the Indus valley and much of Kashmir.  He struck coins at mints situated in every part of his kingdom, but at some the issues were sporadic and linked to his arrival on campaign. The coins themselves were modelled on those of the Safavid and Mughal dynasties; the mint name being written on the reverse, often with a descriptive epithet, and a rhyming couplet appearing inNastaliqscript on the obverse. Ahmad's standard couplet is found on all his issues in this collection:

Hukm shod az qadir-i-bechun ba-Ahmad badshah

Sikkah zan bar sim-o-zar az auj-i-mahi ta ba-mah

"Command came from God, the inscrutable, to Ahmad the King,

Strike coin on silver and gold from the top of fish (depths of the sea) to the moon"

Although it is believed that coins were struck at Qandahar in the first year of his reign, the earliest extant coins appear to have been issued at Lahore in 1748 (AH1161) after the flight of the Mughal governor, Shah Nawaz Khan, and Ahmad's entry to this city in January.  Lahore was later given to Ahmad's son and successor, Taimur, to govern, so we also find coins in Taimur's name struck at this mint from AH1170 (1756) (lots 534 & 535). Kabul, which became the capital in 1772, also struck Durrani coins from 1748 (lot 512). Other mints were to be found at Herat, the original homeland of the Abdali dynasty, Peshawar, their winter capital on the plains, while the Indus valley had mints at Multan and Attock until overrun by the Sikhs.

Ahmad led no less than eight campaigns to India during which Shahjahanabad was occupied twice. In 1757 a daughter of Alamgir II was given to Taimur in marriage, and the search for hidden treasure was so frenetic that excavations took place under thehavelisof prominent officials.  He was in the area again in AH1173 (spring of 1760) and AH1174 (1761) before and after defeating the Marathas at the battle of Panipat. On both occasions Ahmad Shah reinstated the Mughal emperor, seeming happy to depart with plunder and the glory of bringing the great Mughals into submission. However he marked both occasions with an issue of coins (lots 525 - 528), the most remarkable being the Nazaranas struck in 1760 and 1761 (lot 526).

Although an agreement was signed with Shah Rukh in 1751 at Mashhad giving Ahmad Shah the right to strike coins in his own name, issues of this mint are only known for 1754/5 (lots 532 & 533). There are also a couple of mints striking Durrani coins to be found in present day Uttar Pradesh. Ahmadnagar-Farrukhabadwas ruled by an ally of Ahmad Shah, Nawab Ahmad Khan Bangash. After fighting side by side at Panipat, the Nawab struck coins in the name of Ahmad Shah (lot 504). The Rohilla chief, Nawab Najib-ud-Daula, also formed an alliance with Ahmad Shah during his latter campaigns in the Punjab, hence the single-year issue of Najibabad, AH1180 (1767) (lot 520). Sarhind was in the hands of Ahmad on several occasions. Initially he occupied the fort on his first Indian campaign in March 1748 and later the area was endowed to him by Alamgir II as part of the marriage alliance of 1757. In 1767 the Shah granted the government of Sarhind to Amar Singh of Patiala who struck coins the name of his overlord. In fact, Ahmad Shah's name and couplet appear on coins of Patiala, Jind and Maler Kotla right into the 20^th century.

By far the most unusual and rare mint was that used on campaign.  Rikab or Rikab-i-Mubarak literally means "the august stirrup" implying that the coins were struck very much on the move at a camp mint. One issue is known for Ahmad Shah, dated the first day of AH1173.  This collection is fortunate to have an issue of Shah Shuja (lot 607) as yet uncatalogued.

Ahmad died in 1772 leaving four sons:Sulaiman, Taimur, Sikandar and Parwez.Taimur had been chosen to succeed, but as Sulaiman was both the eldest and the son-in-law of the prime-minister, Shah Wali Khan, there was an attempt to enthrone him. This resulted in the single-year issue of coinage represented by lot 536. Taimur Shah put down this rebellion and moved his capital to Kabul. He did not attempt to expand the empire and withdrew as much power as possible from his kinsmen the Sadozais and the other Durrani chiefs who he mistrusted. Although some marginal territories were lost, this was a prosperous time, as the many issues of Kabul, Herat, Peshawar and Qandahar attest. The couplet used on his coins was:

Ba-alam yaft sikkah-i-Taimur Shah Nizam

Ba-hukm-i-khuda-o-Rasul-i-anam

"The stamp (or coin) of Taimur Shah gained rule in the world

By command of God and of the Prophet of Mankind"

Unfortunately when Taimur Shah died in 1793 he gave no instructions as to who of his many sons should succeed him.  Humayun was the eldest and he struck coins at Qandahar in 1793 which are extremely rare (lot 581). The fifth son Shah Zaman appears to have had a larger following as he succeeded in ruling for seven years between 1793 and 1801. However battles between the brothers continued throughout his reign. When he tried to retake Sindh his brother Mahmud, then governor of Herat, aided a Persian revolt in Khorasan which diverted his troops away.  Mahmud finally defeated and blinded Shah Zaman in 1800. However he himself was defeated and imprisoned by another brother, Shah Shuja in 1803. In 1809 Mahmud seized power again, exiling Shuja to India, from where he returned in 1839 to rule briefly until 1842. The constant battling between the princes of this line and that of a rival Durrani tribe, the Barakzais, was to continue throughout the 19^th century, but the latest coin in this collection is dated AH1223 (1808) when the Durranis were still at their height.

Country Gentleman's Association Magazine Feature:

A Gentleman of Note

Established in 1666 Spink of London have long been associated with the trade in ancient and rare coins. They also deal in the world's most desirable banknotes under the knowledgeable eye of Barnaby Faull

If you should come across an eighteenth century Bank of England banknote in the back of an old drawer somewhere, you will be pleased to hear that the Bank will still give you the note's face value in return for it, which isn't the case in any other country. A hand-written note from 1705, for example, would have been made out for a very specific amount of money and if you presented a note for ninety nine pounds, seven and four pence, that's exactly what the Bank would give you... in new money. The alternative, however, is to take the note to Barnaby Faull, Director of Banknotes at Spink. Here Barnaby would cast his expert eye over the note and give you its probable value at auction, possibly into tens of thousands of pounds.

"I'm the sort of person who, if someone comes into the office with a really good banknote, will actually tell the owner it's really nice. You've got to feel enthusiastic about what you're dealing in or else you can't buy and sell it," says Barnaby. He must be fairly enthusiastic about banknotes as he's been dealing in them for thirty eight years, and working for all that time at Spink, the famous company which auctions and deals in coins, medals, stamps, bonds & shares, wines and books as well as banknotes. He doesn't collect banknotes himself, of course; there would naturally be a conflict of interest. But he certainly understands the way collectors work.

As a child in Sussex Barnaby used to collect sixpences to put in a cardboard album made by Sandhill Bullion. "The coins used to tarnish in the board, but that didn't matter," he says, "I can remember that the 1952 sixpence was very rare and I had one, which made me so pleased. The point is that you look for the date that you're missing; it's not the money, it's the thrill of the chase for a collector. They're single-minded and I can understand that." These days Faull is more of a collector of collectors; his decades at the most reputable dealer in banknotes has given him connections with clients all over the world  "When something really interesting comes in you don't think 'What can I sell it for?'" he says, "You think 'Who am I going to offer it to?' It's all built on human relationships."

And the banknote market is absolutely a collector-based market rather than an investor's market: "If someone came to me with a hundred thousand pounds and said, 'I want to buy the best bank notes you've got,' we couldn't sell them any. When a good banknote comes in, we know just the collector that would love to add it to their collection, so we would always place it with a passionate collector, rather than an investor. I advocate buying because you actually like the note, rather than for its prospective value. There is no room for investment money because there aren't enough banknotes, and there are plenty of pure collectors to buy everything there is."

A Venerable History

Barnaby's advice is if you like it, buy it; if you don't like it, don't. During his time at Spink he's seen the level of interest in banknotes evolve into what it is today. He began his career in the coin department after leaving school, having worked there during the school holidays. When the existing banknote expert left, the MD simply said, "Get Barnaby to do the bank notes," and so a career was born. "We used to sell a few bank notes at the end of a coin sale back then," says Barnaby, "and now we sell coins at the end of a banknote sale; it's a big and growing business."

Although they had been used in China and the Far East since the seventh century, the first English banknotes appeared in the seventeenth century, made out for precise sums, and in the eighteenth century fixed denomination notes gradually appeared. Before that time everybody just used coins; they didn't trust paper. However, during the Napoleonic wars the Bank of England worried that people would hoard gold so the one pound banknote was introduced. Among the notes close at hand in Barnaby's office is the fourth one pound note ever produced, "We've sold number two in the past," explains Barnaby, "number four is right here, number three is in the Institute of Bankers... and we've no idea where number one is. Probably in the back of a book somewhere!"

As we look through these very old, and very large, notes, some of their fascinating history is literally written all over them. As well as signatures and scrawls, some notes have been cut clean in half. They were deliberately cut in half by the bankers or the notes' owners. This was to enable one half of a note, or batch of notes, to be sent to its destination in one stagecoach, and the other half in another stagecoach, meaning that any highwayman who held up one of the coaches only came away with a bundle of no-good half notes. They weren't valid until the two halves were stuck back together again at their destination, with the serial numbers on both halves matching. Which sounds a damn sight safer than some of the internet banking which goes on these days.

Interest in notes themselves has grown, according to Barnaby, over the past forty years. "People have collected coins for two thousand years," he says, "and every household has a drawer full of old coins from holidays and so forth. But you wouldn't hang on to a foreign note; it's too valuable - you'd change it back to sterling at the bank. But when you think about it, a banknote is twenty times the size of a stamp, it's much better printed because it has to be to stop someone from copying it; an interesting one in good condition is instantly going to interest a collector."

Barnaby shows me the oldest watermarks on some of the eighteenth century notes, and explains that the notes we use today are printed on paper still made by the same company in Hampshire as was used two hundred and fifty years ago. No one has ever stolen the paper; it's probably kept more securely than notes are even at the printing stage, he says.

"The only time they had a problem was when the Germans made notes during the war in an attempt to destabilise the pound; the largest counterfeiting operation in history," Barnaby says. "It was called Operation Bernhard. At a prisoner of war camp Jewish forgers were made to produce very, very good forged notes, but they didn't have access to the watermarked paper. There's a tale that goes that there was actually an imperfection in the authentic notes' watermark, which in their efforts to make a perfect note, the Germans corrected. The story is that they made a perfect note... but it was too perfect to be authentic. I would love to believe that because it's such a good story."

Characterful Collectors

The other thing Barnaby's been collecting during his time at Spink is some fantastic stories. There was the chap who came into the office with a whole bundle of hundred pound notes from the 1930s which, when they were printed, would have each bought a couple of terraced houses in Battersea. "He'd found about forty of these notes in a safe in Jersey and left them with us to sell. Within the bundle there were about eight thousand-pound notes he hadn't noticed. Each of those would have bought you a house in Belgravia in the '30s. A thousand pound note is now worth about twenty five thousand pounds at auction; a house in Belgravia... well, I dread to think!"

There was the time Barnaby had to buy (for a period of 12 hours) the entire contents of the lockable duty free cupboard on a grounded aeroplane in order to leave a client's collection in a safe place overnight when he was required to disembark for the night in Bombay but couldn't take the collection with him through customs.

Then there was the man who bought a piece of antique furniture in the back of which he found about five banknotes which went on to sell for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. And the elderly gentleman who brought in an album of Zanzibar notes printed by a company called Waterlow whose archive had been destroyed by fire. "This chap came in with a collection of notes which he'd been given when he was a boy; presumably one of his relatives was connected with the production of the notes. It was an extraordinary collection which he decided to sell and give the money to charity. We catalogued and auctioned it for him and it went for about a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; he was sitting in the room as I did the auction, completely agog," enthuses Barnaby. "The whole thing was great fun. That's the human side of things."

Cashless society

And what of the future of the bank note? I ask if Barnaby thinks we're heading for a cashless society. "I think we probably are heading that way. It drives me bonkers to stand behind someone in the queue paying for a croissant with a credit card, but people do use them all the time. Cash is quite an old fashioned thing. In the future we'll have a card that we just swipe every time we buy something. That would be very good for the banknote market, of course, because people will get nostalgic about them."

In the meantime, the sheer variety of work done by Spink's banknote expert is keeping life very interesting. When he's not chugging on the train from Southampton Row to his home in Wiltshire, he's jetting around the world to visit clients and Spink's overseas offices. "It's nice to be doing an English provincial collection one minute, going to Penang to do a Chinese collection the next and then awaiting the arrival of another Chinese collection from Buenos Aires shortly. The notes are moving all over the world."

But as he goes about collecting collectors and their stories, Barnaby reflects that, "It's a strange old business if you think about it; people buying stamps or coins or banknotes. It's a personal foible; these things are intrinsically worth nothing at all so why should people pay so much for them? But because I used to collect, I understand it. You either have a collecting gene or you don't."

Provincial Pieces

English provincial banknotes offer a unique and fascinating insight into the historical development of the English banking system. The David Kirch Collection which will be sold this autumn is a remarkable link with the past

The extent of the David Kirch Collection of provincial banknotes is incredible. Two large boxes full of carefully wrapped notes, divided into their counties of issue. And Barnaby Faull is delighted, "The provincial bank series is a fantastic one," he says, "and very few people know it exists."

Until the mid-eighteenth century the majority of private banks were located in the city of London but by 1798 there were just over 300 country bankers. Wealthy people outside a 30 mile radius of London could open their own banks and they were known as 'country' or 'provincial' banks. The banker's aim was to confine his notes to the immediate locality, where they would be recognised and trusted, and hopefully remain in circulation for a long time. Once outside the vicinity, the notes would gravitate to his London agent for redemption.

In 1825 a crisis occurred which saw the collapse of many private banks. A major factor was the over-issuing of notes such that they could not be honoured if a number came in for payment together. The collapse of one or two banks caused a run on the others and general panic set in. There are numerous stories from this period about the ruses used by the banks in an attempt to allay the panic, including banks employing a number of people who would come into the bank one after the other and 'pay in' amounts of gold coins, which would immediately be taken out the back and brought around for the next 'customer'.

The Bank Charter Act of 1844 aimed to eliminate note issue by all except the Bank of England. Only banks issuing on 6th May 1844 could issue after that date. Somewhat surprisingly, this was the first time that the government, which had controlled the minting of coins for hundreds of years, had attempted to regulate the production of bank notes, and by 1921 the last provincial note issue had ceased.

The notes in the David Kirch Collection form a veritable A-Z of the country; from Abergavenny to the Yorkshire Banking Company, towns and counties alike are represented. I rifle through the Dorset section with Barnaby, pushing past a number of Dorchester and Lyme Regis notes to get to Shaftesbury and find a very beautiful note issued in my home town. He's right; I never knew it existed.

"You don't have to be a bank note collector to be interested in these," explains Barnaby. "I was born in Sussex, I'm part-Cornish and I live in Wiltshire; I'd be interested in owning notes from any of those counties. I look at some of the local bank notes I'm cataloguing at the moment and think how lovely they are.

"Many of the banks went bust, and all eventually closed; because of that people ended up with valueless notes in the back of old drawers, so many of them have turned up over the years. I'd love people to be more aware that you can get hold of these notes with the name of your local town on them.

"The owner is selling the collection on behalf of the David Kirch Charitable Trust so all the money raised will go to charity, which is very important to Mr Kirch. He's gone as far as he can with this series; he's come full circle and now it's time to sell. Generally speaking provincial notes cost from about a hundred to six or seven hundred pounds. They're very affordable."

The most beautiful are works of art, the more crudely printed ones, and those with bankruptcy hearing stamps and handwritten notes on the back are rich in history, and all of them very desirable.

The David Kirch Collection will be sold at four auctions around the country starting with a London sale on 2nd October and continuing in December and early 2013.

Above: A £5 Sudbury Bank of Alexander, Birkbeck, Barclay & Buxton note. It has a vignette of a building at the centre, a design of circles at the left and is printed in a distinctive orange-red colour. Each of the four partners listed on the note was a well-known member of the Victorian banking world. The name of 'Barclay' is perhaps the most recognisable name for us today. In 1896 the Sudbury Bank was one of 20 private banks that combined to form Barclays bank.

Above: A very rare unissued £10 note from the Wiltshire and Dorset Banking Company for issue at its branch in Warminster, date 18- (c 1835-1883), black and white, with the bank building at left. Very rare and in exceptional condition. It is estimated to fetch between £400-600 at auction.





Coins of England & The United Kingdom was first published in 1929 by B.A. Seaby Ltd. and was issued as a paper cover booklet with a cover price of 6d and was entitled Catalogue of Coins of Great Britain and Ireland. It later became the Standard Catalogue of the Coins of Great Britain and Ireland in 1945 which was written by H.A. Seaby between air raids, whilst in Air Raid Precautions Control Room in North London. So popular was this edition that it ran to three impressions, reprinted in 1947 and 1949.

These early editions were basically pricelists of coins held in stock at the time of going to press, but also with prices offered for sought after items. One example being in the 1936 edition which offered no less than £200 at the time for a specimen of the gold penny of Edward the Confessor, an amount approximately equivalent in today's monetary terms to £11,000; a huge sum of money at the time for a coin, considering what that amount of money would have bought in 1936.

Editions were surprisingly regular from 1929 up to the outbreak of war in 1939, there being a new edition approximately every two years, resuming on a bi-annual basis with the publication of the 1945 edition.

It was in 1962, under the editorial control of Peter Seaby, that the Scottish, Irish, Anglo-Gallic and coins of the Islands were taken out of the catalogue and published separately. This 1962 edition was the first of a new series which was then published annually through to 1976 and saw the introduction of photographic illustrations in place of the beautiful line-drawings which had previously been used. There was no edition in 1977 whilst work on a greatly revised, new format, 16^th edition was in progress and this set the standard for the next 20 years until Spink acquired the entire publications arm of B.A. Seaby Ltd. during 1996.

The first edition published by Spink was the 33^rd edition in 1997, then, ten years on from there and the 42^nd edition again saw a revolution with the transition to colour printing. This process was achieved without missing an edition and involved the massive undertaking of sourcing and re-photographing every coin in the catalogue.

Published annually, it is now in its 44^th edition, 80 years on from its conception in 1929 and weighing in at nearly 600 pages, in full colour and packed with information. It is difficult to imagine what it might look like in another 80 years time and will still have our own currency in Britain then?

The catalogue now covers all coins which have circulated in the British Isles from the earliest times when coins from northern Gaul were imported around 150 B.C. right up to the latest new issues from the Royal Mint.

Primarily intended for the collector, it also serves as a single volume handbook for the archaeologist, museum curator, detectorist and any person who has a coin to identify and who wishes to know its current market value. With helpful sections on grading and the housing and care of coins; information about numismatic clubs and trade associations; a bibliography for further reading; explanations of numismatic terms and translations of foreign and Latin legends found on British coins, it truly is the handbook for British coins.

We are also giving away a free double-sided jigsaw of this year's cover coin with every copy of the book which features the impressive Testoon of Henry VIII struck at the Tower Mint in London, 1544-47.

To place your order please contact the Book Department at Spink.

Tel: (44) 207 563 4046 or email: books@spink.com

 £25

Of English Provincial Banknotes

By Roger Outing

English provincial banknotes offer a unique and fascinating insight into the historical development of the English banking system. The early days of the London goldsmith-bankers during the 1650's; the explosive expansion of provincial private bankers during the early 1800's; the establishment of the first joint stock banks in the 1830s'; the final consolidation of the "Big Five" banks in the 1920's, these can all be recorded in the wide range banknote issues that were made in the past.

What is needed to bring these threads of historical banking development together is a single banknote collection that is sufficient in scale and quality to encompass all the various elements. The David Kirch collection of English provincial banknotes does exactly this. As you view the David Kirch collection, the history of English banking is revealed and explored in a manner that perhaps no other medium can achieve. Provincial banknotes are a real and tangible link with the past. Through them you are in contact with the origins and growth of the industrial revolution, the subsequent development of our major industrial cities, and also with the establishment of a banking system that enabled London to be the financial centre of the world for the larger part of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Just a handful of examples from the David Kirch collection are described here...

18th Century Southampton

The Southampton Commercial Bank was established in 1793 by Christopher Shaw, operating in partnership with his brother Thomas Shaw. They were linen drapers and wine merchants at 159, High Street, Southampton, from which they would have also conducted this banking business. Shown at Fig. 1 is their 5 Guinea note of 1795 with small vignette of a ship, hand signed (bottom right) by "Chris Shaw", with the further signature (bottom left) of "Thos, Shaw" the latter recording the entry of the note in the banknote register. This combination of banking with some other pre-existing business enterprise was a normal procedure during this early period. As there was no regulation of banking at this time the Shaw brothers were quite at liberty to simply start a bank and then to commence the issue of their own banknotes. Amazingly, Christopher Shaw could actually claim previous banking experience as he had been a partner in the Southampton Town & County Bank since 1785.

Despite his previous banking experience, Christopher Shaw proved to be better as a traderthan he was as a banker. The bank failed in 1796 and bankruptcy followed for the twobrothers. It should be noted that this 5 guinea note does not have any of the cancellation or bankruptcy stamps that might be expected. With the Southampton Commercial Bank only trading from 1793 to 1796 then this issued and uncancelled 5 guinea note, hand signed by each of the Shaw brothers, is an important record of early banking in Southampton.



Great Hewas, Cornwall Illustrated at Fig. 2 is a £1 dated 1818 with the title "Great Hewas, Cornwall" with a vignette of Lion with Shield and the legend "One and All" at the upper left. This 'bank' is not listed in any standard banking reference nor in Standard Catalogue of Provincial Banknotes of England & Wales by Roger Outing. It is a previously unknown note and, to date, is the only known surviving example. It is hand signed by "J. Stanley" on behalf of the six partners whose names are printed on the note.

It is relevant that the title does not include the word "Bank" - this description has been avoided. Great Hewas, 3 miles west of St Austell, was in fact the location of a copper and tin mine that commenced operations in the 1790's. Whilst further research needs to be done this note was very likely an issue by the owners of the mine who, not being bankers, chose to avoid that description. The text states that it was payable at "Barclays, Bevan, Tritton & Co, Bankers, London" and this is consistent with the needs of businessmenfor having funds available to them in London. Circulation of notes such as this would have been very limited - most certainly the miners themselves would never have seen one. Preservation of this example within the David Kirch collection is a real find indeed and demonstrates how private collections can function as important archives that preserve what otherwise might be lost.

Old Bond Street, London

Most accounts of banking history present the accepted view that private bankers in London ceased the issue of their own banknotes sometime in the 1770's. This was because of the dominance of the Bank of England in London and the fact that their notes served for all practical purposes. Illustrated at Fig. 3 is proof that this accepted view is not entirely accurate. This is a 5 Guinea banknote of Stephen Thurstone Adey, William Macgeorge & Co, dated 1801, with ornate initials and the address of 22, Old Bond Street at the upper left. It is hand signed, very neatly, by "Wm. Macgeorge" as partner.

This private bank of Adey & Macgeorge was only in existence from 1801 to 1805. There is no record of bankruptcy so the assumption is made that the bank ceased trading and paid off its debts, including the note issue. This makes the survival of this issued and uncancelled 5 Guinea note very unexpected and ensures that it is a highly desirable piece for any provincial banknote collection. It is the only surviving example that has been confirmed. In respect of the London bankers it is these late issue (e.g. post 1800) notes that are generally more difficult to find than earlier issues.

A £100 from Nottingham

George Moore opened his private bank in Nottingham in 1802 and was later joined by Frederick Robinson. In 1836 these by then well-established private bankers created Moore and Robinson's Nottinghamshire Banking Co. and thereby became part of the joint stock banking movement. Their bank was highly successful and outlived the original partners to be taken over by London County Westminster & Parr's Bank in 1919. This became Westminster Bank Ltd in 1923 and we now call the bank NatWest. This is an example of a private bank transforming itself into a joint stock bank and then prospering to become part of the 'Big Five' banking system of the 20th Century. Any example of a note from such a bank is an important historical record.

Shown at Fig. 4 is the highly attractive Moore & Robinson's £100 note from Nottingham and which is perforated with "Specimen C Skipper & East". It is undated but as "Limited" is included in the title then it must be post-1866 -as the bank was not a limited company until that date. An issued note of this £100 denomination has not yet been seen but it is entirely possible that the denomination would have been issued. Obviously any such issue would have been very small in number and the chance of them not being cashed in at the Bank must be remote indeed. Consequently this Specimen £100 becomes a very desirable piece for any collection.

Colourful £5 from Sudbury

Shown at Fig. 5 is the £5 Sudbury Bank of Alexander, Birkbeck, Barclay & Buxton. It is dated 1880 and is hand signed by one of the partners "Samuel Alexander". The note has been cancelled by writing "Cancelled" in red ink over the black ink signature. It has a vignette of building at the centre, a design of circles at the left and is printed in a distinctive orange/red colour. Each of the four partners listed on the note was a well-known member of the Victorian banking world and their names would have been instantly recognised throughout the business community. The name of "Barclay" is perhaps the recognisable name for us today. In 1896 this was one of 20 private banks that combined to form Barclays Bank; and so this was an important foundation bank for one of the principal banks on the High Street today.

International Bank £20

Some notes tell us a story of 'what might have been'. Fig. 6 shows the £20 of The International Bank, dated 1878, and perforated "Specimen C Skipper & East". There is a wonderful vignette of allegorical figures with the use of a green colour panel with a subtle background pattern. This is sophisticated and high quality security printing for the period.

There never was, precisely, any such a bank as The International Bank. This was no doubt a proposal for a bank that never came to fruition. During the 1870's and 1880's there was something a frenzy of speculation involving the establishment of banking companies in London. Many proposals were made and a few were actually established. This International Bank apparently did not make it, but the survival of this Specimen £20 records a significant period of banking history in London.

It is relevant to note that there was an International Bank of London in existence from 1880 to 1905. Was this £20 Specimen of 1878 in some way connected with earlier proposals for this bank? Was there a late change in name? Sometimes we can only conclude that further research is required. One of the charms of investigating English banking history through the medium of banknotes is that there always seems to be something new to discover.

The six pieces shown above have been plucked, almost at random, from the David Kirch collection. They are my personal 'favourites' from the extensive selection of notes that are available. When you have, quite literally, thousands of notes to choose from then any selection must be an individual and personal choice. Next time I look I might well choose six completely different notes - there is certainly enough choice available! I hope that this brief selection goes some way to illustrating both the wide range and the high quality of the David Kirch collection.

The David Kirch Collection is to be sold October 2012, and further sales in 2013. All proceeds from these auctions will go to the David Kirch Charitable Trust. For further information, contact Barnaby Faull: bfaull@spink.com, +44 (0) 20 7563 4031.



By David Dykes 

Written by an expert in the field and drawing on recent research, this book aims to put Britain's 18th-century provincial token coinage into the context of the currency problems of the time. On the basis of a wide range of both documentary and secondary sources, it examines its major manufacturers and their intentions, and through profiles of many of the issuers involved it sets out to give a living dimension to a bygone monetary phenomenon.

Contains extensive photographs of tokens, as well as contemporary cartoons, illustrations and newspaper clippings, setting in context the necessity for this individual coinage. A fascinating and accessible book which will please the expert and also tempt the newcomer to research further into this exciting field.

Recently published, available from the Book Department; Order ref: 4207

Hardback; 400 pages, illustrated throughout in colour. 210 x 276 mm

To place your order please contact the Book Department at Spink

Tel. (44) 207 563 4046 or email: books@spink.com

£65

(plus postage)

Including the Straits Settlements, Malaya, British North Borneo, Sarawak, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore

Spink is proud to announce the publication of this sumptuous new book; a celebration of a unique collection of banknotes, assembled over a period of 20 years by Mr. Frank Goon, a prominent Malaysian businessman. It is the most comprehensive collection of its type, spanning many eras of change within the lower area of South East Asia.

The collection includes many unique notes, never before seen in print; partially printed proofs, beautiful hand-executed essays, colour trials, specimens and issued notes, from the early private bank notes of 1856 to the present day.

This long-awaited celebration forms a lasting testament to this magnificent collection, as well as being an essential introduction to a new and exciting collectors market. This publication will become the benchmark and reference work for all old, new and future collectors of South East Asian banknotes.

Chapters:

• Private Banks of the Straits Settlements - Notes included from 1856 - 1903

• Private Issues of Malaya and Sabah - Notes included from 1878 - 1936

• The government of the Straits Settlements - Notes included from 1898 - 1935

• Sarawak - Notes included from 1861 - 1940

• British North Borneo - Notes included from 1884 - 1942

• Malaya - Notes included from 1939 - 1946

• Malaya and British Borneo - Notes included from 1953 - 1966

• Bank Negara Tanah Melayu - Notes included from 1962 - 1966

• Malaysia - Notes included from 1966

• Singapore - Notes included from 1967

• Brunei - Notes included from 1967

Issued in a limited quantity and available from the Book Department; Order ref: 4238

Hardback; 410 pages, illustrated throughout in full colour. 280 x 282mm.

"The finest book published on South East Asian banknotes" - Tony Richardson

"This collection of rare notes has given us so much pleasure, we hope this labour of love will also inspire others to share this passion." - Frank Goon

"…collectors and dealers will use this book in years to come as the ultimate reference work on this beautiful and historic series of banknotes." - Barnaby Faull

To place your order please contact the Book Department at Spink

Tel. (44) 207 563 4046 or email: books@spink.com 

 £95 (plus postage)

By Robin Eaglen

AR Stater, c.410 - 400 BC.

10.70g (21mm diameter). Author's collection. Ex David Miller, 2004.

Celenderis, on the south-eastward coast of Turkey about fifty miles north of Cyprus, is said to have been founded by Sandokos, father of Kinyras. 1 It was later colonised from Samos, possibly before 700 BC. 2 Under Persian suzerainty it thrived as an important city and harbour3 on the northerly Mediterranean sea route, reflected in the quantity of coinage struck there to the Persian standard from the mid -fifth century BC.4

The obverse (Figure 1) of a naked, dismounting horseman was introduced at the outset and continued until the last third of the fourth century. 5The scene, with the horse facing left or right, has been identified with the 'kalpe' (êÜëðç), a horse race in which the bare-back, stirrupless riders jumped down to finish the race running alongside their mount.6 The event, as a trotting race (êáëðçò äñüìoò), was part of the Olympic games from 496 to 444, and thus discontinued soon after the introduction of the obverse at Celenderis.7 However, as the horse was in motion, the image would not appear to depict simply a dismounting rider. Although horses with naked riders was a popular design on Greek coinage, most notably at Tarentum over the same period,8 the horse men shown as dismounting all carry a shield,9 some have a lance,10 some wear a helmet11 and others have both trappings,12 showing that a warrior rather than competitor was intended.

The reverse (Figure 2) of a kneeling goat, with his head turned back to face either left or in later issues right, enjoyed a long currency at Celenderis, stretching from the mid-fifth to the first century BC.13 Accompanied by an abbreviation of the city name, like the owls of Athens it must have been the city's emblem. Kraay saw it as a punning allusion to the city name, as 'some goats were known as êåëÜäåò.'14 Their precursors appear on coins from eastern Macedonia at the beginning of the fifth century BC.15 Later, Archelaus, king of Macedon (413-399 BC) issued a reverse depicting the forepart of a kneeling goat16 and Ainos, in Thrace, provides good examples of the animal standing upright (Figures 3 and 4).17 Nevertheless, given the importance of goats in the ancient world, it is perhaps surprising that they do not figure more prominently on Greek coinage.

AR Diobol, c.435-405 BC.

1.08g (11mm diameter). Author's collection. Ex Spink, 2004

At a practical level, goats were major contributors to basic diet in the form of cheese, alongside stone-ground bread, olives, figs, wine diluted with water, honey, eggs and fish.18 Goat cheese also appears to have been an important constituent of military rations.19 Goat meat was much less consumed and, if so, more probably as kid,20 killed for sacrificial or other festive purposes to be eaten upon or after such occasions.21 Although there are some differences of view,22 it is believed that milk of cows, goats and ewes were not important to the Greek diet, partly owing to the climate and partly because lactose was indigestible to many people.23 It was nevertheless valued for medicinal and cosmetic purposes.24 Hides also had their uses, including an alternative to papyrus for writings,25 but fur was spurned as a characteristic of northern barbarian dress.26

The goat also enjoyed an important, if not greatly distinguished place in Greek mythology. Pan was half man, half goat, as befitted his role as the guardian of flocks, and shepherds would sacrifice kids, goats or sheep to him. This cult spread from Arcadia to the rest of Greece in the fourth century BC.27 Satyrs, the boon companions of Dionysus, god of wine, fertility and rebirth, were often portrayed with goat-like characteristics.28 The mythical beast slain by the hero Bellerophon, the chimaera, embodied the forepart of a lion, of a goat sprouting from the back and a snake at the rear.29 The Greek words for a shegoat (÷ßìáéñá) and chimaera were the same.30 At Celenderis the depiction is of a male.

The omnipresent and omnivorous goat has often been blamed for the bleak mountainsides of modern Greece,31 but it is harsh to blame it as main culprit for the loss of vegetation.

1 Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, edited by R.Talbert (Princeton, 2000), Map 66, C4. B. V. Head, Historia Numorum (Oxford, 1911), p.718.

2 G. Shipley, A History of Samos, 800 - 188BC (Oxford, 1987), pp.41-42. N. G. L. Hammond, A History of Greece to 322 BC, 3rd edition, (Oxford, 1986), pp.121, 660, dates the Samian foundation as 'probably' in the sixth century BC.

3 Strabo, Geographia, 14.5.3.

4 C. M. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (Berkeley and London, 1976), p.280. Head, Historia Numorum, p.718. The Persian standard was of a double siglos of 11.0g (C.
M. Kraay and M. Hirmer, Greek Coins (New York), p.17.

5 D.R.Sear, Greek Coins and their Values (GCV), II (London, 1979), pp.502-3.

6 G.C. Brauer, ' The Kalpe - an Agonistic Reference on several Greek Coins?', SAN 6, no. 1 (fall 1974), pp.6-7. J Swaddling, The Ancient Olympic Games, 3rd edition (London, 2004), pp. 87,89.

7 H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edition with a revised
Supplement (Oxford, 1996), p.870.

8 A. J. Evans, 'The Horsemen of Tarentum', NC (1889), pp.1-228.

9 Evans, Plates II. 7, III. 9 and 10.

10 Evans, Plate VII. 10.

11 Evans, Plate VII. 9.

12 Evans, Plate II. 6.

13 GCV, pp.502-03.

14 C. M. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins, p.279. The word is not listed in the Greek-English Lexicon and the further suggestion, that the obverse - showing a race-horse (..........) - is also punning, stretches credibility.

15 These coins were until recently attributed to Aigai (see, for example, Kraay,Archaic and Classical Greek Coins, p.141) but are now considered as tribal issues from
Bisaltia or Mygdonia, further to the east (see, for example, C. Lorber, 'The Goats of Aigai', in pour Denyse: Divertissements Numismatiques, edited by S. M. Hurter and C. Arnold - Biucci (Bern, 2000), pp.113-135).

16 GCV, I (London, 1978), GCV 1494, p.151.

17 GCV, p.158.

18 P. Green, Ancient Greece, a Concise History, (London, 1973), p.20.

19 A Dictionary of Ancient Greek Civilisation, (London,1966), p.203.

20 C. M. Bowra, The Greek Experience, (London, 1957), p.5.

21 The Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD), edited by S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, revised 3rd edition (Oxford, 2003), p.603; Dictionary of Ancient Greek Civilisation, p.203.

22 Bowra, The Greek Experience, p.4; Dictionary of Ancient Greek Civilisation, p.203.

23 OCD, p.981.

24 OCD, p.981.

25 OCD, p.250.

26 OCD, p.497.

27 OCD, p.1103.

28 C. Jones, Sex or Symbol? Erotic Images of Greece and Rome, (London, 1989), pp.78, 82.

29 OCD, p.322.

30 Greek-English Lexicon, p.1192.

31 Bowra, The Greek Experience, p.4.





Significant in History and Collecting

By Matthew Orsini

During the 19th century, across Europe and the Americas, a peculiar and often popular multi-form event emerged that significantly advanced many advertising and entertainment channels that remain popular to this day. That event, often labeled an "exposition", came to prominence as a way to promote a cause, or oftentimes many causes, in a manner that regularly resulted in widespread public attendance. The spectacular nature of these events drew people from all social strata and from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. These events, which often achieved true historic relevance, would introduce the work of masters of art and industry - inventions that transformed work and leisure, works of art that are even now prominent museum centerpieces, and agricultural implements that would change the way we produce and consume. Also an invariable product of the expositions, and a sign of the great cultural influence that the events bore, was the keepsake - sometimes made as an ephemeral object and at other times purposed as a souvenir or an award worthy of a showcase. For many collectors, the culmination of historical significance alongside lasting material objects strikes an ideal balance.

One notable exposition was the Pan-American Exposition. Held in Buffalo, New York in 1901, and coming on the heels of the Columbian Exposition in 1893, the Pan-American Exposition was intended to promote commercial well-being and an enhanced understanding of American republics (i.e North and South American countries). Constructed on a 350-acre plot, tickets to the exposition were 25 cents. Between May and November when the exposition was open, approximately 8 million people made the voyage to attend. Attractions were the many merchants who were competing for awards in various categories with the hope of recognition and fame. Also highlighting the event was the display of Thomas Edison's X-ray machine, an advancement in medicine that until that point was unfathomable. Most astonishing to attendees, however, had to be the adornment of the grounds and structures in thousands of light bulbs. While electricity was at this point gaining familiarity, the extravagance associated with lighting of this magnitude was surely a magical event. And while the exposition was an unquestioned success and surely an enduring memory for those that attended, today, its continuing memory largely lives through two things - the existence of relics from the event and the death of a President.

On September 5th, 1901 William H. McKinley, the 25th President of the United States attended the Pan-American Exposition. That day, he gave a speech that lauded, generally, the exposition.

"Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. They record the world's advancements. They stimulate the energy, enterprise, and intellect of the people, and quicken human genius. They go into the home. They broaden and brighten the daily life of the people. They open mighty storehouses of information to the student..."

The following day, President McKinley, while at the Temple of Music, was shot by Leon Czolgosz. Eight days later McKinley died from complications, an outcome that would permanently stain the legacy of the Pan-American Exposition.

Outside of the history books however, the tangible history of this event remains alive and well through its relics. Medals, tokens, stamps, postcards and many other forms exist today. Some of the more unusual items include oil lamps, spoons, jars, saws, pincushions, tankards and more. Because of the geographical theme and location of the Exposition, nearly all items possess a seldom-rivaled visual charm. The incorporation of a buffalo, a classic American icon, can be seen on many items. Also, a map of the Americas was frequently used to celebrate and promote the gained understanding and collaboration between lands - the official logo of the Exposition being two women stylized into North and South America with hands grasped in union. A particularly iconic work was a large 64mm award medal, produced in silver, bronze and gilt bronze, that was designed by renowned sculptor Herman MacNeil and struck by Gorham and Co. The medal's obverse features a striding Liberty alongside a buffalo. The recipient of the award sits at the base. The reverse, again adhering to the Exposition's theme, plays on the duality of North and South America, illustrating two Native Americans, one from each continent, sharing a peace pipe. The medal and its likeness, praised during its day, were used in numerous advertisements by the award winners to promote the accolades bestowed by the Exposition. Today, this remains one of the most highly sought after relics of the event, and survivors are prized by collectors.

The Pan-American Exposition, like many others, not only leaves collectors a rich amount of material to collect, but also provides a visual tie to a specific window of history that few others collectibles can. While the Pan-American's greatest lasting legacy is no doubt a grim one as the result of the death of a President, many other reminders maintain a positive iconography that continues until this day to define culture. These introductions include the telephone, the Eiffel Tower, the ferris wheel, and popular consumer items like Heinz ketchup. If looking for a new area to collect, expositions often offer the ability to collect at entry level up to that of great advancement. For the collector intrigued by the prospect, but unsure of a starting point, a short list of expositions by region has been listed below. Hopefully, for some, it serves as a jump-off point to a rewarding collection.



Other Expositions with Rich Collectible Histories:

U.S.

1876 - Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia

1892 - World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago

1904 - Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis

1915 - Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco

Europe

1851 - The Great Exhibition, London

1862 - The International Exhibition, London

1889 - Paris Exposition, Paris

1900 - Paris Exposition, Paris



Practically every stamp collector in the world would like to own a Great Britain 1840 Penny Black.

It doesn't matter if you collect stamps from countries from Abu Dhabi to Zululand or anything in-between. The Penny Black is the Mother (therefore perhaps the Two Pence blue is the Father!) of Postage Stamps.

However there is much more to the Lure of the Penny Black than the fact that it was the first Postage Stamp in the world, beating off other contenders for the title, such as the Greek 40 Lepta label of 1831 or the so-called Austrian 1k.of 1839.

The Penny Black was put on sale on to the public in London on Friday 1st May 1840, although it was not valid for use until Wednesday May the sixth. However, a few are known used before the sixth. These pre-Official first day usages are very greatly prized by collectors.

It is a fact, perhaps not widely appreciated, that the "labels" (the Penny Black and Two Pence Blue Postage Stamps) were considered by the authorities a somewhat poor alternative to the prepaid 1d. and 2d. envelopes and letter sheets designed by the noted artist of the day, William Mulready, R.A., which were placed on sale at the same time  (but that is another story).

So what is the Lure of the Penny Black?

The design is beautifully simple and elegant with the beautiful William Wyon head of Queen Victoria and the legends "POSTAGE" at top and "ONE PENNY" at the foot, at the same time combined with an intricate engine turned background. The parallel with our current definitive stamps which are based on a plaster cast of Queen Elizabeth II by Arnold Machin is obvious.

One thing about the design which confuses many collectors is the significance of the two letters that appear in the lower corners. These are quite simply explained but of enormous importance to specialists.

The Penny Black was printed from eleven separate printing plates, each containing 240 impressions arranged in twenty horizontal rows of twelve (12 pence = One shilling, 20 shillings = £1) which was important for Post office accounting purposes.

The stamp in the upper-left corner of the sheet had the letters AA in its lower corners, the next stamp was lettered AB then AC, AD and on to AL, the first stamp in the next row was BA, etc., down to the lower-right corner of the sheet which was lettered TL (below, a strip of four showing the different letters).

So we can see that each of the 240 different combinations of letters are equally rare (or as common!).

This was done as a form of protection against forgery as it was thought to be impractical for a forger to be able to reproduce 240 different combinations of lettering and it would be noticed if quantities of mail bearing stamps with the same letters were found.

Where the letters are of great significance is in helping us tell which of the 11 (or twelve, but more of that later) plates a particular stamp was printed from.

The 240 impressions in each of the 11 (or 12) plates were produced from a single Mother Die which had blank lower corners. This was rocked onto a steel plate 240 times and  the corner letters were then hand-punched onto the plate. As one would expect, there are small differences in the positioning of these letters which, along with other plating aids, enables us to distinguish between the plates (below, examples from plate Ia and III, note the difference in the "B" square).

The first plate (plate I) was rushed into use to meet the issue date for the stamps and was used before the steel plate had been hardened, this resulted in very rapid wear. Owing to the extreme wear, the engraved lines of the Queen's head became very faint, and this necessitated the restoration of every one of the 240 units of the plate. Therefore stamps from plate I are classified as either plate Ia (the original plate) or plate Ib (the re-entered plate).

The Penny Black and Two Pence blue immediately proved to be very popular with the public despite the fact that they had to be cut from the sheets with scissors (perforations were still 10 years or more away) and the rather uncertain glutinous wash on the back has to be licked to adhere the stamp to the letter.

The stamps were to be cancelled by a red postmark, known to collectors as the "Maltese Cross", a few of these cancellation devices were damaged or lost and replaced, resulting in what are known as "distinctive" Maltese Cross cancellations, occasionally the cancellation was applied in a different coloured ink such as blue, magenta, yellow or violet.

However, it was soon discovered that the red ink used for cancelling the black stamps could quite easily be cleaned off and there was a danger of the stamp being used again. This was definitely not what the Post Office wanted. In August 1840 it was decided to change the colour of the 1d. value from black to red, however printing of the stamps in the new colour was delayed whilst extensive experiments were conducted to find a new type of black ink for obliterating the stamps in order to prevent the removal of postmarks and re-use of the stamps. Printing of the stamps in red commenced in late December 1840 and the stamps in that colour came into use in early February 1841.

Several of the original Penny Black plates, Ib, II, V, VIII, IX, X and XI, were also employed to print the stamps in red. Interestingly, because supplies of the Black stamps were running low, additional printings were made in that colour, after the red printing had commenced. Below, plate VIII, DD printed in black and in red, a "matched" pair.

In total about 280,000 sheets of Penny Blacks, 63,000,000 stamps were produced, not counting another nearly 8,500 spoilt sheets printed and officially destroyed.

As was said at the beginning of this article every collector wants a Penny Black. A serious collector of Great Britain would like at least one from each plate. There are a few collectors who want to have examples from each of the 240 impressions from each of the twelve plates (That would be 2,880 Penny Blacks!).

What is a Penny Black worth?

When assessing the value of a Penny Black there are many things that must be taken into consideration:

Condition, Plate, Margins, Cancellation, etc.

In June of 2011 Spink and Son Ltd sold a single 1d. black on a cover for nearly £300,000, this was for a quite remarkable example from Plate 2, lettered TL, from the lower-right corner of the sheet with marginal inscription and Plate number. This is considered to be the finest Penny Black on cover in existence and is no indication as to the value of a normal Penny Black (below)!

Let's take the various catagories above and consider them for a moment.

Condition: Thins, creases, small tears (even if not readily apparent will reduce the value considerably.

Plate: The plate is very important, the commonest plate is plate VI with a little over 9,000,000 stamps being printed. The rarest is plate XI with only 168,000 stamps (just 700 sheets) printed.

Margins: As already mentioned, the Penny black was issued imperforate, therefore the stamps had to be cut from the sheet by scissors (or occasionally torn from the sheets). The gap between the impressions is not large and so it is not surprising that the design is often cut-into, this detracts from the value enormously, the more a stamp is cut into the more the value is reduced, however bear in mind that for every stamp that was cut into when separating them there is another with an extra large margin, and this, naturally enough, enhances its value. It is not unusual for a multiple, for example a pair, where one stamp is fine with good margins but the adjoining stamp is defective or cut into, for the damaged stamp to be sacrificed leaving the fine example with an extra large margin (below, note the postmark at right, clearly a pair that has been sacrificed). 

Cancellation: This is of course a matter of opinion. I much prefer the red Maltese Cross to the black one, a crisp, rather than overinked impression is much more pleasing to the eye, complete and upright is an advantage but most preferred is when the cancellation leaves to profile of Queen Victoria clear.

If you can get a combination of all the points above you have the final consideration -
Aesthetic appeal (below).

Here are a few tips to plating the Penny Black:

Cancellation - The red and black Maltese Cross cancellations exist on all plates but the black Maltese Cross is more likely to come on the later plates.

The "O" flaw - This is a white blob that develops on the right of the "O" of "ONE" and only occurs on plates VII, VIII, IX and X. (below, a matched pair from plate X showing the "O" flaw).

Shade - Plates Ia can, because of the very rapid wear of the plate, be greyish black in shade, plate XI, the rare Plate, is also often a grey-black shade (but a different grey-black), although this is due to the ink rather than plate wear (below, the grey-black of plates Ia and XI).

There are also a number of plate varieties, such as double letters, guide lines, etc. that can be of help.

However, almost always we need to go to the reference works to successfully plate a Penny Black by studying  the positions of the corner letters.

I find "The Plating of the Penny Black" by Nissen and Mc Gowen the most useful guide, this magnificent opus has recently been reprinted and can be bought for between £70-£80 and is invaluable if you are to specialise in this beautiful stamp. Another useful book is "Guide Lines to the Penny Black" by P.C. Litchfield, this can be picked up for around £10 and although helpful, it is not, in my opinion, as good as the "Plating of the Penny Black".

Taking all the points above into consideration, the best tip I can give for plating a Penny Black is to take a quick look at the back of the stamp, there will often be a pencilled plate number written by a previous owner! They may not always be 100% accurate but it's a good starting point.

Perhaps the "Lure of the Penny Black" is attempting to find with larger margins, a crisper cancellation and more aesthetic appeal than the one you already own.

Happy Collecting!

Since joining the Medal Department at Spink in May 2005 I have researched and catalogued several thousand medal lots- choosing just ten has been a far harder task than I imagined, as each medal group has its own story to tell. I wish I could have included many more. Of course there are also a number of medals that we have sold at Spink over this period that would definitely have made my top ten, apart for the fact that they were catalogued by my colleague Mark- sadly I cannot claim the credit for these! By happy coincidence my top ten lots appeared in ten different auctions, so they have been well spread out.

Undoubtedly the most unusual medal I have ever catalogued and sold is that awarded not to a sailor, soldier, or airman, but to a dog! In 1943 the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals introduced a gallantry medal, named after its founder Mrs. Maria Dickin, to be awarded to animals displaying conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty whilst serving or associated with any branch of the Armed Forces or Civil Defence Units during World War II. In total 54 Dickin Medals were awarded between 1943 and 1949, to 32 pigeons, 18 dogs, three horses, and one cat. One of those medals was awarded to a dog called Rip, and we sold his Dickin Medal at our auction on the 24th April 2009. Rip was a stray who had been found homeless and starving in Poplar, east London, after a heavy air raid in 1940. Adopted by the local A.R.P. Warden, he acted as an unofficial rescue dog, sniffing out casualties trapped under buildings, and during the course of the War he located more than 100 air raid victims. Having never catalogued anything quite like it before, I was a little uncertain what to expect up on the rostrum, but on the day of the sale the auction room was packed to witness the sale of the brave canine's medal, and it sold for a hammer price of £21,000 (£24,250 including Premium). It is also the only medal that I have sold that has been reported in the Buffalo Central news (as well as over 100 other newspapers worldwide!)

The next medal in my top ten is the rare China 1900 Defence of Legations Medal awarded to Sir Edward Bredon, who served as Deputy Inspector General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service from 1898-1908 and who was present at the Defence of the Legations in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion from June to August 1900. In total just 57 China medals with the 'Defence of Legations' clasp were awarded to civilians who, together with the small Legation Guard made up out of British, American, Austrian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Russian troops, survived the two month siege until relieved by the main Allied force. This is a rather personal choice as it happened to be the first medal that I ever sold up on the rostrum as an Auctioneer at Spink, when it appeared (as the front cover lot) in our auction on the 20th November 2008- I was able to knock it down at the top estimate for a hammer price of £8,000 (£9,300 including Premium). By chance, this medal has subsequently reappeared at a Spink auction, and I was able to catalogue and sell it for a second time on the 21st April 2011, this time for a hammer price of £10,000 (£12,000 including Premium).

Since I have been at Spink I have catalogued for auction no fewer than twelve Victoria Crosses (two of which come up for sale in our April sale this year), and whilst it is tempting to include more in my top ten I have limited myself to two. The first is the single Victoria Cross to Commander, later Rear-Admiral John Bythesea, Royal Navy, who took part in the daring mission to capture Russian despatches in the Baltic on the 12th August 1854- armed only with a single flint pistol, he took three of the enemy prisoner and obtained much vital intelligence. The full story is one of daring exploits- an early 'Commando' style operation, but what makes the Cross even more special is the fact that this was only the second ever Victoria Cross to be earned. The first was lost towards the end of the 19th Century and has sadly never been seen since, and so Bythesea's is the oldest surviving Victoria Cross in existence. The single V.C. sold in our auction on the 19th April 2007 for a hammer price of £135,000 (£155,250 including Premium), a price which is still the record for a single Victoria Cross at auction.

The second of the two Victoria Crosses which I am choosing is the Crimean 'Double Action' V.C. group of Four to Major John Knox, which was awarded to him firstly for gallantry as a Sergeant in the Scots Fusilier Guards at the Battle of Alma on the 20th September 1854, in what was the Army's first V.C. action (and approximately six weeks after Bythesea had earned his Naval V.C.), and secondly as a Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade for the first assault on the Grand Redan at Sebastopol on the 18th June 1855. It was a great privilege and pleasure to catalogue this group, having access to the recipient's own scrapbook and diaries as a primary source of reference, and I was obviously aware at the time of the historical importance of the medal, in that it was one of the first ever Army Victoria Crosses. What I was not expecting was the huge amount of press interest that the sale of this Cross would generate. What really caught the public's imagination was the fact that Knox had lost his arm to a Russian cannon ball at Sebastopol, and the offending cannon ball, which had been picked up from the field of battle by a comrade of Knox's, was included in the lot. As a result interview requests flooded into Spink, and I appeared with the Cross and the cannon ball on the main BBC TV News, as well as giving numerous radio and newspaper interviews. Come the day of the sale, with the TV camera crews present, the original estimate was always going to be exceeded, and eventually the lot sold at our auction on the 22nd April 2010 for a hammer price of £210,000 (£252,000 including Premium), with a large number of new bidders expressing an interest in medals for the first time.

The next two items in my top ten are both gallantry groups, one from the First World War, and one from the Second World War. The Great War saw such huge advances in technology, and one of the most momentous of these was the development of the tank. The First World War group that I have selected is the D.S.O. Group of Five to Major A.M. Inglis, which includes the first ever Tank Operations gallantry award, for conspicuous gallantry whilst leading an advance at the Somme in his tank Crème de Menthe on the 15th September 1916, in what was the first tank attack of the War. Despite losing a wheel, Crème de Menthe led the way to the objective, and cleared the enemy trenches; Inglis returned to the Allied lines in his tank with a thoroughly disoriented captured German General, 'who would never forget his enforced ride to captivity over No Man's Land in the depths of a British Land-Ship'! We offered this group for sale as part of a large collection of medals to the Machine Gun Corps and Tank Corps in our auction on the 19th July 2007, of which this was the star lot, and it sold for a hammer price of £10,000 (£11,600 including Premium)

The Second World War gallantry group that I have chosen is the superb Burma 'Z-Force' M.C. and Bar Group of Six to Major C.G. 'Micky' Merton, Burma Rifles, and one of the original 'Johnnies', whose numerous operations behind enemy lines were legendry: often clashing with the enemy, he was 'one of the finest patrol leaders in Z Force'. Essentially Merton was a civilian who, being called upon to do a war-time job did it superbly well, with virtually no contact from the outside world and left very much to his own devices. We sold his medals at auction on the 25th November 2010 for a hammer price of £15,000 (£18,000 including Premium); in late 2011 I was fortunate enough to go on holiday to Burma, and was able to get a sense of both the people and the country that Merton knew so well.

Britain's oldest Order of Knighthood is the Order of the Garter, which was founded way back in 1348. The official insignia of the Order is returnable on the death of the holder, and as a result rarely appears on the market. However, privately commissioned items, often considerably more decorative than the official insignia, do appear for sale from time to time. The finest example that I have seen is a sash Badge made by the Italian engraver and medallist Giovanni Santarelli, which was commissioned by the 5th Duke of Beaufort for use on the occasion of his Installation as a Knight of the Garter in May 1801. It is a beautiful item with a superb central onyx cameo of St. George slaying the dragon. Originally offered as part of the Beaufort Garter Jewels at Christie's in 1989, we sold it at auction on the 24th November 2005, where it graced the front cover of the sale catalogue, for a hammer price of £25,000 (£28,750 including Premium).

Undoubtedly the most attractive British decoration is the First Class Albert Medal. In April 2009 we sold the Albert Medal awarded to William Smith, Mate of the steam trawler the 'Crane' for gallantry in saving life at sea during the infamous 'Dogger Bank' incident in the North Sea, when the fishing fleet from Hull was attacked and shelled by the Imperial Russian Fleet. Two First Class Albert Medals were awarded for this action and, as often happens in the auction world, the success of the first medal, which sold for £15,000, led the second one onto the market. This Albert Medal was awarded to Arthur Rea, the Second Engineer from the 'Crane', who, despite being seriously injured, showed unyielding courage working in the engine room throughout the Russian bombardment, preventing the 'Crane's' boilers exploding until all were rescued. It is a beautiful medal and has an extraordinary story behind it, and in the end this sold in our auction on the 19th November 2009 for a hammer price of £17,000 (£20,400 including Premium).

As well as dealing with mainly British medals we also sell a large selection of foreign orders, decorations, and medals. To choose just one out of the many hundreds that I have catalogued is most difficult, especially as a number of foreign orders, particularly those from Germany and Russia, combine to be rare, visually attractive, and highly sought-after- an auctioneer's dream! However, in our auction on the 21st April 2011 we sold a medal that was not only all of these things, but had the added bonus of being shrouded in mystery. This was the Chinese Gold Medal of Pao Hsing awarded in 1868 to Mr. William Cartwright of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. Very little is known about these medals- instituted in 1862 as China's first official medal, and awarded for exceptional gallantry or distinguished service, awards of the medal ceased in 1881, and virtually no records regarding them exist. Researching exactly when and why it was awarded to Cartwright was an interesting and enjoyable challenge! Unsurprisingly it sold very well for a hammer price of £56,000 (£67,200 including Premium).

The final lot in my top ten is not actually a medal, but an item of Militaria- the Field Marshal's Baton bestowed upon Lord Grenfell. Grenfell had joined the Army as a Second Lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps in 1859, and 49 years later, in 1908, he was promoted to the top rank of Field Marshal. Almost two feet long, covered in purple velvet scattered with gold lions, and surmounted by a gold equestrian model of St. George slaying the dragon, Field Marshal's Batons rarely appear on the market- fewer than ten have appeared on the market since the Second World War. Although largely ceremonial, batons are sometimes used to direct troops in the field, and it is hard to think of a more inspiring way of soldiers being led than a Field Marshal rallying them on with his wand of office. Sadly the rank of Field Marshal has now been abolished, and it seems unlikely that another baton will ever be presented. We sold Lord Grenfell's Baton in our most recent auction on the 24th November 2011 for a hammer price of £45,000 (£54,000 including Premium).

Some readers may have noticed that there is an absence in my top ten of any medals to the Royal Air Force. This is not a deliberate slight- merely an indication of the fact that most of the flying lots that we have sold have been catalogued by Mark, not me! However, I would like to 'Mention in Despatches' three great Second World War R.A.F. groups that we have sold at auction in which I did have a small role to play- those to Air Chief Marshal Sir Basil Embry, Group Captain Petrus Hugo, and Wing Commander Hugh Malcolm. Between them these three airmen were awarded one Victoria Cross, five Distinguished Service Orders, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, and one Air Force Cross. One of the services that we offer at Spink is to hand collect from anywhere in the world high value medal collections and single lots free of charge (something that our vendors appreciate, as the medals are fully covered by our insurance whilst in transit and we sort out all the customs paperwork). In collecting these three superb medal groups, from Australia, South Africa, and Canada, I was also fortunate to enjoy a bit of sun and some fantastic scenery in the process!

By William MacKay

This series of short articles takes as its subject a British coin which neatly enscapulates an important moment in the history of the British Isles.

No. 2.  HAROLD REX INTERFECTUS EST - 1066 and the Norman Conquest of England.



A silver Penny, 1.28g, of Harold II, King of England, January 6th - October 14th 1066, struck at Lewes, Sussex, by the moneyer Oswold. Obverse, crowned, bearded head left, sceptre before, +HALOLD REX ANG, Reverse, +OZPOLD ON LEPEEI, legend commencing at 8 o'clock, the letters PAX between two lines within inner circle.

On a hill near Hastings in the late afternoon of October 14th 1066, having resisted the assaults of the horsemen of Duke William of Normandy all day long the line of warriors that was the English shield wall, gave way. Falling for a ruse by the Normans in which they mimicked a retreat, the English warriors set off in pursuit. The Normans stopped, turned and began to cut down the English now exposed outside the tight defensive discipline of the shield wall. What followed was a rout where Norman horsemen cut down the English, first the foot soldiers then the warrior housecarls and finally king Harold and his brothers. By nightfall Duke William had won a resounding victory. The short reign of Harold II was over and his kingdom was at the mercy of William and his followers. 

The final events of this day are graphically captured in the needlework of the Bayeux Tapestry. Harold is traditionally associated with a figure seen grasping an arrow attached to his helmet. It is from this that the popular story of his being felled by an arrow in the eye is derived. But it is more likely that he was killed by the Norman cavalry and is the figure, without sword and his battle axe out of reach to one side, being cut down by a Norman horseman beneath the words 'HAROLD REX INTERFECTVS EST - KING HAROLD HAS BEEN KILLED.'

1066. A date that stands out from others in the history of the British Isles with no other so evocative of change. 1066 was truly remarkable. It was a year whose events decisively changed the course of history; a year of three kings and three great battles. It began with Edward the Confessor (1042-66), a direct descendant of Alfred the Great on the throne. On January 6th 1066 he died childless at Westminster. His death immediately precipitated a contest of rivals based in England and abroad each of whom sought to claim the vacant English throne. It seems that within hours the throne had been offered to and accepted by Harold Godwinson, an Anglo-Scandinavian, who as the Earl of Wessex, was the most powerful noble in the kingdom, a son of Earl Godwin, who had been granted the Earldom by Cnut (1016-35). His becoming king can be seen in the Bayeux Tapestry - 'HIC DEDERUNT HAROLDO CORONA REGIS'- 'HERE THEY OFFER THE CROWN TO HAROLD,' who stands holding his battle axe looking thoughtfully at two cloaked nobles as if contemplating his destiny while they hand him the crown. Later he is seen at his coronation 'HIC SIDET HAROLD REX ANGLORUM' - 'HERE SITS HAROLD KING OF THE ENGLISH'.

This was only the beginning as both Duke William of Normandy and King Harald Hardrada of Norway believed they also had a claim to the throne of England. Harald, a legendary viking fighter, who had seen service with the Byzantine Varangian guard in Constantinople, became the focus for Scandinavian interest in the English throne. He allied himself with Harold Godwinson's disaffected brother Tostig and landed in Yorkshire with a Scandinavian army. The northern Earls Edwin and Morcar met the invaders at Fulford outside York on September 20th and, in the first of the three battles of 1066, were soundly defeated. News of this invasion reached Harold who then collected an army in the south of England and marched rapidly north catching the invaders by surprise ten miles south east of York at Stamford Bridge on September 25th and defeated them, leaving both Harald Hardrada and Tostig dead on the field.

At this point Harold might have seemed secure but a quite different threat to his kingship lay across the Channel in Normandy. William's claim to the English throne lay in Edward the Confessor's mother being Emma of Normandy (d.1052), his great aunt, who had married Aethelred II (978-1016), Edward the Confessor's father, and later Cnut by whom she had a second son, Harthacnut, king 1040-42. The Bayeux Tapestry has the story of Harold being wrecked in Normandy and subsequently swearing an oath to support William in his claim to the throne in the event of the death of Edward the Confessor. Harold's taking the throne and breaking this oath was used as the casus belli by Duke William who spent the summer of 1066 preparing an invasion force. On September 29th, as Harold was in York after defeating Harald Hardrada, William landed at Pevensey in Sussex. Harold then came south at great speed to meet William and his fate at Hastings on October 14th 1066. With the English leadership destroyed at Fulford and Hastings, William was able to seize London and became the third king of 1066 when he was crowned in Westminster Abbey in Christmas day 1066.

This coin connects us directly to this momentous year. Being struck at Lewes, a port a few miles from where William landed, it is very likely from one of several hoards deposited in Sussex at the time of the Norman invasion in 1066. It is noted in chronicles of the period, and illustrated in the Bayeux Tapestry, that William engaged in pillaging areas of Sussex many of which were estates owned by Harold. These actions are most likely the reason for this series of the hoards being secreted.

The reverse of all Harold's pennies carry the word PAX - PEACE, a curious statement given the events of the year. The explanation for this may lie in the new king seeking to present his rule as a fresh start that will bring peace and unity to the English people. Making such a statement on the coinage was not new for Edward the Confessor's first issue pennies of 1042-44 also carry the letters PACX in the angles of a voided long cross. In this case the reason is linked to his accession and a desire by his supporters to emphasise his bringing unity and peace to the kingdom after the interlude of Danish conquest and division under Cnut and his sons. It seems very likely that Harold set out to make the same statement in 1066, looking to unite the English after the at times fractious reign of Edward the Confessor. This Anglo-Saxon practise was to reappear under the Normans on the last issue PAXS pennies of William I, now thought by many scholars to be the first issue of his son William Rufus (1087-1100), and on an issue of Henry I (1100-35) where it may reflect the coming of peace across the Norman domains following his victory over his elder brother Robert Curthose at Tinchebrai in 1106.  

Pennies of Harold II are scarce and much sought after by collectors building monarch by monarch collections of English coins. Spink may have examples in stock from time to time or offer examples at auction.

By Stephen Goldsmith

Santa Claus once appeared on bank notes as a universally accepted symbol of charity and generosity, but did you know that once upon a time there was a five shilling fine for celebrating Christmas?

During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress authorized the printing of the first paper money to be issued by a centralized American government. When the first notes were issued, they were worth their equivalent in Spanish Milled Dollars. By the time the Revolutionary War ended, the United States was deep in debt, and inflation was rampant, and it took $400 Continental paper dollars to purchase items that were worth one Spanish Milled Dollar.

Americans had learned a valuable lesson, and were no longer interested in accepting paper money issued by the central government of the United States. This feeling would last right up through the War Between the States.

In order to fill the vacuum that was created when the U.S. Government stopped issuing paper money, individual states, banks, insurance companies, railroads, and even local merchants began to issue their own paper money. By the time the Civil War rolled around, there were well over 30,000 different paper money issues in circulation at one time or another.

Paper money issued by local institutions was readily accepted where it was issued, but when this same paper money was carried to different parts of the country, it usually traded at a discount. This created a difficult situation for merchants. They had to pay careful attention to which issuers were solvent, and which issuers were not.

Entire newspapers were devoted to this subject. One of these newspapers was The Bank Note Reporter. A sophisticated banker or merchant might subscribe to The Bank Note Reporter, and keep up with the status of most of the bank note issuers. Many of the notes that were in circulation were counterfeit, issued from fraudulent institutions, or traded at a severe discount, and The Bank Note Reporter listed this information.

The general public did not have access to this tool, and they often had to make their judgments of value and legitimacy based simply on the appearance of the bank notes. A beautifully engraved, colorful note with a beautiful and symbolic illustration inspired confidence, so bankers chose their symbols very carefully.

Portraits of universally accepted famous Americans such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were popular. Railroad trains, symbolizing the latest in transportation technology, were also prevalent. Eagles often appeared on these bank notes, and animals of local interest, such as frogs, pigs, cattle, and dogs were occasionally utilized.

Classical figures symbolizing strength and trust were frequently used, but perhaps the most whimsical and entertaining symbol seen on paper money was the one that stood for charity and generosity, and that was Santa Claus himself.

Santa was not always a universally acceptable symbol. According to Roger Durand (Interesting Notes About Christmas), in 1659 the Puritans passed a law that levied a five shilling fine for anybody found observing Christmas day "… by abstinence from labor, feasting, or any other way…."

By 1682, this law was repealed, and beginning in 1836 with Alabama, states and territories began recognizing Christmas Day as a legal holiday in this country. The use of Santa Claus as a universally recognized and popular symbol soon became widespread, and he eventually appeared on over thirty different obsolete bank note is sues in America, all very eagerly collected today.

We present a sampling of these wonderful notes in celebration of the Christmas Season...

By Dr. K.A. Rodgers

Anyone who thumbed through the catalogue of Spink's recent Hong Kong sale would have observed that pre-republic Chinese paper money is replete with dragons, particularly issues of the Imperial dynasties. There is an excellent reason for this. Dragons were fully paid-up members of the Chinese animal pantheon from the beginning. Their ancestor toed the starting line of the Great Race conducted by the August Personage of Jade to determine the order of animals in the Lunar Zodiac. By at least the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE) the celestial dragon had become the symbol of the Son of Heaven, the Emperor of China. The craftsman who labelled the Lenox Globe knew what he was doing. He was spot-on on the money.

Five hundred years ago, the coppersmith who fashioned the Lenox Globe held in New York's Public Library inscribed the eastern coast of Asia with, "HC SVNT DRACONES" or, in popular parlance, "Here Be Dragons." Soulless academics may dismiss these words as no more than a fanciful rendition of "Terra Incognita". Yet from predynastic times, perhaps for over 7,000 years, the dragon has been part of China, its people and their culture.

Eastern Lung Vs Western Dragon

The use of the English word "dragon" for the Chinese beastie is a misnomer. China's animal is the "lung" or "long", depending on your preferred transliteration. Whatever, the precise spelling, it was never the virgin-munching, fire-breathing drake, Draco occidentalis, that St George and other environmentally-insensitive do-gooders exterminated throughout Europe for fun and profit. China's lung was a noble and superior beast, Draco orientalis. It exercised potent and auspicious influences, especially over water, rainfall and floods. It was ever a symbol of power and good fortune.

The two earliest Emperors both had intimate relationships with lung. Yan Di was conceived via his mother's telepathic bonding with one lung while, at the end of his reign, Huang Di transformed into another to ascend to Heaven. From henceforth all subsequent emperors would claim a close personal connection with the family lung.

Lung come in many and varied types. The Huang Long, aka Yellow or Golden Lung, are those most closely associated with the emperor. Like all lung they were physically perfect, displaying nine resemblances: the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, the eyes of a hare, the ears of a bull, the neck of a snake, the belly of a frog, the scales of a carp, the claws of an eagle, and the paws of a tiger. All had 117 scales of which 81 are yang and 36 yin. Lung may lack wings but can fly. Importantly, mortal eyes can never behold an entire celestial/imperial lung; their bodies are always part-hidden by clouds.

Going Toe For Toe

The number of toes is fundamental to classifying lung. Emperors of the early Zhou Dynasty claimed the superior five-toed Huang Long as their symbol. Matters became formalized during the Yuan (1271-1368 CE) and Ming (1368-1644 CE) Dynasties. Not only was the five-toed lung decreed to be the sole preserve of the emperors but imperial nobles and some high ranking officials were allowed to display a four-toed lung, with the three-toed beast available to lower ranks - and deserving members of the public. It was a capital offence for anyone other than the emperor to use the golden, fivetoed Huang Long motif. Incorrect use of toe number was treason and punishable by execution of the offender's entire clan. Rulers of those East Asian nations considered Chinese tributaries were allowed a four-toed lung only.

Images of the imperial five-toed lung embellished artefacts made for an emperor or by imperial sanction, in much the same way the effigy of our monarch or her coat of arms is used on items made for the Royal Household or issued in the name of the Queen. And so it came to pass that when early Chinese paper money circulated by Imperial edict it bore a five-toed lung and would continue to do so until expunged with the coming of the Republic in the early 20th century.

Fei-ch'ien 101

China's earliest paper money was akin to bank drafts. Transporting masses of copper cash or silver sycee great distance across the empire was both inconvenient and hazardous. Merchants in the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) solved this difficulty by employing paper drafts to facilitate, among other dealings, the tea-trade between north and south China.

Southern provincial governors maintained memorial offering courts in the northern Imperial capital. The southern merchants paid the money obtained from the sale of their goods to these courts who used it to pay taxes due from the Southern provinces to central government. The courts issued the merchants with a draft for the specific amount of their deposit which the merchants presented, upon their return home, to the provincial government who paid out the equivalent sum in coin. The drafts became known as fei-ch'ien [flying cash]allegedly because they tended to blow away, unlike coin. The Tang administration took to the idea and began issuing their own fei-ch'ien. The margins of these notes showed a lung romping amidst clouds declaring the imperial government as the origin of these issues. The design and vertical format of these Tang drafts established the norm for all subsequent Imperial fei-ch'ien until the late 19th century.

By the Sung dynasty (960-1279 CE) fei-ch'ien were in common use, particularly among merchants and financiers in Szechuan. The notes were readily accepted for the payment in debt and other financial obligations. They could be converted into hard cash or other goods,
especially silk. In so far as the drafts were transferable and convertible on demand, they were exchanged among merchants as currency although this was never their original intent.

At some point, perhaps about 1023 CE, the central government monopolized the system. They ordered all private notes withdrawn. Only government issues would be allowed to circulate. The new notes were backed by government-minted cash coin such that paper notes and coins were interchangeable. Fei-ch'ien had effectively become a fiat currency.

North China's Qin dynasty (1115-1234) followed Sung's practice. In 1154 a Bureau of Paper Currency was established in Kaifeng and made responsible all fei-ch'ien issues. Large denomination notes were denominated at one to ten strings of coins, each string consisting
of 1000 standard cash coins. Small denomination notes were equivalent to one to seven hundred cash. Importantly, the life of each issued note was limited to seven years. But as the West would learn many years hence, when the number of notes issued exceeded their cash backing, inflation became the order of the day with all its consequences.

In Xanadu did Kublai Khan …

Kublai Khan established his Yuan dynasty in 1271 and continued the paper currency practices of Tang, Sung and Qin. He backed his currency with silk but once again excessive printing led to inflation, with the depreciated face value of paper money soon losing any relationship to silk, let alone silver. In 1272 the Great Khan printed a new issue using copper plates, unlike the traditional wood blocks. One new note was exchanged for five old ones but another printing and conversion was required in 1309 that saw Yuan feich'ien depreciate by 1000 percent.

Paper money - and inflation - accompanied the Mongols westward with Chinese-style notes printed in Persia in 1291. But, despite their vicissitudes, Marco Polo was impressed when he encountered Yuan paper currency in the 13th century. He subsequently told Europe how it was made, used and valued: "You might say that [Kublai] has the secret of alchemy in perfection…the Khan causes every year to be made such a vast quantity of this money, which costs him nothing, that it must equal in amount all the treasure of the world."

… "All these pieces of paper are issued with as much solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver; and on every piece a variety of officials, whose duty it is, have to write their names, and to put their seals. And when all is duly prepared, the chief officer deputed by the Khan smears the Seal entrusted to him with vermilion, and impresses it on the paper, so that the form of the Seal remains printed upon it in red; the Money is then authentic. Anyone forging it would be punished with death."

However, the Europeans didn't take to the idea for another 300 years, perhaps because Marco added: "Population and trade had greatly increased, but the emissions of paper notes were suffered to largely outrun both" … "All the beneficial effects of a currency that is allowed to expand with a growth of population and trade were now turned into those evil effects that flow from a currency emitted in excess of such growth. These effects were not slow to develop themselves" … "The best families in the empire were ruined, a new set of men came into the control of public affairs, and the country became the scene of internecine warfare and confusion." Sound familiar?

From Ming to Qing

From the few surviving examples of pre-14th century paper money it is clear that the five-toed Imperial lung was a feature of the design of government issues from the beginning. It can be just discerned on the Yuan dynasty example sold by Spink in January. On Ming notes (1368 to 1644 CE) it is clear in the upper part of the border design.

As with today's politicians, the early Ming rulers learned little from their predecessors. They printed paper money without restriction or any time limit on its circulation. As happened in Kublai Khan's day they went so far as to restrict the use of silver to promote circulation of their fiat paper currency. By 1455 hyperinflation was rampart and the government finally admitted defeat and put an end to all paper issues. Of all the early imperial notes, Ming issues are the commonest today but are nonetheless scarce.

Chinese government paper money made its big come-back with the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1912 CE) starting in the mid-19th century. In 1853 government notes were introduced. The designs of the late-19th century examples sold by Spink in January bear comparison with those of the Ming years.

It may be significant if not symbolic that in the last decades of what would be China's last dynasty the Emperor's lung often has few, if any, clothes. Frequently, he - or she - stands devoid of his - or her - clouds fully revealed to the gaze of the multitude, as indeed was he - or she - on the imperial flag. Yet in those closing dynastic days the Imperial Huang Long would experience one last grand renaissance.

 In 1909 two US engravers arrived in China to advise the government's Bureau of Engraving and Printing about modern western note design and techniques. From this relationship emerged a series of four magnificent banknotes. All showed the portrait of Prince Chun at left, father of the then infant Last Emperor, Puyi. In the sky above romped the most magnificent creature to ever disport on any Chinese note - a veritable archetypal lung. All resemblances are clear to see. It is decently clothed in part by cloud. And the five Imperial toes are front and centre, poised to strike any interloper. A fabulous set of trials of all four notes was sold in Spink's January auction but Puyi would never see this superb design issued in his name on any Chinese note.

 In the absence of a paper currency issue from central government, provincial administrations, and the hundreds of private banks now proliferating across the Chinese landscape, began circulating their own notes. Long gone were any taboos against use of the lung. It was adopted as a popular vignette on many issues and included five-toed beasties, perhaps to imply the note bore some sort of official sanction. In many cases the lung was reduced to a slimmed down version, shorn of some resemblances and with minimal cloud cover.

One popular vignette shows a pair of lung seemingly squabbling over a flaming object that has been variously identified as a ruby or carbuncle (red garnet) or, even, the Pearl of Wisdom of Confucius. From the Han to Qing Dynasties the imperial coat of arms had displayed a pair of Imperial lungs accompanied by such an auspicious pearl of great price. Pre-revolutionary provincial and private banks had no hesitation in adopting this symbolism. On later banknote issues the pearl is sometimes replaced, rather pragmatically, by a coin. So much for tradition.

The Lung Goes To War

In 1937 the Japanese military rolled into town. In the course of expanding its control over vast areas of China it set up various, so-called, Puppet Banks. They issued enormous quantities of notes all of which needed designs. In the north the conquerors came across the 1909 BEP dragon plates and promptly adapted them for an initial issue of their Federal Reserve Bank of China. They replaced the portrait of Prince Chun at left with those of various worthies from China's historic past. The resulting issue is undoubtedly the most handsome note series produced in China during World War II.

The $1 issue is particularly notorious. Prince Chun has been replaced by Confucius who is making an obscene gesture. The Japanese did not seem to mind, beyond executing the Chinese engraver responsible, but used this same design on later adaptations. Perhaps they felt having an Imperial lung romping in the sky of what was, in effect, a Japanese issue made a clear statement to the conquered about the conquerors

Meanwhile, in occupied Manchuria in the north, the Japanese had installed Puyi as Kangde Emperor of their new puppet state of Manchuko. The puppet masters began spreading lung hither and yon about the margins of issues of the Bank of Manchuko. Many of these bug-eyes beasties are a delight although there is little rhyme or reason as to their toe numbers. This casual usage might reflect something of the contempt in which the Japanese held Puyi and his culture.

Collecting lung-bearing notes has long fascinated me. The many issues map much of the economic and political evolution of China over the last couple of thousand years. Just a brief outline is possible here but I sincerely recommend the study to anyone wanting a satisfying and delightful sideline to a main collecting theme.

And, of course, on 23 January of solar year 2012, the Lunar Year of the Dragon will dawn, or should that be Year of the Lung? Whatever beasties may feature on a host of annual lunar coins, it may be too much to hope that the New Year might also see the return of an auspicious lung on the odd Chinese banknote or two. And, in case any trivia buff was wondering, the lung took fifth place in the Great Race, after the rabbit but before the snake.

© K.A. Rodgers 2011

By Robin Eaglen

The remains of Metapontum lie on the instep of the tall boot that is Italy. It was founded in the seventh century BC by colonists from Achaea in the north-eastern Peloponnese, as were a number of other settlements in Southern Italy, beginning with Sybaris in 720 and Croton in 708 BC. The fertile soil of the countryside beyond the city was ideal for growing grain and rearing livestock, and resulted in the ear of barley being chosen as the badge of Metapontum. The Augustan geographer, Strabo, related that the city so prospered that it dedicated 'a golden harvest' at Delphi. The gist of his remark is clear, even if the nature of the harvest is not. Besides the remains of temples, evidence has been found of a modest artificial harbour on the site. But, unlike nearby Tarentum, founded from Sparta beside a fine natural harbour, the bulk of its trade must have been inland.

The Achaean settlements appear to have maintained close economic ties, resulting in a common standard for the weight of their staters at 8.00g. These links were underlined by the issue of distinctive coins which, apart from a brief flirtation by Zancle in Sicily, never spread from Italy to the Greek world at large. The two outstanding characteristics of the coins were their thin flans of spread metal and the striking of the main design in relief on the obverse and of a closely similar incuse, or concave design on the reverse.

This format is thought by some to have originated from Sybaris, then the most influential of the Achaean settlements. It used to be surmised that the convex/concave format was the brainchild of Pythagoras, who fled from Samos to Croton in 530 BC or later, bringing with him his political and philosophical ideas, including the doctrine known as 'the duality of opposites'. However, although the date at which the incuse types were first introduced has not been firmly established, recent writers mostly believe it to have been between 550 and 530 BC, and thus before Pythagoras' arrival in Italy. Although the incuse mirror image was novel, incusegeometric designs were extensively used for reverses in the earliest phase of Greek coinage. Pythagoras has, nevertheless, a more than nebulous connection with Metapontum in that he spent his last days there.

The incuse coinage at Metapontum may be divided into three phases. The initial, spread flans were superseded by less broad flans in the last decade of the sixth century, to be followed in turn by compact, dumpy flans from sometime in the first quarter of the fifth century until the 430s BC. Although the idiosyncratic spread flan and incuse design had succumbed to coins in relief at Croton and Caulonia by 480, the incuse format persisted for another half century at Metapontum.

Because of their bold and unusual design the coins of Sybaris (with the backward gazing bull) and of Metapontum (with the heavily awned ear of barley), are both particularly handsome and memorable examples of incuse coinage. Their attractiveness is embellished by the precise synchrony of the obverse and reverse images and centring of the designs on the flans. This obviously arises from the apparatus and techniques used to strike the coin, and the extra care required may be an important reason why the incuse design was not more widely adopted. It has been suggested that the format made it easy to stack the coins, but this does not seem to have been a likely or even practical notion.

After abandoning the incuse type in the latter part of the fifth century, Metapontum retained the ear of barley for its reverse dies and introduced an impressive series of heads upon the obverse, all in relief. These portrayed female deities (Figures C and D), and Leucippos (Figures E and F), the mythical founder of Metapontum. The series is described and illustrated in the comprehensive die studies published by Noe and Johnston in 1984 and by Johnston in 1990.

AR Stater. Third quarter of sixth century BC.

8.12g (28mm diameter). Noe, Class II, 41.

Author's collection. Ex David Miller, 2004.

Obv. Ear of barley on short stalk with three

rows of eight grains. Long awns composed of

pelleted lines, spreading to a linear outer

circle surrounded by a border of pellets. In left

field, letters MET vertically downwards.

Rev. Crisp incuse image of barley ear and

stalk, the awns with rectangular depressions

to their outer linear edge, spreading to a circular

border of rectangular indentations.

 Fig. C.

Fig D.

Fig E.

Fig. F.



1.N. G. L. Hammond, A History of Greece to 322 BC., 3rd edn (Oxford, 1986), Appendix 3, pp. 659-60. Hammond dates the foundation to 690 - 680, but archeological evidence appears to point to a date c. 630 (An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Greek Poleis, edited by M. H. Hansen and T. H. Nielsen (Oxford, 2004), pp. 279-80).

2.S. P. Noe, with additions and correctionsby A. Johnston, The Coinage of Metapontum, Parts 1 and 2 (New York, 1984), pp.1, 35. T. J. Dunbabin, The Western Greeks, (Oxford, 1948), pp.86-7.

3. Strabo, Geographia, 6.1.15.

4. Noe, The Coinage of Metapontum, p.1

5. Hammond, A History of Greece, p.118.

6. C. M. Kraay and M. Hirmer, Greek Coins (New York,1966), p.17. N. K. Rutter, Greek Coinages of Southern Italy and Sicily (London, 1997), p.20, questions the existence of a political alliance amongst the users of incuse dies.

7. D. R. Sear, Greek Coins and their Values, I (GCV) (London, 1978), GCV 721 (p.76).

8. Noe, The Coinage of Metapontum, p.3; I. Carradice and M. Price, Coinage in the Greek World, (London, 1988), p.43.

9. See, for example, C. Seltman, Masterpieces of Greek Coinage (Oxford, 1949), pp.34-5.

10. Hammond, A History of Greece, p.272.

11. M. Grant, The Classical Greeks (London, 1989), p.277.

12. Seltman, Masterpieces of Greek Coinage, pp.34-5.

13. Grant, The Classical Greeks, p.278.

14. Rutter, Greek Coinages of Southern Italy and Sicily, pp.47-8; Noe, The Coinage of Metapontum, p.49, where Johnston endorses a date 'c. 500', as do Carradice and Price (Coinage in the Greek World), p.43).

15. See, for example, Johnston in Noe, The Coinage of Metapontum, p.49, and Rutter ,Greek Coinages of Southern Italy & Sicily, p.48.

16. See GCV 256 (p.34), 466 (p. 52) (Croton); GCV 252 (p. 34), 462 (p. 51). Sybaris was destroyed by Croton in 510 (The Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, 3rd edn revised (Oxford, 2003), p.411).

17. G. F. Hill, A Handbook of Greek and Roman Coins (New York, 1899), p. 152.

18. A.Johnston, The Coinage of Metapontum, Part 3(New York, 1990). Class C.4.9 (Plate 12). 7.88g (21mm diameter), die axis 0°. Author's collection, ex Spink, 2004.

19. Johnston, The Coinage of Metapontum, Class B.3 (Plates 7-8). 7.97g (20mm diameter), die axis 315°. Author's collection, ex Spink, 2000. The treatment of the beard is exceptionally realistic.

20. Strabo, 6.1.15.21. Noe, The Coinage of Metapontum and Johnston, The Coinage of Metapontum.

Many of our specialists here at Spink have been in this business for decades. They've seen collectables many of us only dream of holding or one day carrying in our own collections. Over time they build a catalogue of knowledge and a book of memories from the smallest to the largest collections with items of little value to items that are more valuable than the GDP of small countries. In this new segment of the Spink magazine we'll be asking our specialists what some of their top pieces have been since the day started in the business. First up to the plate is our Bond & Share specialist, Mike Veissid. Mike takes us through some of the more interesting Bonds & Shares and explains why each is a highlight for him personally.

1. Always on the look out for that unique piece! Bond number 1 of the Chinese Government 5% Gold Loan, also known as the 'Boxer Loan' as it's origin was in the Chinese reparations agreed after the 1900 China War. In itself a number 1 bond is very collectable but what makes this unique is that it was kept as an archive piece by the issuing bank, the Banque Industrielle de Chine and therefore has all of its original coupons. Not only that, it has also been signed by all of the officers of the bank at the time this very important loan was made to China. This piece will be offered in our January Hong Kong sale with an estimate of HK$6000 to 8000, but who knows what it will sell for!

2. A very attractive £100 First Mortgage bond of the Canadian Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway Company. This 999 year loan was issued in 1884 and was quoted on the Stock Exchange until the late 1990's when called for redemption by the Canadian Pacific Railway, which had acquired the line many years before. This provided the collector with a very nice piece of Canadian history and at the same time paying £4 interest on presentation of the coupons twice a year! A great link between both Stock market and collectors market.

3. French certificates are often very colourful and attractive, designed by some of the great Edwardian artists. This example, designed by Paul Poncet in art nouveau style has many elements of interest to the collector including an attractive lady whose dress has fallen seductively off her shoulder. The company was formed by major artistes to maximize their profits from recordings of their work but was in financial difficulties by 1910. It was subsequently acquired by Pathé Freres.

4. A great example of British and American co-operation. A lovely share certificate of Barnum & Bailey Ltd., dated 1902, depicting both showman PhineasT.Barnum and J A.Bailey and printed by Waterlow & Sons. The company was formed in England in 1899 at the start of the Barnum and Bailey Circus European Tour. The circus was the largest in the world at the time, operating 3 rings instead of the European norm of only one (the origin of the term 'a three ring circus'). A huge logistical task was moving the circus from town to town and for this a special 60 coach train was used. The circus was sold to Ringling Brothers in 1906 following the untimely death of Bailey. Barnum had died in 1891

5. & 6. A particular collecting favourite are fraud related certificates. Whitaker Wright was an English born company promoter who first came to prominence in the American mining market, floating companies in Colorado and New Mexico. He later became chairman of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. Finding his way back to London, Wright floated mining companies on the London Stock Exchange with property in Western Australia and British Columbia. As is often the way, the financier took on larger and larger projects, found himself with liquidity problems and used money from his one company to keep another afloat. This ended with a collapse of his empire and panic on the Stock Exchange and in 1904 he was tried for fraud. After being handed down a seven year prison sentence Wright swallowed a cyanide tablet and died in a court anteroom. Here are examples of two certificates, both bearing his facsimile signature.

7. Channel Tunnel Co. Ltd., a certificate for 4 shilling shares, dated 1929, issued to a French shareholder. This company dates back to the 1880's when test drillings were made at both sides of the Channel but the scheme was abandoned because of fears of an invasion from the Continent. The test drillings can still be seen at Shakespeare Cliff near Folkestone, very close to the present tunnel entrance.

8. & 9. The Channel Crossing. The Channel link between England and France had been talked about since 1802 and numerous ideas had been floated (pun not intended) for tunnels, tubes and railway ferries. Several schemes were beyond the engineering capabilities of the time but others which could have worked were abandoned due to fears for our national defence. Even in the 1880's there were fears of a French invasion! Here are a few examples available to the collector…..

Channel Bridge & Railway Co. Ltd., certificates for £4 stock, 1889 and £4 founders' stock, 1891. Another failed scheme, this time for an above water link between England and France. The word bridge is erroneous as the trains were to be loaded onto a large ferry which would cross the channel and be offloaded onto the French railway system

9. Beaumont Compressed Air Locomotive Co. Ltd., 7% preference shares of £10 dated 1882. Colonel Beaumont was an engineer of some repute who built the compressed air boring machine that started to cut the Channel Tunnel in 1880. When the tunnel was to have been completed the Beaumont locomotive, weighing 60 to 70 tons, would be drawn through the tunnel at about 30 miles per hour.

10. Channel Tubular Railway Preliminary Company Ltd., a founders share certificate dated, London 1892, very attractive piece with vignettes around border of English and French coast, tube resting on the seabed. This was one of the more unrealistic schemes for a channel link with a metal tube resting on the seabed in which the railway ran.

By Robin Eaglen

AR drachm, c. 365-356 BC.

Obv. Head of the fountain nymph, Larissa, three-quarters facing l., with freely flowing tresses of hair bound with a fillet above her forehead, wearing earring.

Rev. Grazing horse r., with a long tail; left foreleg raised, possibly as a prelude to rolling over. ..A...... above horse and AION below line representing the ground. 6.10g ( 17/19 mm). Die axis 315.

Author's collection. Ex Spink, NCirc, February 2011, GK3024 . Lorber Phase L - II style bust, Plate 3, 311.

Among the master engravers towards the end of the fifth century BC who were allowed to sign their dies, none surpassed Kimon. His output of Syracusan tetradrachms bearing the almost facing head of Arethusa is widely recognised as the peak of his artistry.2 The goddess-nymph Arethusa is shown beneath the water, her hair in elegant suspension amidst playful dolphins. Her gaze attracts the observer, quite unlike a head shown in profile. The eyes, often a problem in sculpture, emit a palpable wistfulness. The nose is long and graceful and the full lips are refined yet sensual. The overall impression created is of a superior being, radiating an other-worldly but not disdainful detachment.

Two obverse dies are known from his hand. Both bear the name Arethusa (APE ÈOÈÈ) in a curve above her portrait and the signature KIMÈN on the ampyx or fillet binding her hair. The dies were used with two different reverses, only one of which was signed by Kimon between a double line exergue. Both obverses are illustrated, at Figures C and D. It is widely agreed that the die used to strike the coin at Figure C (Tudeer O.28) is superior to that used at Figure D (Tudeer O.29).3

The face in Figure C is a better shape and more expressive and the more prominent dolphins play an important role in balancing the posture of the neck and offset necklace. Of the two companion reverses, showing a quadriga and Nike, the one signed by Kimo (Tudeer die R.53) is altogether more accomplished and spirited than the other (R.54), raising doubts if he engraved both dies..

The facing head appears suddenly at Syracuse from about 413 BC4 where Eucleidas also engraved fine examples of Athena,5 and at Catania where Heracleidas produced a splendid representation of Apollo.6 Since the dies were a short-lived break from the tradition of profile portraiture at Syracuse, they were possibly issued to mark a special purpose or occasion. From the practical point of view, the three dimensional effect created by the depth of the engraving exposed the nose in particular to disfiguring wear if the coins circu-lated to any extent. Despite this drawback, the facing head design spread quickly to other centres, doubtless kindled by the sheer virtuosity of the tetradrachms from Syracuse. Notably Rhodes so portrayed the sun god, Helios, partnered by the rose (ÈÈÈÈÈ) as the longstanding hallmarks of its coinage.7 Fine examples also emanated from Ainos,8 where Hermes appears in his broad-brimmed hat (petasus) and from Amphipolis and Clazomenae,
with their own introspective renderings of Apollo.9 Others followed. No centre, however, was more faithful to Kimon's design than Larissa. The dolphins have vanished because the fountain nymph Larissa is depicted10 and the flans are smaller because the denominations are didrachms and the far more plentiful drachms, rather than tetradrachms. But the debt is obvious and amongst the surviving dies of widely variable quality are a number of very fine portraits. As testimony, an enlargement of the obverse illustrated at Figure A is set alongside a representation of Kimon's finer obverse (Figure C), with a matching diameter:

Kimon's tetradrachms with the signed facing busts are very rare and greatly prized. Most recently, an example in extremely fine condition of the least desirable die combination Tudeer O.29 with R.54) was sold for a hammer price of $575000.11 H.J.Berk, in his 100 Greatest Ancient Coins, published in 2008, predicted that an average example of Figure D (Tudeer O.29) might fetch $25,000, whereas the 'best example' of Figure C (Tudeer O.28) would exceed $400,000. Only extremely wealthy collectors could afford to buy such a piece. For less fortunate mortals a Larissan drachm of fine style is the poor man's Kimon, and to be had for as little as a few hundred pounds. Interestingly, Berk also included a drachm of Larissa in his hundred greatest coins, although not everyone might agree with his choice of obverse die, Larissa's hair looking as if it had been cropped and permed.

Larissa is where the hero Perseus is said to have fulfilled the prophecy of an oracle in unwittingly killing his grandfather with a discus when competing in funerary games.12 Located on the right bank of the River Peneus, Larissa was the most important town in Thessaly.13 It took its name from the eponymous nymph depicted on its coinage during the fourth century BC. Before then, Larissa had been one of the earliest centres to strike coins in that part of the world14 and its die cutters had already demonstrated their competence.15

The quality of the coins with the nymph's head on the obverse and 'grazing' horse on the reverse, led Hermann16 to place the issue earlier than recent research by Lorber, who dates the best examples between 356 and 346 BC or possibly slightly later.17 The beginning of this period appears to correspond with the time when Philip of Macedon made Larissa his main bulwark in Thessaly,18 having been invited late in 357 by the ruling Aleuad house - to which he was related19 - to rebuff the threat posed by nearby Pherae.20

The horse on the reverse may reflect Thessaly's reputation for fine cavalry men and horse breeding. The oligarchic aristocrats in each of the states were also renowned for owning fine horses.21

1 C. Lorber 'A Hoard of Facing Head Larissa Drachms', SNR 79 (2000), pp.7-15 and Plates 1-5.

2 See, for example, D. R. Sear, Greek Coins and
their Values, I-II (GCV) (London, 1978-9), p.100.

3 The coin at Figure C is in the Paolo Orsi Regional Archaeological Museum,Syracuse, from the Pennisi Collection and Figure D appears in B. V. Head, A Guide to the Principal Coins of the Greeks (London, 1932), Plate 17, 68 (=BMC 208).For Tudeer references, see L.O.Th.Tudeer, Die Tetradrachmenprägung von Syrakus in der signierenden Künstler (Berlin,1913), pp. 55,57 and Plate IV. On the relative merits of the two obverse dies, see C.Seltman, Masterpieces of Greek Coinage (Oxford,1949),p. 98 and
H.J.Berk, 100 Greatest Ancient Coins (Atlanta,2008), p. 38 .

4 Facing busts are occasionally encountered earlier,for example on a drachma of
Stratus between 450-400 BC (see GCV 2299, p.218).

5 See C. M. Kraay and Max Hirmer, Greek Coins (K+H) (New York), Plate IV, 111,112 R.

6 K+H, Plate III, 44 and Plate 15, 43 O; GCV771, p.81.

7 K+H, Plates 188, 644 and 189, 645 O, 646, 647 O, 648; GCV5029-5057, pp.456-9.

8 K+H, Plate 137, 424 O; GCV1568, p.158.

9 K+H, Plates 134-5, 414-6 O, 417, 418 O; GCV1379,p.141 (Amphipolis) and K+H Plate 181, 608 O;GCV4315, p.397 (Clazomenae).

10 B.V.Head, Historia Numorum (Oxford, 1911), p.299.

11 CNG,Triton XI sale, 8-9 January 2011,61.

12 Apollodorus ii, 4.4.

13 A Dictionary of Ancient Greek Civilisation (London, 1966), p.264.

14 GCV, p.203.

15 GCV 2106 and 2111, p.203.

16 F. Hermann,'Die Silbemünzen von Larissa in Thessalien', ZfN 35 (Berlin, 1925), pp.1-69; see Plate V, 4 -14.

17 Lorber, 'Facing Head Larissa Drachms', pp.11-12.

18 The Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, 3rd edn revised (Oxford, 2003) , p.816.

19 N. Hammond,Philip of Macedon (London, 1994), pp.1, 29, 170.

20 N. G. L. Hammond, A History of Greece to 322 BC, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1986), p.539.

21 Hammond, Philip of Macedon, p.29.

By Robin Eaglen

Perseus was the last king of Macedon. His father, Philip V named his son after the popular Greek hero, who also figured on the obverse of some of his coins.2 In the course of his long reign (221-179 BC) Philip tried to extend the dominion of Macedon, bringing him into opposition with Rome especially through his alliance with Hannibal in 216 and his attempt to supplant its influence along the eastern shores of the Adriatic.3 The Roman Senate eventually turned on Philip in 200, and three years later he was roundly defeated at Cynoscephalae in Thessaly by T. Quinctius Flammininus. In the subsequent peace settlement the Romans confined him to Macedon, took most of his fleet and hostages, including his younger son, Demetrius. After his release, Demetrius be came a protagonist of Rome, tempted by the prospect of succeeding as king in preference to Perseus, his elder brother. Under the latter's inducement Philip reluctantly had Demetrius executed for treason in 180, the year before his own death.4

Perseus inherited his father's aspiration to aggrandise Macedon and break loose from Roman influence. With the benefit of hindsight, such policies appear doomed from the outset. Rome was making inexorable progress in spreading its power and influence, resisting three great military leaders in Philip's lifetime Philip himself, Hannibal, who had ended by committing suicide in 183 or 182,5 and Antiochus III of Syria, eventually lynched in 187.6 The Roman success was partly due to expertise in battle, but also to diplomatic skill in nurturing acceptance amongst the Greeks. In crushing the ambitions of Philip V, the Romans plausibly presented themselves as protectors of the Greeks, thereby creating the curious amalgam of raw imperialism and genuine philhellenism through which they engulfed the Greek world.7

Perseus was popular at home and a magnet for any anti-Roman sympathy. His progress, however, stirred the enmity of Eumenes II of Pergamum, who denounced him to the Romans, giving them the pretext to declare war on Macedon in 171. After initial success, Perseus was defeated at Pydna in 168 BC. He made his escape but was later taken and died at Alba Fucens, east of Rome, after two years in captivity. 8

The head on the obverse die illustrated is engraved with striking virtuosity. In style it is both distinct from the unworldly ethereal beauty of the finest classical portraits and more penetratingly observed than the stale, small scale realism of later Roman imperial issues. The physical impact of the obverse is helped by the generous flan. Perseus comes across as an authoritative, thoughtful and resourceful ruler. The obverse design is also found with the name Zoilos (ÆÙÉËÏV) beneath the head, but these dies are not necessarily of superior workmanship or weight, lending support to the premise that the signatory was a mint master rather than die engraver. 9

The reverse combines the images of an oak wreath and eagle, both associated with Zeus. The mantic oak of Zeus was at Dodona in Epirus,10 and the reverse of Epeirote didrachms (238-168 BC) bears an oak wreath with acorns, surrounding a butting bull.11 The eagle is found copiously on Greek coinage, often as the companion of Zeus who holds the bird in his outstretched hand.12 It was also a predominant image on coinage in Egypt from the reign of Ptolemy I (305-283) to the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC.13 As on the reverse illustrated, the bird was depicted perched on a thunderbolt, symbolic of Zeus's intervention in the natural world.14 Perseus obviously derived his reverse from his father's type with an oak wreath surrounding a club,15 also found at Herakleia16 and, from 158 BC at Amphipolis.17 But substitution of the club by the eagle was his own innovation.

1 See Bunbury 827 for the same combination of monorgams.

2 B. V. Head, A Guide to the Principal Coins of the Greeks (PCG) (London, 1932), Plate 35, 5; D. R. Sear, Greek Coins and their Values, I- II (GCV) (London, 1978, 1979), GCV 6791, p.631.

3 A Dictionary of Ancient Greek Civilisation (London, 1967), p.361; The Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD), edited by S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, 3rd edition revised (Oxford, 2003), p.1162.

4 OCD p.1162; N Davis and C. M. Kraay, The Hellenistic Kingdoms, Portrait coins and history (Hellenistic Kingdoms) (London,1980), p.227.

5 OCD, p.666.

6 OCD, p.108; GCV, p.647; R.M.Errington, A History of the Hellenistic World, 323-30 BC (Hellenistic World) (Oxford, 2007), p.223.

7 OCD, pp.1159-60.

8 OCD, pp.1143-4. Hellenistic Kingdoms, pp. 228-9, 255; Hellenistic World, p.245.

9 C. Seltman, Greek Coins, 2nd edition (London, 1955), p. 226; GCV 6803, p.633. In Triton VI, 14 -15 January 2003, 196, the CNG cataloguer suggests that these signed coins of 'exceptional quality and unreduced weight… may be reasonably assumed to have been a coronation or donative issue.' Apart from the signature, the only mark of distinction in the coin illustrated is the inclusion of acorns as well as oak leaves in the reverse wreath.

10 OCD, p.489.

11 GCV, p.195.

12 Most notably on the vast silver coinage of Alexander the Great (GCV, pp.622-4).

13 GCV, pp.733-54.

14 OCD, p.1637.

15 GCV, 6791-3, p.631.

16 PCG, Plate 39, 12.

17 GCV, 1386, p.141. 53

By WIlliam MacKay

This series of short articles takes as its subject a British coin which neatly enscapulates an important moment in history of the British Isles. 

No. 1. 'Whilst I Live, I Hope'- 1648 Pontefract Siege piece and the last days of the Royalist cause.



An octagonal Shilling from the coinages of the English Civil War struck at Pontefract, Yorkshire, whilst  besieged February-March 24^th 1649, after the execution of Charles I, in the name of Charles II. Obverse, castle gateway, tower above with flag flying dividing  P C (for Pontefract Castle), cannon protruding to right,OBS (besieged) to left,CAROLVS:SECVNDVS:1648, Reverse, crownedCR,DVM: SPIRO: SPERO (North 3648; Spink 3150).

On the 20 January 1649 Charles I faced a High Court of Justice set up by parliament charged with high treason and other high crimes. Charles regarded this court as an insult to his authority believing no court held jurisdiction over the king whose authority came from God and the traditions and laws of England as entrusted to him by his coronation oath and anointment. As a result he saw the trial as nothing more than an instrument of the Parliamentary Army that had defeated his own forces. For him this was an illegal trial and he was confident that the law was on his side telling the court, 'then for the law of this land I am no less confident, that no learned lawyer will affirm that an impeachment can lie against the King, they all going in his name: and one of their maxims is,' he added emphatically, 'that the King can do no wrong.'He then made his position absolutely clear,'I would know by what power I am called hither, by what lawful authority?' 

Over the next week Charles was asked to plead three times and each time refused, ensuring that the prosecution could call no witnesses. The outcome was inevitable. On Saturday 27 January 1649 he was sentenced to death. Three days later on a cold morning he walked out onto a scaffold erected in front of the Banqueting Hall, part of the Royal Palace of Whitehall and before placing his head on the block, declared'I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be.'  With his execution the seven long years of division between the king and his supporters and the people in England, Scotland and Ireland who opposed his aims, seemed to come to an end.

But the subjugation of opposition was not complete. One hundred and eighty five miles to the north the great medieval fortress at Pontefract still held out resolutely for the Royalist cause. In 1648 Charles had managed to pull together a desperate alliance with the Scots against the English Parliamentary forces. This had ignited the second English Civil War. His campaign proved ineffective against the well-organised forces of Parliament and by the end of 1648, with the exception of Pontefract, the cause of Charles I was all but lost.

Pontefract castle was no newcomer to dramatic events in English History and had been associated with opposition to the king as much as otherwise. Built by the De Lacy family, descendents of one of William the Conqueror's barons in the thirteenth century, it was subsequently enhanced by the Earls of Lancaster to whom it came by marriage in 1311. The powerful Thomas of Lancaster, son of Edmund, the brother of Edward I, rebelled against the divisive rule of Edward II and was defeated at Boroughbridge in 1322.  Tried for treason and found guilty he was executed in front of his Pontefract castle. His son, Henry, became a close ally of Edward III and led English armies against the French in the 1340s and 1350s with distinction. Created Duke of Lancaster by Edward III, the Duchy including Pontefract castle then passed on his death through his daughter Blanche, to John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III. John of Gaunt extended it and made it one of his main residences.

Following his death in 1399, his son and heir, Henry Bolingbroke was exiled in an ill judged attempt by the paranoid Richard II to destroy the power of the Duke of Lancaster.  Henry then collected an army and invaded England, deposing the despotic and unpopular Richard II and had himself acclaimed King Henry IV by parliament on 30 September 1399. Pontefract castle was then to provide a fortress prison fit for a deposed king and at some point in 1400 Richard II either starved to death or was murdered (probably the same thing) whilst there. 

Pontefract castle next came to prominence in the English Civil War when it was seized for Charles I by Sir Marmaduke Langdale on 2 June 1648. The subsequent siege by Parliamentary forces was initiated by Cromwell in the autumn of 1648. To  provide cash to pay for supplies and the services of soldiers the defending Royalist leaders melted bullion and plate held at the castle and using their own dies minted it into coins. That they seem to have been aware of the desperate position of their cause and their own dedication to keep it alive is evident in the latin mottoDVM SPIRO SPEROor, in English,WHILST I LIVE I HOPE.

The first issue of these siege pieces were struck before the execution of Charles I and acknowledge his authority with the royal cipherCR. At some point in early February 1649, news evidently reached Pontefract that the King had been executed an event which must have only added to the sense of desperation expressed in the heroic motto. But the defenders did not lose heart. Charles I may have been in his grave but the Royalist cause could not be extinguished so long as he had an heir, which of course there was in Charles, Prince of Wales. The cause could be kept alive with a new king and Charles II was proclaimed by the defenders of Pontefract for, as long as there were adherents and a king (even one in exile on the continent), the cause could live on.

The issue of Pontefract siege piece Shillings in the name of Charles II can be dated to between early February and March 24^th 1649 when Pontefract surrendered. All are dated 1648 as the seventeenth century the new year did not begin on 1 January as it does today.

Pontefract castle, in common with other castles that had stood for the king, was slighted by the Parliamentarians, so it could never again form a focus of opposition to the government of the land.

Pontefract octagonal siege pieces in the name of Charles II are very rare. From time to time Spink may have examples in stock or offer examples at auction.     

By Dr. K. A. Rodgers

 Victoria, Empress of India.
Image by Bassano,
ex Wikimedia Commons.

Paper money tells something of a nation's story. Successive issues provide commentary on a country's evolution. The tale told is by no means restricted to economics. Different note issues reflect changing political circumstances and societal attitudes. They may echo triumphs or disasters, conquests or defeats, strife or stability. It is this way with the issues of India and of British India in particular. The story these notes hold is one being heard by a new generation of collectors in the Indian sub-continent as they reclaim their history.

Bank of Bengal on the Hoogly River, Calcutta c. 1908-1919. Library of Congress, Washington.

These - and other - collectors will be spoilt for choice when Spink's September banknote catalogue makes its appearance. Barnaby Faull's serendipity has been working overtime. He has secured a fabulous hoard of historic Indian paper out of Singapore. Not only will this allow gaps to be plugged in many a collection, but it also contains a few delightful discovery notes, items unknown until now in any catalogue. There are specimens, low serial numbers, sequential runs, and, if India doesn't warm your cockles, a good smattering of colonial and post-colonial issues from Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon. But this section of the catalogue will be dominated by notes from the British Raj.

Imperial India 101

The British Raj was established over the Indian sub-continent in 1858 in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 aka the Indian Mutiny aka India's First War of Independence. As the dust settled, the British Government moved peremptorily to transfer rule holus bolus from the British East India Company to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria. Along with a total reorganization of the Indian army, India's new masters implemented a complete makeover of the civil administration including its financial systems. Twenty years down the track Benjamin Disraeli enthroned Queen Victoria as Empress of India.

Lest there be any confusion, the British Raj extended over all of present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as Aden, Upper and Lower Burma, British Somaliland, Singapore and the Persian Gulf's Trucial States. It is little wonder that Queen Victoria's Governor-General gloried in the title of Viceroy of India.

One significant aspect of the financial reforms was the introduction of a single uniform note issue for the country fully backed by the new government. It was a first for India.

India's Early Paper Money

Paper money had been introduced to India in the late 18th Century, around the time Europe's colonial powers were picking over the spoils of the once mighty Mughal Empire. At this time, India's once powerful banking community lost its dominant position. It was successfully challenged by new agency houses, many of whom established local banks with state patronage. Most of these institutions issued their own paper currency.

Typical of these issues were those of the General Bank of Bengal and Bahar, set up in 1773 with a most modern mix of state and private capital. Although it was wound up two years later, its government backing ensured it was both successful and profitable.

The Bank of Hindostan was incorporated in 1770 by the agency house of Alexander and Company. It survived three panic runs only to collapse during a commercial crisis in 1832.

The official support for these banks ensured their notes met with general approval and enjoyed wide circulation. Even greater acceptance of paper money came when issues were introduced by the Presidency Banks. The Presidencies were administrative units of the East
India Company. They established banks via government charters. Such were the intimate relationships they enjoyed with government, these banks were in effect quangos. Major players included the Bank of Calcutta, later the Bank of Bengal, established in 1806, the Bank of Madras (1843) and the Bank of Bombay (1868).

Early note issues were denominated in star pagodas and/or sicca rupees, both currencies of the East India Company. Later issues were primarily in rupees. The Bank of Bengal notes are among the most extensive and best known. There were three distinct series: uniface, commerce motif, and Britannia motif. Early issues included Rs 10, 16, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000, based on 16 sicca rupees to each gold mohur.

The Raj Takes Over

Three years after taking over, the Raj introduced the Paper Currency Act of 1861. This gave the Government a monopoly on note issue throughout the Raj. The Presidency banks, as did all private banks, now lost their right of issue. They were now required to act as agents for the Secretary of State for India in the issue, payment and exchange of new Government of India promissory notes. In return these banks were given free use of Government balances. A major problem existed in the redemption of these notes over the vast expanse of the Indian sub-continent. This was in a day and age when all notes needed to be presented at their office of issue in order to be paid out. Sending notes back from one bank to another presented a serious - and expensive - security concern. This matter was addressed by the long proven procedure of cutting any non-local note presented for payment in half and sending one portion by post to its office of issue. When confirmation of receipt was received the other half was dispatched by post. Eventually a long-suffering clerk would have the tedious job of reuniting and pasting the two halves together to allow payment to be completed. This had long been the normal practice among banks of issue in England, especially provincial banks. This somewhat clumsy process was speeded by the establishment of Currency Circles - defined regions where individual notes issued by any one bank branch in a Circle would be accepted as legal tender and duly paid out by all other banks within the same Circle.

In the first instance, it was the task of the Presidency Banks to set up and administer these Circles. As their number increased, the Government slowly took over management of the note issue in its entirety. By 1867 all agency agreements with the Presidency Banks had been terminated. Management of the paper currency was now vested in mint masters, accountants general and, eventually, controllers of currency

Portraits vs Underprints

Establishing any new note issue, let alone one in an area of the size controlled by the Raj, requires considerable detailed planning. First and foremost, the note issue itself must be satisfactory. In India, the British turned to what they knew worked well and developed a Victoria Portrait Series based loosely on the then current Bank of England notes.

These first notes were uniface and printed on hand-moulded paper manufactured at the Laverstock Paper Mills aka Portals. This is the mill built by Henri Portal that had been making paper for BoE notes since 1727. The paper indeed shows similarities to that used for the old BoE white fiver. The watermark consisted of wavy lines and carried two signatures, the denomination, and the words GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, RUPEES.

The first notes were issued in 1861 and included denominations for Rs 10, 20, 50, 100, and 1000. There was no Rs 5 issue and no such notes would appear until 1872. However, a previously unknown Rs 5 specimen dated 26 March 1858 and printed on Portals' paper surfaced last year. If nothing else, it shows the British Government took their time to get this first note issue right. The date places its preparation in the year the Raj was established and three years prior to the passing of the Paper Currency Act.

The pre-Raj note issues had conditioned Indian businesses and the general public to the use of paper money. The new notes were quickly accepted and given the ultimate accolade of being rapidly and widely counterfeited.

These forgeries saw the Portrait series withdrawn and replaced in 1872 by a second uniface series also printed on moulded paper. This so-called Underprint Series carried a coloured underprint, guilloche (geometric lathe) patterns, and, initially, four language panels. Subsequently, this green series was replaced by a red series with eight language panels. The wavy line watermark was still there but it now included a manufacturer's code that subsequently provided some confusion in dating these issues. This new series saw release of the first Rs 5 notes due to public demand.

As with the Victoria Portrait notes, these new notes was at first legally encashable only in the Currency Circle of issue, but between 1903 an 1911 all Rs 5, 10, 50 and 100 notes were declared legal tenderanywhere in India.

This series remained more or less the same in appearance until its replacement in 1923.

Emperors of India

In 1928 a currency note press was established at Nasik. From then on, more and more of India's currency requirements would be printed within the country. Over the next two decades security features would be improved including changes to watermarks, the quality and detail of the imperial portrait, and the use of multiple colours.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was formally inaugurated on 1 April 1935 in Calcutta. It took over the functions of the Controllers of Currency. Currency Offices in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Rangoon, Karachi, Lahore and Cawnpore now became branches of the Issue Department of the RBI. When George VI eventually replaced his dad as Emperor, his notes showed their issuing authority as the RESERVE BANK OF INDIA. However, until its own new notes were ready, the RBI continued to issue Government of India currency.

Following the death of George V in January 1936, a Rs 100 showing the crowned portrait of Edward VIII was prepared and scheduled for release in the summer of 1937. It is shown on p.193 of Spink's Portraits of a Prince. The subsequent abdication resulted in the first RBI note delaying its appearance until January 1938. It was a Rs 5 of George VI. This was followed by Rs 10 in February, Rs 100 in March and Rs 1,000 and Rs 10,000 in June. These new RBI notes retained similar sizes, appearances and designs to the former Government issues.

In August 1940 the Rs 1 note was reintroduced as a Government note. Again it was a war time measure. A further Rs 2 As 8 issue was contemplated but, instead, a fresh issue of the Rs 2 note was made on 3 March 1943. During the war the Japanese manufactured high quality forgeries of the Rs 10 note with a view to destabilising India's currency. This led to a redesign of this note. The watermark was changed and the profile of George VI on the front was replaced by a full frontal version. For the first time in India a security thread was introduced into a note.

With the outbreak of peace, the George VI series continued until 15 April 1947 when independence and partition came to India. Thereafter these notes continued to be issued as an ad interim measure until replaced in 1950 by issues of the new Republic of India. After some debate the vignette of the Imperial head was supplanted bythe Lion Capital of Ashoka.

In newly independent Pakistan George VI notes of the RBI continued to be used but overstamped GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN. They provided a provisional issue until the new country was in a position to release its own distinctive notes in 1948. A similar issue overprinted BURMA CURRENCY BOARD, LEGAL TENDER IN BURMA ONLY appeared in 1947 - in Burma.

Collecting Tips

Anyone starting out to try and assemble a significant collection of the notes of India - or Pakistan or Burma - should be aware that it is doubtful if any individual has managed to put together examples of all the note varieties to be found in the catalogues. Each different note type comes with different signatures and/or printed dates of issue, and, importantly, different branches of issue. Some of these are extremely scare.

Once collectors have crossed that particular numismatic Rubicon, they will find that some branch names come printed in either large or small caps (George V 100 rupees), with in different coloured serial numbers (George VI 1940 1 rupee), and even different watermarks within an otherwise identical note type (George V1 100 rupees). Even getting just one example of each denomination issued by the British Raj is a major accomplishment, but one that provides immense satisfaction when completed.

Anyone contemplating this particular journey should check out the country listings in the Standard catalog of world paper money: General issues1368-1960, Krause Publications. More detailed information can be sourced in Kishore Jhunjhunwala's Standard reference guide to Indian paper money. And do not be discouraged by spike or staple holes in banknotes from the Indian subcontinent. They are the norm.

For those that enjoy the excitement of the chase, and are quite prepared to spend a goodly segment of their life engaging in it, the issues of Imperial India present a magnificent historical challenge. Spink's September Spring sale is a great place to start. It follows other successful sales of Indian paper money by the company over the past decade. The contents of these auctions can be viewed on-line at Spink Archives.

© K.A. Rodgers 2011

The Norweb Collection - Tokens of the British Isles 1575-1750.
Part VIII, Middlesex and Uncertain Pieces.

by R.H. Thompson and M.J. Dickinson

This volume, covering the county of Middlesex, is the concluding part of the monumental eight-volume catalogue of The Norweb Collection of 17th Century Tokens of the British Isles. The first volume was published in 1984 and subsequent volumes appeared at intervals of roughly four years. It is the largest private collection that has ever been formed, addressing some 13,000 pieces. The extent and quality of the collection makes it an ideal vehicle for a conspectus of the token coinage of the period and these publications are likely to remain the most comprehensive standard works on the series for the foreseeable future.

Of the 1,617 types in this volume, over 270 are not in Williamson's catalogue. A concordance facilitates reference by Williamson or Dickinson number together with extensive indexes. Every type is illustrated on the 68 plates, also included in this volume are Uncertain Pieces and Forgeries from the collection. Several re-attributions from one county to another are published here for the first time and many readings and duplicate recordings have been corrected.

Many Middlesex token-issuers seem to have serviced the needs of the City and several new trades are noted here for the first time such as Baconman, Cake-house proprietor, Letter receiver, Throwster, Tripeman, Vinegar merchant, Worstedshop and Yarnshop keeper. An essay on Andrew Welch of Shadwell a Draper, Chart-Maker and Token Issuer forms part of the introductory material, providing a fascinating insight into the activities of a tradesman of the time and the significance of signs employed on the tokens.

A comprehensive index volume to the entire series is planned, with classification, concordance, and if possible, chronology.

Crown quarto, pp. cxvi, 442, including 68 plates. Casebound in library buckram, dustwrapper.

All 8 volumes in the series are available in limited numbers for purchase from Spink.

To place your order please contact the Book Department at Spink

Tel. (44) 207 563 4046 or email: books@spink.com

 £35

By Peter Woodhead

The Herbert Schneider collection of gold coins was formed over a period of 50 years by one of the leading experts in the field. The first volume covering English gold coins from 1257 - 1603 was published in 1996, followed by the second volume covering English gold coins from 1603 - 20th century, published in 2002. It is the finest collection in private hands and is outranked only by that of the British Museum. This third volume cataloguing the Herbert Schneider collection is concerned with Continental gold coins, albeit with a strong English connection. It consists of 348 Anglo-Gallic, Flemish, and Brabantine gold coins all meticulously catalogued giving full transcriptions of the legends and details of the classification and die-linking of each coin. The introduction discusses the historical background of the subject territories which, when read in conjunction with the catalogue, will help to understand the coins. A major index catalogues every substantial later medieval European hoard containing gold coins from Britain and its neighbours.

Every piece is illustrated on the 37 colour plates making this Sylloge a valuable tool for identification and further study. An additional 2 plates illustrate the 13 English gold coins which have been added to the collection since the publication of volume two. Peter Woodhead, FSA, is a former President of the British Numismatic Society. He has been a student of English coinage for nearly 60 years and is the author of numerous articles on numismatic subjects.

Crown quarto, pp. xii, 260, including 39 colour plates. Casebound in library buckram, dustwrapper.

To place your order please contact the Book Department at Spink

Tel. (44) 207 563 4046 or email: books@spink.com

£65

Volumes 1 and 2 of the Schneider Collection are also available at £60 each.

Spink is pleased to introduce a new member of the Spink international team, Mr Stephen Goldsmith. Stephen has an incredible history with the world of numismatics and we are honoured to have him join our Spink USA operations in New York. In order to properly introduce Stephen we sat down and asked him a few questions we thought you might want to know the answers to. Without further ado, here's a record of our chat with Stephen Goldsmith from the Spink New York office…

Stephen Goldsmith



How did you get your start in the business?



All of the kids would ask their parents for a dollar, and they would go to the local grocery store to get rolls of pennies. We brought the rolls, and we brought our blue Whitman albums to the local Community Center, where Dr. Berg held a monthly meeting of the Rockaway Beach Coin Club.

We opened the penny rolls and looked through the coins for dates we needed. Sometimes we did a little trading. The kid with the most complete set got a pat on the back from Dr. Berg, and went home smiling. Everyone else would just look forward to next month's meeting. Dr. Berg always managed to expose us to a little numismatic history, but most of us were there to simply have fun.

One day when I was about ten years old, some of the kids got into a discussion about what their fathers did for a living. I had to admit I just didn't know. I went home that day and asked my mother. When I got the answer, I was ecstatic. It turned out that my father managed a penny arcade! From that day on I never had to worry about obtaining rolls of coins to look through. I now had unlimited access to buckets and buckets of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and half dollars! In those early days, I never approached coin collecting as a potential business. As time went on, I simply looked through coins, found better dates, sold the coins to a friend, and used the money to pay for books, gasoline, entertainment and other expenses.

I graduated high school, went to college, pursued a Masters degree in Psychology and went on to teach Special Education. In 1973, after teaching Special Education for seven years, I was casting about for a way to augment my teacher's salary. The idea occurred to me to start a small mail-order coin business.

One of the other kids in the Rockaway Coin Club had a real mind for business, and he followed a very different career path. He became a professional coin dealer. His name was Jules Karp. I always kept in touch with Jules over the years, and I felt very comfortable buying coins from him.

When I went to see him about buying some coins for my mail-order business, Jules told me that he was doing very well, and that he had just opened an office in New York City. He immediately asked me if I would be interested in going to work for him. He promised to make it worth my while, and to teach me everything I needed to know. A week later I found myself in the basement of 120 Broadway, in a subterranean vault that was piled high with bags of silver coins. I was literally learning the coin business from the bottom up.

How did you get involved with Spink?

In 1985, Jules sold his coin and paper money auction company, NASCA-KARP, to R. M. Smythe and Company. The auction business appealed to me on many levels, and I decided to join Smythe and run their auction business. At that time, I was buying and selling coins and paper money under my own company name, Atlantic Banknote and Coin, which merged with Smythe. I became a minority shareholder in R. M. Smythe, Inc., and the Executive Vice President of Smythe, a position I held for over two decades.

In 2007, I left Smythe to go out on my own again, but I soon was asked to become Director of Numismatics at Stack's.

Last December, Charles Shreve and I began a series of conversations exploring the possibility of joining Spink as Senior Vice President in the U.S. After a great deal of serious consideration, I decided this would be a good match and an exciting challenge.

What are your specialties? What should clients contact you about if they have questions concerning their collections?

During my thirty-four years in the coin business, I have had the opportunity to buy, sell or catalog a great deal of material in many different fields. No one is an expert in all areas of numismatics, but I have always made it a point to learn as much as I could about every numismatic subject area I was exposed to. I have a strong working knowledge of U. S. coins acquired through several decades of buying, selling and cataloging for R. M. Smythe and Co., and for Stacks.

I am intimately acquainted with Confederate paper money, having edited Collecting Confederate Paper Money by Pierre Fricke, the major reference work on Confederate paper money. I cataloged, or helped catalog, some of the most important Confederate paper money auctions for R. M. Smythe and Co., (Gene Mintz, Western Reserve, Frederick Mayer).

I am very familiar with obsolete bank notes. During my term as president of the Professional Paper Money Dealer's Association, I was the lead writer of An Introduction to Obsolete Currency, the first booklet in a series designed to introduce new collectors to all types of paper money. I was responsible for bringing the Herb and Martha Schingoethe Collection to auction (consisting of over 30,000 different notes, and realizing over $13,000,000), the largest collection of obsolete bank notes ever sold.

I have a good working knowledge of U. S. Federal Paper Money (contributor to U.S. Paper Money by Friedberg) and I am familiar with National bank notes (see my article in the January 2009 Currency Dealer Newsletter about California National Gold bank notes). I was a guest lecturer at the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, where I spoke about symbols on American paper money (later adapted for use as a Federal Reserve educational publication). I am one of the world's foremost experts on U. S. stocks and bonds. As the lead cataloger for R. M. Smythe, I organized, directed and cataloged the largest collection of American railroad stocks and bonds that was ever auctioned (the archives of the Penn Central Railroad), and I brought the first $1,000,000 stock and bond collection to auction
as well (Charles A. Leeds, Jr. Collection).

I am comfortable around Continental Currency, Colonial Currency, advertising notes, checks and just about anything else relating to coins or paper money in America.

How has the market grown since you first began?

It must be hard for today's dealers and collectors to imagine a world with no cell phones, no fax machines, no certification services and with computers that were the size of a small room, and that cost the equivalent of $50,000 of today's dollars. That is the way it was in 1973 when I got started in the coin business. Most collectors relied on their annual copy of the "Red Book" to get updated prices. Uncirculated Morgan Dollars could be purchased for around $4.95. Paper money was a tiny segment of the numismatic marketplace, and obsolete bank notes that brought over $100 each were virtually unheard of.

The numismatic world is very different today. A recently published survey shows that in the last few decades hundreds of millions of dollars worth of U. S. coins were sold by major auction companies. Now, there are many paper money shows each year, and some where there are hundreds of dealers.

How did these markets grow?

I attribute growth in the coin market to tremendously improved methods of communication and marketing, population reports and the certification of coins and paper money. In 1973, when I first started, most numismatic publications were strictly black and white, with a few two-color ads thrown in on special occasions. Books and catalogs were also primarily black and white, and it was costly and time consuming to include large numbers of photographs. Color photography of Federal paper money was prohibited by law. The dealers attempted to communicate with each other through an archaic teletype system that required the production of time consuming punched tapes in order to send messages. Images were sent by mail, or through antiquated fax machines. Mass mailings had to be made through local printing and mailing houses, and it was unheard of for a small firm to own a computer.

Dealers did their own authenticating and grading, and neophyte collectors bought coins and paper money at their own risk. There were occasional abuses, and this did not help the industry. Suddenly, with the maturity of the grading services the issue of trust was, for the most part, resolved.

Sales methods that formerly applied only to more conventional products were now employed by progressive coin dealers. Telephone salesman using sophisticated mailing lists and proven numismatic scripts began offering coins to a whole new generation of buyers. The Internet matured, and coin-related web sites proliferated. The advent of cable television sales added another dimension. Now, coins and paper money that existed in larger quantities suddenly became desirable, driving up prices on many "common" issues.

Salesman may be able to get collectors started, and to supply them with product, but true collectors begin to seek more and more information. A huge part of the growth in the coin market may be attributed to increased access to information. Today, a 10-year old junior numismatist with a Smart phone has more immediate access to numismatic auction records than the lead cataloger at any major auction house had thirty years ago. Desktop publishing has also had a tremendous impact on the marketplace, resulting in many new books on coins and paper money.

In some ways, information technology has become more important to coin sales than numismatic acumen. Many of the old-timers, who knew their coins, but could not embrace the technological issues, fell by the wayside. These factors also helped drive the paper money market, which occupied a tiny segment of the numismatic marketplace in 1973.

There is one other very important factor that applies mainly to the growth of the paper money market - the legalization or acceptance of the use of color images of paper money in print media.

As a young collector in the 1960s, I never saw a colored image of a U. S. bank note. I had no idea that large size U. S. bank notes hadever been printed. No one in my neighborhood collected paper money, and the first time I saw a large size note in person was after I began working for Mr. Karp in 1973. He had a book on U. S. currency, but all of the images were black and white, and the images were the size of large postage stamps.

One day, Mr. Karp handed me a collection of American paper money. What I saw electrified me. It was a large format note with a bright red seal, and a huge buffalo at the center. Moments later I found myself staring at an Indian Chief. I immediately fell in love. I believe that the advent of digital photography, and the acceptance of the use of printed color images of U. S. bank notes caused an explosion of interest in that field.

What, in your opinion, are the world's most desirable items in your fields of expertise?

My favorite coin is the United States 1792 Half Disme. There is a story behind every coin, sometimes based on proven facts, sometimes based on legend. What follows is perhaps a little bit of both. In 1790, Congress asked Alexander Hamilton to prepare a plan to establish a Federal Mint. In 1792, Congress passed the bill, and authorized the minting of half dismes. Equipment was ordered and received, and stored in a basement in Philadelphia, pending the completion of the Mint itself.

In the meantime, Thomas Jefferson had a diplomatic dilemma on his hands. Foreign diplomats arriving in this country were presenting Jefferson with sets of coins from their countries. The United States had nothing to offer in exchange - no coins to show that we were, indeed, a real country. Jefferson called on George Washington, and asked him if there was anything Washington could do to speed up the process of minting our first coins. Washington made some inquiries. The presses were there, the workmen were there, and the coins could be struck in the basement where the presses were stored. There was only one obstacle in the way. There was no silver in the Treasury. It is widely believed that George and Martha Washington turned over their personal silverware to the Treasury. The
 silverware was melted, and 1,500 1792 Half Dismes were then minted and given to Jefferson. While some purists argue that these coins are "patterns," I believe they were the first coins minted under the authority of the United States Congress.

My favorite Confederate note may, or may not, even exist. In 1861, the Confederate States of America needed sources of paper money. One of their suppliers was J. Manouvrier from New Orleans. The Confederacy ordered $5 and $10 bills from Manouvrier, but when the shipment arrived in Richmond there was a slight problem. The packages of $10 notes were not intact. A decision was made to destroy all of the remaining $10 notes printed by Manouvrier. No one knows what happened to the missing notes. I suspect the missing notes are still out there, somewhere in a safe deposit box or buried in someone's back yard. If one ever surfaces it would probably bring over one million dollars at auction.

In my view, the most desirable American stock certificate is the Ford Motor Company of Canada, issued to Henry Ford, and signed by him as President. While it is not the most beautiful piece of paper ever issued, it is a quintessential example of American capitalism. To me, it represents the birth of one of our greatest automobile companies. While many collectors have heard of or seen pictures of $100,000 U. S. gold certificates, very few collectors have ever held a genuine issued $100,000 gold certificate in their hands. I had the honor of holding two of them, both in institutions that will never sell the notes. There is, however, a single example rumored to be in private hands, with a letter from the Treasurer of the United States, granting special permission to own the piece privately.

What deal stands out above the rest?

The deal that stands out above the rest is surely the Herb and Martha Schingoethe Collection. Herb Schingoethe was simply born to be a collector, and he collected a wide variety of things - coins, barbed wire, marbles, sugar packets, airline barf bags, post cards and more - but the one thing Herb and Martha liked most was obsolete currency. Herb began collecting obsoletes back in the 1950s, and never stopped until the day that he died, amassing over 30,000 different notes. The collection was staggering in its vastness and completeness, and realized over $13,000,000 at auction.

Are you a collector yourself, or is there a history of collecting in your family?

No one in my family is a collector. I like ships and boats - anything to do with maritime history. At one point I put together a collection of yachting medals. I grew up in Rockaway Beach, New York, a seaside community, and I have assembled collections of RockawayBeach post cards, then donated them to the local historical society. I also have a collection of ship-related stocks and bonds.

If someone is starting to collect, what advice would you give them?

Find an area you are genuinely attracted to. Read everything you can on that subject. Speak to as many dealers and collectors as you can, and find one or two that you can trust based on word of mouth references. Go to shows, talk to other collectors. Go to auctions, and pay attention to market trends. In the beginning, buy some lower value items, just to get your feet wet. If you have long term gains in mind, as soon as you begin to feel more comfortable, buy the rarest and highest grade examples you can afford. You can always go back and complete your collection with the more commonplace pieces later on.

What is your favorite piece of numismatic history?



When I was younger, I loved listening to the stories told by the "oldtimers" in the business. John Ford was one of the greatest numismatists of the last century. I was lucky enough to attend an ANA lecture where he was asked about obtaining bags of silver dollars from the Treasury. The specific question asked was, "How did you know which bags to select, since they were all sealed?" John said, "That was easy. A clerk would bring out bags of sealed dollars. I would burn a hole in the side of every bag until I could see the reflection of my cigar. When I saw the reflection, I knew I had a bag of prooflike dollars."

What do you enjoy when you're not working at Spink?

As my collecting habits indicate, I love being around water. My wife and I own a Bristol 35.5 sailboat, and have cruised Long Island Sound, the Hudson River and the south shore of Long Island for over thirty years. I am about to enjoy being a grandfather for the first time, and I am very much looking forward to that.

Things you would recommend seeing or doing if you are headed to a Spink auction in New York.

Don't miss the Metropolitan Museum or Art. My next stop would be a walk through Central Park if the weather is nice. Take in at least one Broadway show. "Wicked," "The Lion King," "Mama Mia" - all are well worth seeing. For a great view of the harbor, take the Staten Island Ferry across and back, or visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. If you like baseball, take in a Yankee game, or if you like underdogs, go out to City Field and cheer the Mets on to one of their rare victories.

By David R. Sear

The Tetrarchies & The Rise of the House of Constantine. The Collapse of Paganism & The Triumph of Christianity, Diocletian to Constantine I, AD 284-337. 528 pages, fully illustrated throughout with valuations in £ and US$.

This volume contains a comprehensive listing of the Roman coinage of the period AD 284-337 together with background information on the history of each reign and the principal characteristics of its coinage. The catalogue is organized primarily by ruler with the issues then subdivided by denomination and by reverse legend and type. This arrangement combines the alphabetical ease of reference of Cohen's work with the scholarship of RIC and other modern studies which are based on classification by mint. The introduction of explicit mint marks as a regular feature of the coinage under Diocletian and his colleagues greatly facilitates attributions and enables the establishment of a much firmer chronological framework. This is reflected in the coin listings where mints and the sequences of mint marks are now dealt with in greater detail. The half-century covered by this volume (accession of Diocletian to the death of Constantine the Great) saw enormous political and religious changes in the Roman Empire. Diocletian, in addition to his comprehensive reform of the coinage which swept away the remnants of the Augustan currency system, introduced far-reaching changes in the government of the state and in the organization of the military. Constantine oversaw further changes in the reformed currency system but his most celebrated achievement was in the realm of religion. His abandonment of the worship of the old pagan deities in favour of Christianity changed the course of history, an event which is clearly reflected on the imperial coinage where purely pagan types disappeared after the defeat of the co-emperor Licinius in AD 324. The fifth and final volume in this series will complete the detailed survey of the Roman coinage down to the extinction of the Western Empire in 476 and to the death of the Eastern Emperor Zeno in 491.

To place your order please contact the Book Department at Spink

Tel. (44) 207 563 4046 or email: books@spink.com

 £45

The Victoria Cross at Auction Part 1: 1856-1983

'We have instituted and created a New Naval and Military Decoration, to be styled and designated the "Victoria Cross", which We are desirous should be highly prized and eagerly sought after…'

 It is now 154 years since the institution of the Victoria Cross as the supreme decoration for gallantry back in 1856, over which time has been awarded to 1,353 individuals. The first investiture took place in Hyde Park amid great fanfare on the 26th June 1857, when 62 of the then 93 recipients to date received their Crosses from Queen Victoria. By 1860 almost 300 Victoria Crosses had been awarded, and within a few years they were finding their way into private collections. Inevitably, it was not too long before they began appearing at auction.

The first Victoria Cross ever to be offered for sale at public auction, at Sotheby's on the 21^st February 1879, was the Crimea V.C. to Private Charles McCorrie, 57^th Foot, which surprisingly failed to sell- a rare occurrence in today's market. Five years later a further two V.C.s were offered for sale at Sotheby's (5^th May 1884), as part of the Major Whalley Collection. The first (Lot 143) was the Victoria Cross to Seaman Thomas Reeves, awarded for gallantry at the Battle of Inkermann, which sold to a Mr. Holland for £26. The second Cross (Lot 186), awarded to Corporal William Dowling, 32nd Light Infantry, for gallantry on three separate occasions during the Indian Mutiny, together with 'replacement' Punjab and Mutiny medals, and a silver engraved presentation plate, sold for £11. Two years later, on 9th February 1886, a further two Crosses appeared at auction. Lot 218 was the award to Gunner William Connolly, Bengal Horse Artillery, for gallantry at Jhelum on 7 July 1857. This was bought by Mr. Charles Winter, the newly appointed head of the Medal Department at Spink (a position he would hold for the next 47 years), for £10. The next lot was the V.C. to Lance Corporal John Sinnott, 84th Regiment, for gallantry at Lucknow on 6 October 1857, which sold to a Mr. Partridge £23.10/-. In the same sale in 1886, Waterloo Medals were realising around 10/- each. The first complete V.C. group to appear at auction was that to Lance Sergeant Philip Smith, 17th Regiment, sold as part of the Captain E Hyde Greg Collection. The sale was considered exceptional and the catalogue was the first to provide an appendix containing 'notes and details referring to the lives and services of recipients of some of the medals and orders in the collection'. This Cross was awarded for 'repeatedly going out in front of the advance trenches against the Great Redan on 18 June 1855'. His other awards comprised the Crimea Medal with clasp Sebastopol; the French Médaille Militaire, and the Turkish Crimea medal- the group selling to regular buyer Mr. Partridge for £18.10/-.

 Also in 1886 The V.C. group to Troop Sergeant Major John Berryman, 17^th Lancers appeared at auction. Berryman was awarded his V.C. for rescuing a wounded officer during the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, during the Crimean War. Today this would be considered very much a 'classic', and as probably the best known 'Charge V.C.' would enhance any collection, yet it realised only £10, probably due to the fact that both the Cross and campaign medals suffered from 'heavy contact marks from years of faithful cavalry service'. Medal collecting was still in its infancy, with most serious collectors then subscribing to the well established numismatic view that condition was paramount (indeed some medal lists, almost a century later, still omitted to name the recipients of more commonly encountered campaign medals for sale, on the grounds that it hardly had a bearing on the price). Yet the success of the Hyde Greg Collection had started a trend for greater research into the recipient's career, and on the 2^nd August 1894 a second V.C. group to a Light Brigade Charger appeared for sale. Fully researched, the Victoria Cross to Lieutenant Alexander Dunn, 11^th Hussars, who was later killed during the Abyssinia Campaign (one of only two men killed during that Campaign) sold for the then colossal sum of £155, a record price that would last for the next twenty-five years.

 In 1900 Debenham's sold the only V.C. awarded for gallantry not in the presence of the enemy. Although the V.C. Warrant had been extended back in August 1858 to allow such awards, following the devastating fire aboard the troopshipSarah Sands,in which much bravery was shown by the crew, no V.C. had been awarded under this Warrant until 1867, when Private Timothy O'Hea, Rifle Brigade, was honoured for gallantly extinguishing single-handedly a fire in an ammunition car during the Canadian troubles of 1866. The Army's recommendation met with much War Office disapproval, but in the end the Army won, and O'Hea Cross was duly gazetted. In 1881 the War Office succeeded in getting a new Warrant published, cancelling the previous one, and stating that the sole qualification for the award shall be bravery or devotion to duty 'in the presence of the enemy.' Although the phrase 'in the presence of the enemy' has often been interpreted fairly loosely over the years, O'Hea's V.C. remains unique, and realised £57 at auction.

The V.C. to Private Thomas Duffy, awarded for gallantry at Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny, appeared at auction twice in the first decade of the 20^th Century, selling for £53 in 1902, and £60 in 1910, a fair reflection on how the medal market was steadily expanding in the Edwardian age, with a greater number of collectors involved in the hobby. By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 the Victoria Cross had been awarded to 522 recipients, of which 111 were for the Crimea 1854-56; 182 for the Indian Mutiny 1857-58; 78 for the South African War 1899-1902; with the remaining 151 for some 37 smaller Wars, Campaigns, and Expeditions, stretching chronologically from the Persian Campaign in 1856 to the Tibetan Expedition in 1904, and covering five continents. 58 of them had been offered for sale at public auction, and not surprisingly, in view of when the majority of the awards were gazetted, 26 were for the Crimea and 23 for the Indian Mutiny. The first V.C. awarded outside these two conflicts to be offered for sale at auction was that to O'Hea, as described above, in 1900; six years later, on the 21^st June 1906, Sotheby's offered for sale two Zulu War Victoria Crosses. The first was that to Private Francis Fitzpatrick, 94^th Foot (later 2^nd Battalion Connaught Rangers), awarded for gallantry during the attack on Sekukuni's Town in November 1879. Unfortunately Fitzpatrick's original V.C. was lost in action when fighting against the Boers in 1881, and an official replacement was sent out to him in June 1881. Shortly afterwards, his original V.C. was found in the personal effects of a soldier in his rifle company who had been killed, and reunited with him, with the replacement being returned to the War Office. Fitzpatrick's original V.C. and South Africa Medal realised £42 in the 1906 sale, and were bought by Lieutenant-Colonel H.F.N. Jourdain, the Commanding Officer of the Connaught Rangers, and the first recorded example of a Regiment buying a former soldier's V.C. at auction.

The second Cross in the sale was the famous Rorke's Drift V.C. to Corporal William Allen, 24^th Foot, one of eleven awarded for the epic defence on the 22^nd-23^rd January 1879, the most given for a single action. On the day it realised £72, about average for 'good' V.C. at the time, although one suspects that if it were to be offered for sale now it would realise significantly more than today's average.

The first V.C. from the Boer War to be sold at auction was that to Private George Ravenhill, Royal Scots Fusiliers, on the 15^th December 1908, awarded for saving the guns at Colenso, alongside Lieutenant Roberts, son of Field Marshal the Lord Roberts, exactly nine years earlier. Surprisingly, given the relatively small gap between action and sale, the fact that this was the first Boer War V.C. to appear on the market, and the fact that the Cross was awarded for one of the most celebrated and emotive actions of the War, the sale was hardly a success, with the lot realising only £42, the lowest hammer price for 15 years. Yet the result was perhaps not that unexpected. To the late Victorian and Edwardian medal collector there were only three significant conflicts worth pursuing- the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars, and the Indian Mutiny. Indeed, for many years the Army Lists preceded officers' names with a gothic 'P', 'W', 'C', or 'M' to denote service in the Peninsula, at Waterloo, in the Crimea, or during the Mutiny respectively. A good Zulu or Boer War V.C., no matter how impressive, did not fit most of the era's top-end collections, dominated as they were by Peninsula Gold Medal and Waterloo groups. Of the five other Crosses awarded for actions outside the Crimea and Mutiny conflicts that appeared at auction before 1914, for New Zealand, Matabeleland, Persia, Maiwand, and South Africa, only the Persian V.C., awarded to Captain John Wood, Bengal Artillery, excelled, realising £101 at Sotheby's in 1910.

The last Cross sold before the outbreak of War was that to Stoker William Johnstone, H.M.S.Arrogant, Royal Navy, the third-ever Victoria Cross to be awarded. Johnstone was awarded the V.C., along with Lieutenant John Bythesea, for taking part in a daring two-man mission to capture Russian despatches in the Baltic theatre of the Crimean War. After spending three days scouting the area, assisted by the fact that Johnstone spoke Swedish, the local language, and armed only with a single flint pistol between the two of them, Bythesea and Johnstone captured the Russian despatches and took three of the enemy prisoner. Whilst the circumstances of the V.C. action are well known, the background of William Johnstone is though subject to some debate. Although he was gazetted thus, there was no one onArrogant'smuster list of this name. There was a Leading Stoker John Johnstone, who was born in Hanover, Germany, on the ship at the time, and this is the man usually credited with winning the Victoria Cross. However, it is doubtful that he would have spoken Swedish. It is possible therefore that Lieutenant Bythesea's companion was one of the foreign nationals that had been recruited from Stockholm, on the way to the Baltic, to solve the problem of an under-strength crew, and that Johnstone was an anglicised version of Johanssen. Despite this, Johnstone's V.C., the earliest one awarded to thus far come up for auction, sold for £70.

With no Victoria Crosses appearing at auction during the Great War, it was not until the 23^rd May 1919 that the collecting public had their chance to bid on one again. By now, the number awarded had more than doubled after four years of bloody conflict, rising from 522 to 1,148. However, this 'dilution' to the market did not appear to affect prices, and the Mutiny V.C. to Private Patrick Donohoe, 9^th Lancers, sold for £118. The following month the fine Crimean V.C. group to Lieutenant (later Captain) George Day, Royal Navy, together with the recipient's C.B., Legion of Honour, and Order of Medjidieh, sold for a new world record price of £235, a figure destined to remain in the record books until 1955. This in many ways was the highlight of the inter-War years, a period in which just 28 Victoria Crosses were sold at auction (of which 8 were sold in one extraordinary Glendining's sale over three days from the 16^th-18^th July 1930), for an average price of just £77. Of these 28, 17 were for the Indian Mutiny, 9 for the Crimea, and one for the Egyptian Campaign of 1882, to Private Frederick Corbett, Kings' Royal Rifle Corps. The final Victoria Cross to appear at auction in this period was that to Private William Griffiths, 24^th Foot, for the Andaman Islands Expedition of 1867. Stretching the condition that the V.C. had to be awarded 'in the presence of the enemy' to the limit, Griffiths was one of five men of his regiment who risked his life in manning a boat and rowing through dangerous waves in the Bay of Bengal to rescue seven of the crew of the shipAssam Valleywho were held prisoner by the cannibalistic native islanders on Little Andaman Island. Tragically, Griffiths was later killed in action at Isandhlwana during the Zulu War.

During the period 1919 to 1939 a further 10 Victoria Crosses were awarded, as well as the posthumous Cross bestowed by King George V upon the United States Unknown Warrior. The Second World War saw a further 181 Victoria Crosses won, bringing the total by 1945 to 1,340. One Victoria Cross was sold at auction during the Second World War (unlike during the Great War the London auction houses attempted to operate as normal), a Crimean V.C. to Private Anthony Palmer, Grenadier Guards, which realised £92.

The first V.C. to appear at auction after the Second World War was the award to Midshipman Edward Daniel, Royal Navy. Daniel, aged just 17 at the time, had won the Cross whilst serving with the Naval Brigade in the Crimea. Under the terms of the 1856 Warrant, the V.C. could be forfeited if the holder was 'convicted of Treason, Cowardice, Felony, or of any infamous crime, or if he be accused of any such offence and doth not after a reasonable time surrender himself to be tried for the same.' In 1861 Daniel was the first man (of to date 8) to forfeit the V.C. after he was arrested for sodomy with four subordinate officers. The Admiralty papers record that he was 'accused of a disgraceful offence' and had deserted to evade inquiry. He fled to New Zealand, where he died drunken and dissolute in 1868. Those who forfeited the V.C. were also required to surrender the decoration itself, although it would appear that Daniel never did. In 1908 the Treasury Solicitor advised the War Office that this was illegal, as the medal remained the property of the recipient. Despite, or perhaps because of, this notoriety, Daniel's V.C. sold for £110 at Glendining's on the 18^th June 1947.

The first of the Great War Victoria Crosses to appear for sale at auction was on the 4^th March 1953, when Christie's sold the V.C., M.M. group to Sergeant Frederick Riggs, York and Lancaster Regiment, who had been awarded a posthumous Cross for the capture of a German machine-gun post on the Western Front in October 1918. There were high hopes for a record price, but in the end it was not to be, the lot selling for £180, making it the third highest selling V.C. at auction to date. However, although this was still a good price at the time, the medal market was rapidly changing, and as Britain emerged from the post-War austerity so prices rapidly increased. The next four Crosses to appear at auction all brought new world record prices, and as fate would have it no V.C. would subsequently sell for less than the Riggs group.

The first of this run of record-breaking Crosses was the Zulu War V.C. group to Surgeon-Major Edmund Hartley, Cape Mounted Riflemen, for tending to the wounded in the open under heavy enemy fire. This was the first V.C. to a non-combatant to appear at auction, and the £300 that it realised at Sotheby's on the 17^th March 1955 was a testament to the recipient's bravery and cold courage. The last in this run, and the second Great War V.C. to appear at auction, was that to Corporal Roland Elcock, Royal Scots, who was awarded his Cross for capturing an enemy machine-gun post on the Western Front in October 1918. The award appears very similar to that of Riggs, and whilst Elcock would serve in the Second World War and reach the rank of Major, Riggs' Cross was a posthumous one to man who had already been awarded the Military Medal. The sale of the Elcock V.C. in April 1858 for £650, five years after the Riggs V.C. had only made £180, shows how quickly the market was growing at the time.

Although a Military decoration, the V.C. has in its history been awarded to five civilians, four during the Indian Mutiny, and once during the Second Afghan War. The first of these to appear at auction, at Sotheby's in July 1964, was the Cross to Mr. Thomas Kavanagh, Bengal Civil Service, who was awarded the V.C. for his bravery in going through the city of Lucknow whilst disguised as a sepoy to the camp of the relieving force outside the city, so that he could then guide them to the beleaguered garrison in the Residency. Whilst aspects of Kavanagh's mission appear farcical from today's perspective, the outcome was the successful relief of Lucknow, and in a city in which 60 Victoria Crosses were won it would be hard to dispute Kavanagh's gallantry, his V.C. selling for £750. 1964 also saw the sale of the first thousand pound V.C. at auction, when, on the 16^th November, Glendining's sold the superb Gallipoli V.C. to Lieutenant William Forshaw, Manchester Regiment, for £1,150.

The following year on the 29^th November 1965, Sotheby's offered for sale the Zulu War V.C. pair to Private Thomas Flawn, 94^th Foot, who had been awarded the V.C. alongside Private Francis Fitzpatrick (see above) for gallantry during the attack on Sekukuni's Town in November 1879. After spirited bidding in the room the lot was sold to the medal dealer John Hayward for £720, the first of many Victoria Crosses that he would buy and sell over the next 45 years. The following year a Victoria Cross appeared at auction in most unusual circumstances. Lord Edric Gifford had been awarded the V.C. during the Ashantee War of 1873-74, and for many years his Cross had been assumed lost. It was only after a library desk had appeared for sale at Christie' in 1966, 'including contents', that the Cross was discovered locked in a small drawer. Whilst the subsequent sale of the V.C. by a London dealer is outside the scope of this article, suffice it to say that it was an unexpected windfall for the purchaser.

Since the Second World War the Victoria Cross has been awarded on only 13 occasions. The first of these to appear at auction was that to Lieutenant Philip Curtis, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, attached Gloucestershire Regiment, awarded posthumously for gallantry in taking out an enemy machine gun post during the Glosters retreat at Imjin River during the Korean War. Ordered to counter-attack against the highest commanding position on Castle Hill where the Cjinese had set up a mobile machine gun position, Curtis took twenty men with him and advanced over open ground completely devoid of cover. Three men were killed before 20 yards were covered, four more were wounded seconds later, with Curtis hit in his left side and right arm. Shaking off restraining hands he continued to advance alone. Once he fell, but he got back to his feet by a supreme effort and continued in a lone charge, leaving a trail of blood as he went. The machine gun emptied its last burst into his sagging body- but too late to prevent the destruction of the post by grenades he had thrown into the bunker. Huge media interest was generated in the sale at Sotheby's in February 1975, and in the end the lot was bought by John Hayward for a new world record price of £7,200. Unbeknown to John, he was bidding against the Colonel of Curtis's Regiment, which was made clear to both parties after the sale, when they appeared on the BBC News together. The Regiment was clearly disappointed not to have been able to acquire the Cross, and in a magnanimous gesture John agreed to make the lot over to the Regiment for the price that he had originally paid for it, at no profit to himself. The following morning the Daily Telegraph reported this exchange on their front page, under the headline 'Honour, and the Regiment'.

The first of the 181 Second World War Victoria Crosses to appear at public auction was not until 1982, when, on the 4^th March, Sotheby's sold the awards to Company Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis, Green Howards, who was awarded the first V.C. of the land invasion of Europe, and the only one given for the D-Day landings. Amongst the first to land on Gold Beach on the 6^th June, 1944, Hollis' Company's immediate objective was the capture of the enemy's four 150mm guns overlooking the beach. Their route lay 500 yards up a narrow track, at the end of which he spotted a sunken pillbox. Suddenly the enemy opened fire. Hollis rushed forward firing his Sten gun and before the surprised occupants could respond he was on the roof above them. Replacing his magazine and arming a grenade, he crossed to locate the doorway below before bombing it and rushing inside, Sten gun blazing. Two of the enemy were killed, three wounded, and five more surrendered. He had saved his Company from being badly hit in the rear, enabling it to neutralise the battery, and open the main beach exit. Later that day he helped disable another enemy gun placement, again saving many lives. Wounded three days later, he was returned to Britain, and was invested by King George VI at Buckingham Palace in October 1944, later remarking: 'What I did was nothing to do with courage. I just got mad at seeing all my mates go down around me.' Not surprisingly, Stan Hollis' medals fetched a record £32,000.

It is interesting to note that, of the five conflicts in which more than fifty Victoria Crosses were awarded, the first Crimean V.C. appeared at auction 23 years after it was awarded (and failed to sell); the first Mutiny V.C. after 26 years; the first Boer War V.C. after just 9 years; the first Great War V.C. after 35 years, and the first Second War V.C. appeared at auction 38 years after it was awarded. If we expand the cut-off point to include those conflicts in which more than a dozen were awarded, the first New Zealand Wars V.C. appeared at auction 44 years after it was awarded; the first Zulu War V.C. after 27 years; and the first Second Afghan War V.C. after 33 years. Indeed, with the exception of the Crosses to Private George Ravenhill, mentioned above, and the Boer War V.C. to Sergeant Alfred Atkinson, Yorkshire Regiment, for gallantry at Paardeberg, which sold at Glendining's in November 1911, no V.C. for any conflict has successfully sold at auction within 25 years of the date of the award.

Of the 32 Victoria Crosses awarded to the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, just one was awarded to the 3,080 pilots of Fighter Command whose raw courage achieved victory in the Battle of Britain. Flight Lieutenant James Nicolson joined the Royal Air Force in December 1936, and following the outbreak of War in 1939 flew a number of operational sorties, though saw no combat action. Finally, in August 1940, his Squadron was sent south to Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, to join in the desperate defence of the south of England against the onslaught of the Luftwaffe. On the 16^th August, 1940, Nicolson took off from Boscombe Down, with orders to patrol the Poole-Ringwood-Salisbury airspace. This was to be his baptism of fire in aerial combat. Flying at 18,000 feet over Southampton's suburbs, Nicolson's Hurricane was suddenly hit by a burst of cannon shells by a section of Messerschmitt Bf109 fighters. He was in deadly peril. Of the four cannon shells which scored direct hits on his Hurricane, one tore through the cockpit canopy and drove a shard of perspex through his left eyelid; a second hit the fuselage petrol tank, setting it on fire; a third smashed through the cockpit side, tearing his leg to bits; whilst the fourth wounded him in the foot. With blood obscuring his vision from his left eye, the pain in his leg and foot, and a petrol flames erupting in front of him, Nicolson prepared painfully to take to his parachute, when he suddenly spotted another Messerschmitt in front of him. Seeing red, he got back into his seat, and started firing. The German pilot tried to evade the Hurricane's fire, but Nicolson, oblivious to all else, was totally determined to destroy his victim. The flames by now had turned his cockpit into a furnace, and he realised that he could not survive much longer. Giving the enemy one final burst from all eight of his guns, he evacuated and parachuted to land. He had been in the air just 47 minutes. Rushed to Southampton Hospital, his life hung in the balance for several days and nights. Finally, in November, whilst convalescing at Torquay Hospital, he received a telegram from King George VI informing him of the award of the V.C. His first words on learning of the award were: 'Now I shall have to go and earn it.'

Nicolson returned to flying duties towards the end of the War, and was killed out in India in May 1945. Circumstances compelled his widow to put his V.C. up for auction in 1983. The Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon was determined to secure them, as was an ex-RAF collector. The Lot was Estimated at £25,000, but this was soon exceeded, with the collector and the Museum taking the bidding up and up. The hammer finally fell at a world record £105,000. It later transpired that the collector was trying to buy the medals to present them to the museum against whom he had unknowingly bid. The nation's war widow's pension had failed Mrs. Nicolson. Instead it took a bidder's oversight to assure her a secure old age.

On the 8^th December 1983, almost a century after having bought our first V.C. at auction, Spink decided to hold their first medals auction, having previously been exclusively dealers. In his preface to the sale catalogue Edward Joslin, the head of the Medal Department wrote: 'We are particularly pleased to be able to follow in the successful footsteps of our Coin Department by holding our first Medal sale, and trust that you will enjoy the first catalogue and others to follow.' The final lot of the sale (Lot 404) was the Zulu War V.C. pair to Private Thomas Flawn, 94^th Foot. Much interest was generated by collectors and the general public alike by the arrival of Spink on the auction scene, and speculation was rife as to how the market would react. The result of the sale of the Flawn V.C., and the more than 70 Victoria Crosses that we have offered for sale at auction since then, culminating in the four that we sold in our November 2010 sale, will be covered in parts 2 and 3.

 Progression of the World Record Price at Auction for a Victoria Cross to 1983:

£26 - Seaman Thomas Reeves, Sotheby's

5^th May 1884

£35 -  Private James Byrne, Sotheby's

17^th June 1893

£50 - Sergeant William McWheeney, Sotheby's

8^th February 1894

£155 - Lieutenant Alexander Dunn, Sotheby's

2^nd August 1894

£235 - Lieutenant George Day, Glendining's

19^th June 1919

£300 - Surgeon Major Edmund Hartley, Sotheby's

17^th March 1955

£420 - Assistant Surgeon Thomas Hale, Christie's

13^th July 1955

£480 - Second Lieutenant James Craig, Christie's

22^nd February 1956

£650 - Corporal Roland Elcock, Christie's

13^th April 1958

£720 - Sergeant Charles Parker, Glendining's

27^th February 1963

£880 - Lieutenant Walter Hamilton, Glendining's

25^th September 1963

£900 - Quartermaster Sergeant William Marshall, Sotheby's

20^th April 1964

£1,150 - Lieutenant William Forshaw, Glendining's

16^th November 1964

£1,200 - Seaman Mark Scholefield, Glendining's

19^th May 1965

£1,950 - Sergeant Edward Mott, Glendining's

3^rd March 1967

£2,000 - Sepoy Ishar Singh, Sotheby's

24^th June 1970

£3,500 - Able Seaman Edward Robinson, Glendining's

22^nd October 1970

£6,000 - Lieutenant Edward Bellow, Sotheby's

5^th July 1974

£7,200 - Lieutenant Philip Curtis, Sotheby's

5^th February 1975

£7,500 - Private Leonard Keysor, Sotheby's

22^nd June 1977

£8,200 - Captain Arthur Henderson, Christie's

4^th July 1978

£17,000 - Lieutenant George McKean, Sotheby's

21^st March 1979

£27,000 - Private Henry Tandey, Sotheby's

26^th November 1980

£32,000 - Company Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis, Sotheby's

4^th March 1982

£105,000 - Flight Lieutenant James Nicolson, Glendining's

1^st April 1983

The Naval General Service 1793-1840 Medal Rolls, Past and Present

By John Hayward

'Why are young men told to look in ancient history for examples of heroism when their own countrymen furnish such lessons'?

William Napier's words could easily be applied to so many acts of courage and devotion to duty shown by Officers and men of the Royal Navy during the numerous maritime engagements fought against this country's enemies around the world between 1793 and 1815. Most of the great sea battles, ship to ship actions, and 'cutting out' operations were generally against the naval forces of France, except for the brief Treaty of Amiens period of 1802-03, as well as some noteworthy exchanges with warships of the United States during a disagreement with that country from 1812 to 1815.

It would take little effort to fill page after page with wonderful and emotive stories about the men, of their achievements, of the ships, the battles and the glory but alas I have been asked to write a few lines about a dependable roll for the Naval General Service Medal 1793-1840, a retrospective award, only considered for issue to those veterans still alive to claim their medal 33 years after the close of play at Waterloo.

For nearly four years from 1847 to 1851 an Admiralty Board of Flag Officers, known as the Medal Committee, together with a team of naval clerks, laboured to validate large numbers of survivors' applications that came in answer to the London Gazette advertisements for the medal, which collectively offered no fewer than 231 different medal clasps. Up to the advertised close of the Medal Committee's business on 1 May 1851 (London Gazette 28.1.1851) some 21,000 claims had been approved- this number including those for Algiers 1816, Navarino 1827 and Syria 1840.

These brief introductory notes to my observations on privately published Naval General Service Medal rolls past and present do not even begin to address the seven years of intense political activity that led to the issue of both the Naval and the Military Medal nor do they fully acknowledge the valuable work carried out by the Naval Medal Committee. Those interested in the comprehensive finer detail on both subjects - the seven year wrangle and the sterling work of the Committee of Admirals - may wish to refer to the introductory 28 pages of the Douglas-Morris Naval General Service Medal roll.

The Official Roll

The Naval Medal Committee was sent over 23,000 written applications for the medal with clasp/clasps and on receipt each veteran's name was arranged alphabetically with the nature of the claim and corroborative details. This data was then entered into the Application Receipt Book and number coded. All the information was then rearranged for inclusion into the 'Clasp Rolls', which recorded each single clasp of each claim under its own action heading together with the claimant's name, forenames, rank/rate and ship at time of action. The validity of each clasp claim was checked by the Committee and the relative entry on the 'Clasp List' was marked 'Yes' or 'No'. In the latter case, the reason, ie 'Ran', was sometimes given.

All the application letters except for one, all the Application Receipt books and all the 'copper-plate' written rolls prepared for Royal Mint use, which were almost certainly the most accurate and most complete records made, were weeded and destroyed. Three 'Clasp Claimants Lists' are the only official lists that have survived - a fourth 'Egypt' volume, although seen and thankfully recorded by Colonel Hailes RM in 1910, went missing in the late 1930s. Perhaps so much important medal-related material was destroyed because officialdom assumed that the then four 'Clasp Lists', annotated, signed and initialed throughout by the Senior Flag Officer of the Medal Committee, were the records to retain together with the mis-spelt names, 'bent-line' entries, new entries squeezed between old entries with ditto marks and, of course, no cross references etc etc. These documents are now all that is left with which to construct a useful Naval General Service Medal Roll 1793-1840. The three remaining volumes were transferred from the Admiralty Medal Section to the Public Record Office in the 1960s.

The Unofficial Rolls

The Hailes Roll:

Colonel A.D. Hailes pioneered and completed the first meaningful N.G.S. roll 1793-1840 in July 1910. He applied his considerable transcriptional expertise to the surviving four volume 'Admiralty Clasp Rolls' and painstakingly reorganised and, most importantly, nominally cross-referenced the awards into the research model upon which future medal enthusiasts were to add their own brand of expertise. The Hailes Roll originally produced in manuscript has been re-written and copied in typescript so many times and has been distributed through many outlets.

Such was Hailes' ability to cross-reference the multiple clasp awards from the raw Admiralty Lists that later 'roll compilers' assumed that the Colonel must have had access to the original archival material - Application letters, books or Royal Mint lists - this was not so. The Hailes Roll, so often adopted, adapted and sometimes improved, was all the Colonel's own work and I am pleased to say I own Colonel Hales' original 1910 manuscript roll which is a joy to behold - and of course reveals his modus operandi.

For the record, the advent of the Hailes Roll in 1910 put paid to a great deal of haphazard unofficial adjustments to the Naval Medal and clasps but those engaged in such activities were now able to supply an upgraded 'Syria' clasped award with a replacement rare clasp and were able to proclaim 'John Smith' to be 'On the Roll' - he was, together with 50 other John Smiths. Syria, Algiers and Navarino upgrades were not the only 'elevated' awards - not by a long chalk.

The Newnham Roll:

This is a useful roll of 558 single-sided typescript pages published in small duplicated quantities by A.J. Newnham of Portsmouth. Although the contents, cross-referencing and layout clearly originate from the Hailes work, some deficiencies were obviously made good and a number of original transcriptional errors were corrected and explained. Additional notes on other contemporary or later awards, if known, were added to a number of entries and an odd biographical note appears here and there. A good clasp index precedes the main work.
Even today a copy of Newnham is worthwhile, especially when full of old collectors' notes. On the appearance of the first published printed roll in 1982, an old auctioneer friend 'weeded' his Newnham roll into his forthcoming medal sale. A good Naval G.S.M. on offer in the same sale catalogue didn't pass muster, not in the 'new roll' anyway. A quick word to my friend ensured the future of the discarded 'Portsmouth Edition' and I hope he still has it. My own heavily annotated copy reminded me of this episode.

The Douglas-Morris Roll:

The much heralded privately published Naval General Service Medal Roll by Captain Douglas-Morris R.N. made its debut in 1982. It was printed on fine quality paper and limited to an edition of 250 numbered pieces. Those who subscribed to one copy were later able to purchase an additional unnumbered working copy. Another edition was printed in tandem with the special volume but on cartridge paper and without certain preliminary pages; this was retained and distributed later after the premier work had had its run. Given the extent of the circulation of this roll, copies can still be acquired quite easily unlike those by Hailes and Newnham.

As mentioned earlier in these notes, the comprehensive and erudite introduction to the roll provides a thorough insight into the genesis of the medal and the workings of the Committee of Flag Officers. The Captain tackled the various deficiencies of previous rolls with the intention of providing the definitive work. He laboured for some years to this end. He naturally took as his base the framework of the Hailes roll and together with the Admiralty Clasp Lists proceeded doggedly towards the completion of his magnus opus. My old Naval rolls still bear the pencil checkmarks of his early workings. Over a period of some years, those who knew him learnt so much about bent entries, inadequate clerks, misplaced inaccurate dates and his almost day-by-day revelations. After publication of 'The Roll' it became obvious that the Captain had revealed a significant number of multi-clasp awards and other errors.

However, consistent use of the new roll gradually revealed two serious irregularities:

1. Despite the Captain's multi-clasp discoveries from single-clasp listings, it became clear that many others had not been identified. The Clasp Lists' coded numbers used to cross-refer the entries had surprisingly been only partially applied. An initial foray into the new roll quickly revealed that 336 single, 26 double and two triple clasp entries should have read 134 double, 34 triple and six quadruple clasp entries, and a number of known complete entries had been overlooked completely. To the Captain's credit, when an omission on his roll related to a medal or a clasp that required confirmation the Captain issued a "Certificate of Worthiness". These documents became quickly known as "The Captain's Chitties".

2. The Captain introduced into his roll a new concept - the 'verified aboard not on roll' (VANOR) man and gave his rationale for so doing. In the introduction to his roll he says: 'To try to overcome some of the faults of the clerks, the immediate service histories of all such men awarded a Frigate action or Boat Service action clasp have been sought in the relevant ships' Muster Books. This has led to a large number of extra entries on the new Roll with the notation 'Verified Aboard. Not on Roll' for what may or may not have been additional claims'. However, serious problems were created by this methodology. To paraphrase the argument, despite the Captain's own comment that these 'may or may not have been additional claims', he included them in his totals of each clasp awarded. 'These presumptive and categoric' totals were then transferred to an analytical table at the back of the roll, even though the evidence from extant medals shows that though some bear the 'verified aboard not on roll' clasps, many more do not. Thus Captain Douglas-Morris increased the total of 'Pelagosa' clasps awarded by one sixth, while some smaller 'award' totals have been augmented by as much as one hundred per cent. Unfortunately these inaccurate numbers have gained common acceptance and regularly appear in some auction catalogues and dealers' lists.For all its faults nothing can detract from the immense contribution that Captain Douglas-Morris made to our knowledge of Naval Medals.

The Message Roll:

Colin Message adopted a completely new approach with his 1996 compilation. Doing away with the traditional clasp-by-clasp listing, he produced the first published completely alphabetical list. As with all previous rolls, the base for the work was the Admiralty Clasp Lists, relying naturally upon the complete coded reference numbers against each entry, which have all been reproduced in this roll. Thus a number and name appearing twice or more indicates a multi-clasp award. The complete alphabetical nominal list indicates immediately the number of common usage names in the whole roll, e.g. if five medal recipients named John Robinson appear on the roll for say Syria (and they do) or Algiers, I would prefer to pursue a Trafalgar award to a different recipient - say Henry Schroone - an unusual name!

It goes without saying that research for this roll was computer aided and this produced the largest crop of multi-clasp awards from single clasp medals to date. The Message roll can rightly be considered the definitive list of which

Waterloo 1815 - nearly a Bronze Medal

By John Hayward

"...... I would beg leave to suggest to your Royal Highness the expediency of giving the non-commissioned officers and soldiers engaged in the Battle of Waterloo, a Medal...".

This suggestion made by the Duke of Wellington to the Duke of York in his Dispatches, just ten days after his victory over the French, swiftly gave rise to a letter from the Master of the Mint, William Wellesley Pole to the President of the Royal Academy on 11th July 1815, which heralded the first British Medal to be given to all ranks present in a Campaign - an award which was not only named, but was originally intended to also be given to the next of kin of those killed in action or who died of their wounds.

The Directive

"I have been commanded to strike two Medals at the Royal Mint in Commemoration of the Battles of Les Quatre Bras and Waterloo; - One, in Gold, of the largest size, to embrace the Exploits of the Allied Army under the Duke of Wellington, The Prince of Orange and Duke of Brunswick, and of the Prussian Army under Field Marshal Blucher. This Medal will probably be given to each of the Sovereigns in Alliance with the Prince Regent, to their Ministers and Generals".
The Medal 'of the largest size' referred to resulted in the dies for the Pistrucci Waterloo Medal of 140mm diameter which, after a number of design disagreements, was never issued to whom it was intended and the whole idea was finally abandoned in 1849, by which time the alliances of 1815 were rather strained.

"The other will be struck in Bronze, of small size, to be given to every Officer and Soldier in the British Service who was present at the Battles; the Device on this latter must therefore be more particularly marked as expressive of the Services of our own Troops and Commander. Both Medals must have the Prince Regent's Head on the Obverse..." Pole's letter goes on to invite Artists belonging to the Royal Academy to submit designs for the two Medals. In the event a subsequent notice advised the Artists to confine their designs to the large Medal as a design for the small one had been formed by the Chief Engraver of the Mint from an ancient Greek coin of Elis selected by the Master from the collection of Richard Paine Knight Esq. The head of the Prince Regent was taken from a drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

The Preparation

The Master of the Mint, Pole, obviously very anxious to proceed with this important departure from the normal routine, wrote to J.W. Morrison, Deputy Master of the Mint on 27th August: "I send you a few names that will enable us to begin lettering the Medals as soon as Jerome is ready for us. I shall have more names immediately and the whole number very soon...". Jerome and Harrison, two Mint Artificers, were awarded a £100 gratuity for devising a modification to existing 'Milling' machines, normally employed in serrating or 'graining' edges of coins, to accommodate the naming of Medals. The serrated sliding bar which marked the coins was replaced by the Artificers with a device for holding steel type, composed in a line of naming details which were then 'rolled into' the edge of the (unmounted) Medal. Just three days later, Pole wrote again to Morrison, this time with a number of interesting Memoranda - the pressure to commence and to complete the Waterloo operation was on:

"If the various branches of the Department proceed in the manner I have pointed out, Forty Thousand Medals will be ready for Delivery by the 9th November. I rely upon the zeal of the Heads of the Manufacture for seeing that the utmost exertions are used to complete the work. The whole grace of the distribution of the medals would be lost if any unavoidable delay was to take place in their issue; and, in the very perfect state of the Machinery of the Mint, no excuse could be allowed to us by the Public in such an event. You will be so good as to let it be generally understood that no other business whatever is to be suffered to interfere with the manufacture of the Medals; and particularly that no branch of the manufacture is to relax its efforts under an idea that it will be ready before any other branch is prepared to carry forward the work. Every person is to act as if the whole measure depended upon his individual exertions. If any extraordinary assistance should be wanted, you will be so good as to afford it to the full extent that may be necessary - and any suggestions that may be offered towards methodizing the Medals as they are lettered, I request may be submitted to me for consideration...I have applied to the Commander in Chief for the Names of the Officers and Soldiers who fought in the Battles, and I hope the List will be sent to you in a short time. I shall transmit to you the Extraordinary Gazette containing the names of the Wounded Officers, which will enable you to commence the lettering before you receive the General List...The Moneyers' work begins tomorrow morning [31st August], Rolling the Copper for the Medals, to which they are to put their whole force, and to cut out the Blanks as fast as possible...the Rolling can be finished, if the Moneyers begin to roll at daylight tomorrow, by Saturday night [2nd September]...if the rolling begins at daylight tomorrow, the Cutting may begin in the course of the day, and if the Rolling and Cutting continue without intermission for 10 hours each day, Sundays excepted, the Cutting may be finished on Monday night [4th September]. The Blanks will begin Milling on Monday morning [4th September]; they will be finished ready for annealing on Thursday evening [7th September]. The annealing will be done on Friday the 8th September".

The Dies

"Mr Wyon will have the preparatory dies ready for striking on the 5th October, with one coining press which is ready. The 40,000 Medals will be struck in 3 days, viz by the 8th October. The Bronzing and Lettering will begin together on the 6th October, the day after the preparatory dies begin to work and, with the arrangements hereafter named, can be finished in 30 days, viz by the 5th November. As the Bronzing and Lettering will commence on the 6th October, a sufficient number of Medals will be ready for striking on the 30th October, the day on which the finished dies will begin to work".

The Lettering

"There must be six sets of Marking Machines made for Lettering the Medals - 18 Sets of Letters are wanting for the Machines. The Type cutters, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Wyon's man, Mr. Lawson's man and another person, who is to come to the Mint tomorrow, have orders to make as many of the Types as they can deliver by the 12th September. Jerome to get as many Compositors as he may think necessary. The above Marking Machines will enable us to work two of the Milling Machines. When the two Machines are at work the Lettering may be completed in 30 days, viz at the rate of one piece a minute, for each machine working 10 hours a day. The six sets of Marking Machines will be ready for working on the 11th September. Supposing we begin to letter on Monday the 12 September, the Lettering may be finished by the 20th October".

The Bronzing

"The Bronzing and Lettering may begin on the same day (viz 12th September) and will consequently finish (in 30 Days) on the 12th October, but, omitting Sunday, say 16th October…Four Hearths can be used in the Smith's shop. Nine persons must be employed to work them…They can bronze 72 Dozen in a day, viz 18 Dozen at each Hearth, which would finish the Bronzing in 48 days from commencement. Two more Hearths must be put in the Turners' shop. They can be finished in one fortnight from tomorrow, viz by the 13th September…Orders have been given to the Bricklayer to set up this additional Hearth, which will enable us to finish Bronzing in 30 days…Mr. Wyon will be ready with his Dyes by the 10th October. If we work 8 Presses at the rate of a Piece per minute for each Press (working 10 hours a day) the Forty Thousand Medals will be struck in Ten days, and be ready for delivery on the 9th November 1815".

The Silver Medal

It is quite clear from the content of Pole's original letter to the President of the Royal Academy and abstracts from his memoranda relating to the Moneyers, Bronzing and the Lettering schedules that the Waterloo Medal was to be produced in bronzed copper. It is equally clear from the correspondence that certain minting procedures similar to those employed during the production of Coins, i.e. Rolling - bringing metal ingots down to the required thickness; Cutting - cutting out blanks; and the Milling and annealing process, had already been completed with base metal. Unfortunately due to a gap in Master to Deputy Master correspondence from September 1815 to March 1816 one must assume, even taking into account a number of delays, including a serious fire in the Royal Mint on the 31st October 1815 which caused extensive damage, that the preparations for the bronzed striking was well ahead. One thing is certain: it must have been quite a shock to Morrison and all those working on the Medal at the Mint when on 10th January 1816 Pole wrote a letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, which surely was copied to the Mint: "His Royal Highness the Prince Regent having signified to me his pleasure that Medals, to be distributed to the Officers and Men who served in the Battle of Waterloo, should be struck at the Royal Mint in Fine Silver, I beg to request your Lordships will provide the necessary quantity of Bullion for this purpose. The weight of the Medal is proposed to be One Ounce and the number to be struck will probably amount to Forty Thousand; but to enable the Mint to carry on the work with expedition a larger quantity of silver must be provided than will ultimately be used, and I therefore submit to your Lordships the necessity of furnishing me with Sixty Thousand ounces of Fine Silver for this service. It will be my duty, when the Medals are finished, to render to your Lordships an exact account of the Silver used and to dispose of the remainder as you shall direct. The Dyes and Machinery for striking the Medals are nearly ready to work; the Silver therefore should be sent to the Mint as soon as it can be procured". The Deputy Master sent a similar letter on the same day to the Bank of England but requested additionally that a quantity of silver in the Government's possession of an "inferior standard" be exchanged for "Fine Silver" - agreed by the Treasury on 19th January.

On the 4th March Pole wrote to Lord Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies: "...The Medals which I received His Royal Highness the Prince Regent's pleasure to strike, for the Officers and Men who fought at the Battle of Waterloo, have been some time in preparation, and those for the General and Staff Officers are now ready for delivery. I propose packing the Medals in Boxes marked on the outside so as to specify the Corps or Regiment to which the Medals within may belong; and there will be packed in each Box a copy of the List transmitted from the Horse Guards, which copy will be certified by the Principal Officers of the Royal Mint. The Medals are all fitted with Rings, and a quarter of a yard of Ribbon for each will be packed in the Boxes. The Name of each Officer and Man, who is to receive a Medal, is impressed upon the edge of the Medal destined for him, and care will be taken to pack the Medals in the order in which the Names stand on the several Lists. The number of names, including Officers and Men, which have been transmitted from the Horse Guards to the Mint amount to more than 35,000; and I am in hopes that we shall be enabled to deliver finished Medals, packed as I have already mentioned, at the rate of about 1000 per day from this time forward until the whole are completed. Each Medal contains one ounce of Fine Silver, intrinsically worth, at the present market price of Bullion, about six shillings. There is no difference whatever in the quality, figure or workmanship, between the Medals for the Officers and those intended for the Soldiers…".

Contrary to the original intention and popular belief, the Waterloo Medal was not generally issued to the next of kin of those who were killed in action or who had died from their wounds in the Waterloo Campaign. On 5th July 1816 Sir Henry Torrens wrote from Horse Guards to Pole: "I enclose you a List of the Staff and Regimental Officers who were killed at the Battle of Waterloo as well as those who died of their wounds, in order that Medals may be struck and presented to their nearest Relatives...". Five days later, on 10 July, Pole's deputy Morrison replied to Torrens: "I am directed by the Master of the Mint to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th instant, enclosing a list of the General and Staff Officers killed at the Battle of Waterloo, as well as those who have died of their wounds, in order that Medals may be struck for their relatives; and I am to inform you that in consequence of the very greatest importance of giving all possible dispatch to the new Silver Coinage, every part of the Machinery and Apparatus of the Mint, as well as the whole time and labour of the Officers & Workmen, are fully applied to the business and that the least delay to the Coinage would be of the greatest detriment to the Public Service. It is therefore very desirable that the striking of the Medals for the deceased Officers and other ranks, as well as for the Regiment of the 1st Hussars King's German Legion (the List of which has been omitted) should, for the present, be suspended. Copies of the names will, in the mean time, be prepared so that, as soon as opportunity occurs, the Mint may resume the operation of striking the Medals". For the next ten years a small number of requests for medals from informed relatives of all ranks of the fallen were made to the Commanding Officers of the units concerned who, after agreeing with the merit of a specific claim, would then refer the case to Horse Guards. Each successful request was then passed to the Royal Mint for action, accompanied by an 'unappropriated Medal' taken from the Horse Guards' mountain of 'returns' which included duplicates, errors and unissued deserters' medals.

In total the Royal Mint, directed by the long-suffering, but wholly efficient Deputy Master Mr. James W. Morrison produced a total of 37,638 Waterloo Medals.

Stamp Boxes

The postage stamp was first introduced in Britain in 1840 and its use spread rapidly throughout the globe. It made its appearance as part of the reform of the postal system which, by reducing the cost and improving the efficiency, led to a steep rise volume as the service became accessible to a greater proportion of increasingly literate population. This itself was but a part of the revolution in communications brought about by the age of industrialization. Whereas mankind entered the 19th century still entirely dependent on nature for his transport, be it a horse on land or the wind at sea, over the course of the next 100 years he had harnessed the power of steam, followed by electricity and the internal combustion engine, and it was in sight of conquering the air. The stamp box was a product of this process and its story reflects the history of an age when humans achieved a greater mastery of their environment than they had managed in the previous 2000 years.

Although an introduction of the stamp might be expected to have led to an immediate demand for containers to store these little pieces of paper, both at the desk and on the person, the stamp box was slow to become popular and decidedly modest in its early forms. For the first forty years their use was restricted to Britain and they were mostly made in wood or brass. The main reason for this lies in the organization of the postal service. In 1840 letters would still have to be taken to a Post Office as there were no street collection boxes, so it would have been more usual for the stamps to have been affixed by counter staff when payment was made rather than by the writer from a stock held at his home or office. Street collections boxes did not become nationwide in Britain until the 1870's, and a decade or two can be added for other countries. Thus, while in the 1880's saw a surge in the production of stamp boxes, it was only after 1890 that became truly popular. From this date until the outbreak in of the First World War in 1914, they were produced around the world in a staggering variety of forms, materials and qualities. The French call this period 'La Belle Epoque' and it was indeed a time of hitherto unparalleled prosperity and peace and the exuberance of which is amply represented in the diversity of these everyday objects. It should be remembered that before the telephone was invented the post was the private and business communication and that it was a great deal more efficient than it is today. A letter written and posted in the morning would be received by an addressee in the same town that afternoon, and a reply posted in the evening would be received by the original writer the next morning.

After the First World War stamp boxes largely fell out of fashion, although they continued to be made, especially in, or for, America. The introduction of stamp booklets and wall vending machines may have played a part in this change of taste, but these facilities did not come into common use until 1930's. Stamp boxes were never really necessary- a simple pocket in a wallet or a purse would have sufficed. Their demise, therefore, arose more probably from the loss of that spirit of innocent self indulgence that characterized La Belle Epoque. They never ceased to be produced however, and today examples can be purchased in Limoges porcelain and Tiffany silver, while plate 1 illustrated a printed cardboard box designed by Catriona Steward in 1991.

The market for collecting stamp boxes is extremely buoyant with demand far outstripping supply. Spink are pleased to offer rare and unusual examples of stamp boxes, available to purchase in our London offices as well as through our London stamp auctions.

For more information on buying or selling rare stamp boxes please contact our specialist and auctioneer,

Guy Croton: +44 (0)20 7563 4074 gcroton@spink.com

1891 London, superb triple compartment box By George Heath and retailed by W. Thornhill & Co. of New Bond Street. Sold at auction for £17,250

By Dominic Savastano

Today the biggest problem in flying across the Atlantic seems to be knowing which airport terminal you have to leave from and getting to the check point on time.

Perhaps we should think for a moment or two of the first non-stop aerial Transatlantic crossing and we might realize that, despite occasional delays and lost luggage, just how lucky we are today. We might even pay homage to the statue of those two intrepid aviators, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, which stands outside London's Heathrow Airport and contemplate their fantastic achievement, which surely ranks only a short way behind that of the fathers of aviation, Wilbur and Orville Wright.

The first non-stop Transatlantic crossing was made in 1919, but our story starts six years earlier. In 1913 the British "Press Baron" and owner of the Daily Mail, Lord Northcliffe, offered a prize of £10,000 for the first non-stop flight over the Atlantic by a heavier-than-air aircraft. £10,000 was a vast amount of money in those days, but the prospect of any machine being able to complete the monumental task just ten years after the Wright brothers made their historic flight at Kittyhawk was remote to say the least.

The Great War put an end to any thought of record breaking flights and for the next four years the world was torn apart by the most terrible conflict in history to that time. Of course, enormous strides in the field of aviation were made during this horrendous time and the powerful, sturdy and reliable aircraft of 1918 bore little to no resemblance to the fragile sputtering machines of 1914.

Once peace was declared there was little need for the thousands of former military aircrafts that now littered the world. Many daring pioneer flights, which captured the public's imagination, were made in the United States of America . Here, the Government organised a sophisticated internal airmail system to use some of the old military aircrafts in order to improve delivery times across the massive country.

In England, Northcliffe repeated his Daily Mail challenge with conditions imposed on would-be competitors by the organisers:

1. The flight had to be between any point in Great Britain and any point in Canada, Newfoundland or the United States.

2. The flight had to be direct (i.e. non-stop).

3. The flight had to be accomplished within seventy-two hours.

The weather indicated a west-to-east crossing as being the most favourable and Newfoundland was chosen by most of the teams because of its proximity to the British Isles. Although one crew, Major J.C.P. Wood and Captain C.C. Wylie, in their Short Shiel, decided to try the opposite route. They made a trial flight from Ireland in April 1919 and crashed into the ocean, putting an end to their challenge. The £10,000 prize money lured several sets of aviators with their aircraft, support teams and sponsors (yes, even in 1919!), etc, to Newfoundland and by early 1919 it was clearly going to be a race to see who could be ready first.

It should, perhaps, be mentioned now that there was a serious attempt, albeit not in an effort to win the Daily Mail prize, at an Atlantic crossing by four aircrafts of the United States Navy. The NC1, NC2 and NC3 all crashed in the attempt but the NC4, piloted by Lieutenant Commander A.C. Read actually made the first aerial crossing of the Atlantic in stages, taking some eleven days. Although it was intended that this flight would carry an official commemorative mail, it was taken off to save weight and no official mail was carried, although one letter was flown unofficially.

The Harry Hawker Attempt

There can be little doubt that the American involvement spurred on the British aviators in Newfoundland to get on with the job. Harry Hawker, an Australian by birth, in his single-engined Sopwith Atlantic aeroplane, with Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve navigating, finally had favourable weather conditions on 18 May 1919 and was ready to begin his assault on the great prize. The idea of carrying mail across the Atlantic in a matter of hours rather than the many days that the journey took by boat was clearly of interest to the Newfoundland Post Office. So, on 5 April 1919 they wrote to the Sopwith Aviation Company: "…On what terms will you carry a small official mail, the number of items not to exceed ten, and the weight not to exceed one pound? As an alternative proposition, and subject to such limitations as may be agreed upon on what terms will you carry a general letter mail?"

Mr. Fen, on behalf of Sopwith Aviation Company, replied on 8th April: "…My Company will be prepared to accept this on the two following conditions.

(1) That the Sopwith Aviation Co. Ltd. be allowed to carry a maximum of 100 letters in excess of the ten mentioned above.

(2) That the Sopwith Aviaction Co. Ltd. be paid the sum of one dollar, to be paid to them by cheque made payable to the Company.

It is clearly understood that in the event of the Sopwith Aeroplane being subsidised by the Newfoundland Government, it must be the first to attempt the crossing of the Atlantic by air."

Agreement was reached but as all the aviators were essentially in a race to be the first across, the Newfoundland Post Office put a small sting in the tail: "It is,however, to be understood between us that should the Martinsyde or any other airship get away before the Sopwith machine you agree on your part to promptly return the bag of mail to my order, so that it may be sent by the first airship to leave…"

Two hundred examples of the current 3c brown Caribou stamp were hastily overprinted "FIRST / TRANS- / ATLANTIC / AIR / POST / APRIL 1919". Eighteen of these proved to be defective and were destroyed; Ninety-five were used in letters carried by Hawker and his navigator, Mackenzie Grieve; eleven were presented to various officials and the remaining 76 sold for $25 each in May 1919.

On 18 May 1919, the Royal Aero Club in London received a telegram from the official starter of the race stating: "Mr Hawker and Comm. Mackenzie Grieve in the Sopwith Rolls Royce Biplane began the transatlantic flight this afternoon at 6:45pm from Mount Pearl flying field, St. John's, Newfoundland."

The first attempt on the non-stop Transatlantic crossing had begun! As Hawker and Grieve passed over the Newfoundland coastline, the undercarriage of the Sopwith was jettisoned to decrease weight and improve airspeed. Despite the unexpected foggy weather that appeared, they were soon cruising at over 100 miles per hour at around 10,000 feet. The weather was poor and although the Rolls Royce engine performed well there were still problems with the cooling system, which became steadily worse. The two aviators decided to continue flying for as long as they could along the shipping lane in an effort to find a vessel that they could ditch close to, but spotted nothing. Finally, as things were getting to a critical stage, they sighted the Danish ship, Mary. With great skill, Hawker managed to put down safely on the water and an hour and a half later the two men were rescued. The Mary was not equipped with salvage gear so the Sophwith, with its bag of mail, was left floating in the Atlantic. The ship also had no wireless communication, so it was not until 25 May 1919 that the world heard that the intrepid airmen were safe and well.

The Sopwith remained drifting on the sea until it was located by the S.S. Lake Charlottesville on 23 May. In a telegraph to the Secretary of the Navy, Lieutenant Commancer A.C. WIlvers reported: "Near the top of the plane was lashed a brown postage bag which was marked 'Newfoundland G.P.O.' It contained mail mostly addressed to prominent British Peers, the Royal Family and one addressed to His Majesty the King. The mail was very soaked and otherwise damaged." The Lake Charlottesville arrived at Falmouth on 28 May and the wrecked aircraft was handed over to the local Customs and Excise officials. The mail was sent to London and put into the British postal system on 30 May.

Harry Hawker's attempt at the great prize was over, although Lord Northcliffe's Daily Mail made a generous donation of £5,000 as a consolation prize. Hawker and Grieve received an enthusiastic reception in London and King George V decorated both airmen with the Air Force Cross. The British have a long tradition of turning noble failure into a reason for celebration! Sadly Hawker died just three years later, probably as he would have wished, at the controls of an aircraft. Grieve survived until September 1942.

The Martinsyde Attempt

The next attempt at a non-stop Atlantic crossing was made by the single-engine Martinsyde Raynor, a very similar aircraft to the Sopwith. It was piloted by Major F.P. Raynham with Major C.W.F. Morgan as navigator. They arrived in Newfoundland on 10 May, just as negotiations between Sopwith and the Post Office for the carrying of the first aerial Transatlantic flight were completed. The Martinsyde made its first trial flight as the Hawker attempt started. As we have seen, Hawker failed and it appeard that Raynham and Morgan were favourites to take the prize.

Once again the Newfoundland Post Office decided to prepare a special stamp to mark the occasion. This time the current 3c. Caribou stamp was given a manuscript overprint reading "Aerial / Atlantic / Mail / J.A.R. (the initials of J. Alex Robinson, the Postmaster General). We do not know precisely how many were given this overprint, but it probably amounted to less than fifty.

The weather in Newfoundland was not favourable. Almost a month passed before the Martinsyde was ready to make its first attempt on the crossing. However, the aircraft crashed during take off and was damaged. Both airmen were injured in the crash and Morgan returned to England on medical advice to be replaced by Lieutenant C.H. BIddlesbombe on 14 June.

After repairs to the aeroplane were made, Raynham and Biddlesbombe, along with their small bag of mail set off to try again. By his time Alcock and Brown had already made the first successful non--stop flight and it was in an effort to beat their time of sixteen hours and twelve minutes that Raynham took off at 3:15pm local time on 17 July. Alas, they flew for only 50 metres before the aircraft plunged to the earth and was wrecked. Fortunately, the crew was unharmed but the Martinsyde effort was at an end.

Raynham returned to England with the bag of mail, which was finally posted on 7 January 1920. The two Martinsyde attempts covered but a few hundred yards and ended in abject failure but has left behind a legacy of some of the world's rarest and most highly priced air mail stamps.

Alcock And Brown

Captain John Alcock, Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown and their twin-engined ex-Royal Air Force Vickers Vimy Bomber arrived in Newfoundland on 24 May 1919, just after Harry Hawker's Sopwith had been fished out of the sea and before news of the rescue of Hawker and Grieve had been received. The Martinsyde had also made its first unsuccessful attempt.

Perhaps it was the news of these two failures that pushed up the prize money on offer. A further 2,000 guineas was added by the Ardath Tobacco Company and another £1,000 by Mr. Lawrence R. Phillips. Undeterred by the two previous attempts, the Newfoundland Post Office once again made arrangements for mail to be carried on Alcock and Brown's flight, and also that of Admiral Kerr's four engine Handley Page Bomber which had recently arrived. In contrast to the severely limited numbers of special stamps prepared for the two earlier flights, 10,000 examples of the 1897 15c. were surcharged "Trans-Atlantic/AIR POST/1919/ONE DOLLAR" with 50c. for each stamp sold being donated to the Permanent Marine Disasters Fund.

The rarity of the Hawker had Martinsyde issues was already apparent and this time the Post Office was going to make certain there were enough stamps to go round. The weight considerations of the earlier attempts were still very much a problem and Alcock and Brown's post consisted of just 196 letters and one letter packet.

On 9 June the Vickers Vimy was ready for its trial flight, which apart from radio failure was a success. Clearly the advantage of the two Rolls Royce Eagle engines was going to give the aviators a great advantage over the single engine of the Sopwith and Martinsyde machines used before.

A further trial flight on 12 June showed everything to be in order and all was set for their attempt, especially as the Handley Page crew, who had made their first trial on 12 June showed everything to be in order and all was set for their attempt, especially as the Handley crew, who had made their first trial flight on the same day were breathing down their necks; although there were far more problems with the four-engined machine than the Vimy. The race was clearly still on!

Two days later, in the afternoon of 14 June, Alcock and Brown took off from Lesters Field, St. John's on their historic flight. The heavily laden aircraft experienced difficulty in getting airborne, not aided by an unfriendly wind, but Alcock managed to drag the aircraft into the sky and soon they were passing over the coastline of Newfoundland.

After a time the wind changed in their favour, pushing them towards Ireland, but thick fog did not help and neither did the failure of their radio after about only five minutes of flying. For hours the aircraft plunged on blindly through the fog which only occasionally cleared for long enough for Brown to make hurried observations as to their position. Later they went through a sleet storm which froze the airspeed indicator which added further problems for Brown's dead reckoning. At one stage the Vickers stalled and Alcock required all his knowledge as a flying instructor to recover the machine just 50 feet above the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean.

Another storm was encountered and both aviators had to clear ice off the instruments. At 6:00 am in the morning on 15th June, Brown decided that it was necessary to check their position and Alcock took the aeroplane up to 10,000 feet, resulting in the icing up of the control surfaces and again the Vimy went out of control.

Finally at 9:25 am they at last crossed the Irish coastline. Searching for a suitable landing site they spotted what appeared to be a large green field and decided to land there. Unfortunately the green field turned out to be an Irish bog. The Vickers ended up on its nose but the two intrepid airman emerged after sixteen hours and twelve minutes of flying with nothing more than their dignity bruised. The race was over and the prize was won!

A rapturous reception awaited the two fliers in London and on 21 June both were presented to King George V and the Prince of Wales and Windsor castle. They then reappeared as Sir John Alcock K.B.E, D.S.C. and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown, K.B.E.

Tragically, Alcock died just six months later, like Hawker at the controls of an aircraft. Brown retired into private life an died in 1948. The story of Newfoundland, it's postage stamps and Transatlantic flights does not end with Alcock and Brown's historic flight, it is merely the end of a chapter in a continuing book!

Photo credits: Mr. Peter Motson

By Richard Bishop

"Here is a picture of the Kingdom of Heaven"

Between 1552 and 1572, hundreds of skilled craftsmen were employed on the decoration of the St. Janskirk in Gauda. In the North Transept can be seen the magnificent King's Window, which took two years to complete. In one panel Solomon is offering a sacrifice in the Temple at Jerusalem. The sacrifice has burst into flames, a sure sign that the offering has found favour in the eyes of the Lord. In one of the ten banderols that bear inscriptions the following can be read. 'The most illustrious Philip, son of the invincible and most exalted Emperor Charles V, by the Grace of God King of Spain, England, France and the Two Sicilies, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, Gelderland etc., Count of Flanders, Hainault, Holland, Zeeland, etc., and Lord of Friesland, etc., Father of our Fatherland, the meekest and most pious of Sovereigns, donated this glass to decorate this church. May his throne, filling the entire world like the sun, stand for all eternity. In the year of Christ our Saviour, 1557.'

In another scene nearby is the Last Supper. The disciple Philip has just put his request to Christ, 'Lord, let us see the Father and we shall be satisfied', to which Christ replies 'To have seen me is to have seen the Father.' In front of the table, kneeling on the floor, is the 'meekest and most pious sovereign', Philip, and behind him kneels his wife, Mary Tudor, Queen of England

For four years the Most Catholic monarch rejoiced in his title King of England, but the powers the title should have brought remained a tantalising prospect, never a concrete reality. When his father, the Emperor Charles V, first heard that a marriage contract had been signed he is said to have exclaimed 'now the Kingdom of England will come to Spain.' By the time the great windows in the Janskirk were completed Queen Mary was dead, and the 'meekest and most pious' Philip was no longer king of England. The small island kingdom, briefly a part of the realm that filled 'the entire world like the sun', had somehow eluded the Habsburg's grasp.

Negotiations had begun in 1552. On November 6th that year Charles's ambassador in England, Simon Renard Sir de Bermont, advised his master that the Queen's council was against a Spanish marriage. Renard had been warned by his friend, Bishop Gardiner, that the English were consumed by 'the very fear of a foreign match.' It was this fear that had persuaded the dying King Edward to nominate the newly married Lady Jane Grey as his successor, in preference to his two older, but unmarried, half-sisters, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. At least that was the argument put forward by the Duke of Northumberland, and for a brief time it seemed the country might agree with him and accept Jane as Queen. But within days public opinion had swung in favour of Henry VIII's eldest daughter. Blood was thicker than water, and Mary entered London in triumph. The hapless Jane, Queen for only nine days, was placed under close arrest and lodged in the Tower.

To his delight the Emperor discovered that Queen Mary was very much in favour of the Spanish match. In Spain the Marques de las Navas was entrusted with the mission to take the lavish betrothal gifts to England. Among the countless items of silks and embroideries, jewels and works of art, one piece won the admiration of all who saw it. This was 'La Peregrina', a fabulous pearl, reputedly the largest pearl in the world, set as a pendant, described by Andres Mu..oz, servant to His Serene Highness the Infanta don Carlos, as 'A great diamond with a fine large pearl pendant from it. They were the most magnificent pair of gems ever seen in this world, and valued at over 25,000 ducats.' Queen Mary was to be especially pleased with this gift, and she wore the jewel, near to her heart, in preference to all others, until the day she died.

News of the agreement caused consternation back in England. Despite Mary's protestations that she was the bride of England first and a bride of Spain second, armed uprisings broke out when the marriage was proclaimed on 14 January 1554. The main problem, as many had foreseen, was that to the Tudor mind a husband inherited all of his wife's worldly goods and titles, and even if provision was made for the Queen to retain use of these for her lifetime, there was the question of inheritance. What if the Queen gave birth and died while the child was still a minor? Would the Spanish King become Regent? Even if the Queen lived to a ripe old age, was it not inevitable that her small island kingdom would eventually be swallowed up by the throne that was already 'filling the entire world like the sun'?

Mary showed great courage at this moment of crisis. She appeared before the London mob and vowed that she would never marry at all unless all her 'sogettes shall be content'. She promised a Parliament that would not merely ratify the marriage settlement, but would safeguard England's interests. The rebels were defeated, but the mood of the country was very clear. Parliament duly ratified the Marriage Settlement, but in April the same Parliament published 'An Acte declaringe that the Regall power of thys realme is in the Queen's Maiestie as fully and absolutely as ever it was in anye her moost nobl progenytours kynges of thys Realme.'

At the heart of all this was a fear of foreign domination. It was not a hatred of Catholicism, but a hatred of foreigners that stirred up the passions of the common people. It would have been the same if Mary had set her heart on a Protestant German prince. From the very outset the Spanish were put on notice that England would not become part of the Habsburg dominions without a fight. Under this cloud Philip arrived in England with a small army that included nobles, ladies, and retainers, but not one soldier. The Spanish and Flemish troops that accompanied him from Spain were instructed by the Emperor to remain in their ships. Much to their disgust these troops remained cooped up for weeks until eventually they were sent to help the Emperor regain control of his rebellious Dutch provinces.

The couple were married in Winchester Cathedral on 25 July 1554. The ceremony was conducted by Bishop Gardiner, and a host of the greatest Peers of the realm gave the bride away. It was carefully staged that at every juncture Philip was never in an equal position to Mary. Even at the wedding banquet he sat in a lower place, on a smaller throne, and was served after the Queen. The Spanish observed that in England the monarch was not a true monarch at all, but more like a servant, under the rule of over mighty Lords and every day at the mercy of rebellious and uncouth subjects. The English, it was noted with derision, dressed themselves in coats covered with a superfluity of buttons, and could not dance.

The royal marriage caused considerable confusion. The Queen was still the monarch, and in theory Philip had no independent executive powers and was forbidden by Parliament from acting alone or even from persuading the Queen to act in Spain's interests. But in many ways the signs for the future were not good. Philip was named first on all Royal Proclamations, the style being 'Philip and Mary, by the Grace of God King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, Princes of Spain and Sicily, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Milan, Burgundy and Brabant, Counts of Habsburg, Flanders and Tyrol'. More ominous to the man in the street was the redesigned coinage.

Gold Sovereign of Mary, showing the Queen enthroned, holding orb and sceptre, her hair flowing loose beneath her crown.

Gold Angel of Philip and Mary, with the two initials P and M now on the reverse, Philip's initial in the dominant position.  

Silver Shilling of Philip and Mary, dated 1554, with their titles as King and queen of England, France and Naples, and Prince of Spain, the king in the dominant position, his name first in the legend, and the English crown suspended ambiguously above them both.

Gold Angel of Mary, the reverse with Mary's initial and the Tudor rose above the royal arms.

Prior to her marriage Mary had issued gold and silver coins with very distinctive portraits. On the gold Sovereign she is enthroned, holding orb and sceptre, and wearing a crown. Her hair is loose and falls down in thick tresses. On the gold Ryal the Queen stands in a ship, holding a sword and shield. Again her hair is loose beneath her crown. On the silver coinage the portrait is in profile to the left, a more realistic portrait, and again the queen's hair flows out from under her crown and down her neck. The loose hair is symbolic. A woman with her hair loose and flowing was a maiden, a virgin, and, it was hoped, fertile. In all representations, painting, sculpture, ceramics, as well as on coinage, this was the case, a potential bride was always depicted like this, and a royal bride was no exception. There were other symbols, the white dress, pearls, etc., but the profusion of thick flowing tresses was a clear sign to the world of a woman's natural potential, regardless of wealth or political position.

After the marriage the design on the coinage had necessarily to include the name and a portrait of Philip. The manner in which this was done dismayed the Queen's subjects. Philip was given a position and style equal to, if not above, that of the Queen. His portrait faced hers, was the same size, on the same level, but he was placed in the dominant position. His name came first in the legend. Most worrying of all, the crown, which all observers knew represented the crown of England, was shown hovering above both of them, mid way between the two. The crown was no longer Mary's sole property. Further, the Queen's portrait was drastically altered. She was now depicted wearing a cap, not a crown, a cap that fully covered her hair and came down over her ears. She had become a matron. She was, it is true, ten years older than Philip, but now she appeared much older, and no longer the powerful independent monarch that England wanted to see. She was transformed into the perfect wife - some would have observed the perfect obedient Habsburg wife. For her part the Queen was clearly happy in her new role. As it says in Ecclesasticus, 'A virtuous woman rejoiceth her husband.' Her husband might rejoice. Her subjects did not.

And then, in November 1554, the Queen announced that she was pregnant. In Spain the Emperor heard the news with joy. His plans were advancing apace. 'Now the kingdom of England will come to Spain.' It is significant that it was at this moment that official portraits of Mary were commissioned. The court portraitist, Antonis Mor was despatched to London to paint the Queen's portrait. On his return to the Netherlands he painted many pairs of portraits of Philip and Mary, several of them surviving today, and the engraver Frans Huys reproduced them as prints and spread the message on behalf of his Habsburg masters. At the same time, grand medals, the grandest medals yet produced for Philip, were commissioned from the Italian goldsmith and sculptor, Jacopo da Trezzo, who was also sent to London. The medal of Mary was to be da Trezzo's masterpiece.

The portrait of Mary is similar to that on the new coinage, possibly because da Trezzo was responsible for them both. The Queen is shown in profile facing to the left. She again wears her cap, not her crown, and the cap is so firmly secured under her chin that it appears almost uncomfortably secure. Her flowing locks are nowhere in sight. The Queen does not wear any royal regalia, no ermine robe, no Garter Badge, no wide ruff, but she sits stiff in a tight fitted heavily brocaded dress with a high collar. As in the various painted portraits, Mary wears a single jewel, her favourite, La Peregrina.

Gold Ryal of Mary, showing the Queen standing in the ship of state, holding sword and shield, again her hair loose and flowing down over her shoulders.

The reverse is a magnificent allegory. A draped female figure, wearing a radiate crown, sits on a curule chair. The crown is a symbol of Divine authority, and the Roman curule chair is the seat of worldly government. In her right hand she brandishes high above her head twin branches of olive and palm. These too are symbols of the Divine and the Worldly powers. (Contemporaries were well aware of the symbolism, the olive branches thrown down by the crowds as Christ entered Jerusalem, from the east, by way of the Mount of Olives, at the beginning of Passover week, and the palm branches carried aloft in solemn procession before the Roman Procurator Pilate as he entered Jerusalem from the west at the same time.) She twists slightly, for she is a woman of action. With her left hand she sets a flaming torch to a trophy of arms, thus actively bringing about peace. She kneels on a tilted cube, a heptagon, the symbol of the sacred number seven of the ancient philosophers, called the Telesphoros because by it 'all in the Universe and Mankind is led to its end.' On the tilted cube are two clasped hands and below that lies a pair of scales. This refers to the foundations of Civic Government, as Cicero explains in his De Officiis, 'fundamenta rei publicae, concordiam primum… deinde aequitatem' (the foundation of the Commonwealth is first Concord… then Justice.). The woman towers over the other figures that crowd about her. On her right are several agitated men, the most prominent being a bearded man dressed in he style of a member of one of the 'Reformed' churches, clasping his hands over his ears, and next to him a half naked man looking up towards the central figure, an intent expression on his face. At her left side a woman stands (or kneels?) meekly before her, recalling, by her posture, the Virgin Mary of the Annunciation with her submissive 'be it done to me according to thy word'. Other figures look on, and beside them is a large classical temple in which scholars are debating. Below her there is water, while immediately above her the heavens are brightened by rays. The legend reads 'CECIS VISVS TIMIDIS QVIES', 'Sight to the blind, tranquillity to the timid.'

This crowded and complex scene presents us with a figure of great significance. There is not a single religious reference, and this is important. The woman is Sacra Philosophia, Sacred or Natural Philosophy, the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, and at this time increasingly regarded by many religious thinkers as the true basis of Good Government. Sacra Philosophia was the Church's answer to the claims of the Moral Philosophers, the Humanists, as well as the various religious Reformers, who challenged the authority of the Church of Rome. Her authority is of Divine origin, she forms a bridge between heaven and earth, she rules with justice, she rests (here she literally kneels) on the foundations of philosophy, she actively brings about peace, and she rules over all mankind. Some of her subjects are tortured by doubts and false doctrines, while others passively accept the Divine Will. Only the Moral Philosophers, enclosed in their Temple (emphasising how they are trapped by their own circular arguments into forever building their own impractical worlds), refuse to join her company. All other peoples, of all shades of belief, can be embraced by Sacra Philosophia. Even heathens, who are ignorant of Christianity, are subject to her laws, since they too are subject to Divine Providence. This was at the heart of the newly evolving concept of government in a Habsburg Empire that now included half the Americas, 'filling the entire world like the sun'.

The image of a Woman representing Wisdom was not new. The Book of Wisdom in the Old Testament introduced her as the fitting bride for the King. The king was widely held to be Solomon himself. The Song of Songs developed and enriched this idea with vivid and at times highly sensuous imagery. Boetius introduces a majestic figure of a powerful Woman representing Philosophy in his hugely influential 'De Consolatione Philosophiae' (The Consolation of Philosophy). Throughout the Middle Ages Philosophy is always represented as a woman, eventually becoming a Queen, though Da Trezzo certainly found the inspiration for this particular depiction of Sacra Philosophia in Italian sculpture, such as the figures on the great bronze monument to Sixtus IV in the Vatican Grottoes, completed by Antonio dal Pollaiuolo in 1493.

The Medieval mind conflated the ideas of Divine Wisdom, Philosophy, the perfect Woman, The Virgin, and even the Pearl, which becomes a symbol of all these others. As the Pseudo Macarius, describing the pearl in the diadem of the Empire, explains 'the king alone may wear the pearl, image of the ineffable light of the Saviour. Those who posses the Pearl will live and reign with Christ for all eternity.' And in the New Testament Jesus gives us this memorable image. 'Here is a picture of the Kingdom of Heaven. A merchant searching for fine pearls found one of very great price. So he went and sold everything he had, and bought it.' The Pearl was a symbol of Wisdom, and the Queen of England treasured the Pearl of Great Price her Spanish husband gave her above all other gifts.

Cast and chased silver Medal by Jacopo da Trezzo.

For Philip was another Solomon. In his progress through the Netherlands in 1549 numerous Triumphal Arches and tableaux vivants emphasised this, usually to the sound of trumpets. Cardinal Pole in a speech at Westminster in 1554 refers to Philip as Solomon, 'Rex Pacificus', and the great King's Window in Gauda reminds us of this yet again. Solomon built the Temple, Philip was to build the Escorial. Solomon was often depicted with the Queen of Sheba, who visited him to see for herself his splendour and to hear at first hand his wisdom. Philip and Mary are Solomon and Sheba in the painting by Lucas de Heere for the celebrations of the 23rd Chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Ghent in 1559. Sheba recognised the Divine source of Solomon's wisdom, and she acknowledged him as her superior. In the words of the Old Testament, after the Queen had witnessed Solomon's glory 'there was no more spirit in her.' And so Mary wears her Pearl, and her matron's cap. Her once flowing hair is bound up and hidden, but she has been given a greater gift to treasure, the Pearl of Great Price.

The Emperor Charles remained firm in his belief that 'England will come to Spain'. When he heard that the English Parliament proposed to put Mary's name first when their joint titles were proclaimed he was enraged and forbade it, writing that 'no Law, Human

or Divine, would allow him (Philip) to be named second.' Andmeanwhile the rule of Sacra Philosophia would not only hold sway in England, but would bring about, eventually, the dream of the Emperor Charles, the reuniting of Christian Europe. Da Trezzo's great medal is a superb piece of Habsburg propaganda, a fleeting vision of what might have been if all had gone according to plan.

But Mary died, childless, in 1558. Her persecution of Protestants made it inevitable that England would eventually reject for good the Catholic Church. Philip did not give up immediately. His first diplomatic move after Mary's death was to propose marriage to her Protestant half sister, the new Queen of England, Elizabeth. But as Elizabeth had told Philip's envoy, her sister 'had lost the affection of the people of this realm because she had married a foreigner.' Now England had another Queen with free flowing hair, and this time history would not repeat itself.

In 1555 the Emperor Charles retired to the small monastery at Yuste near Cárcares in Spain. He also died in 1558. The numerous nations of the New World that were now under Spanish rule might eventually be accommodated by the new concepts of government, but nearer home his diplomacy had been a failure. The Habsburg lands were partitioned, and in Europe, as in England, divisions were hardening. The Council of Trent would condemn, among others, those who argued for a 'Double Truth' and so Philosophy should no longer be separated from Religion. The Humanists, such as Erasmus, as well as the followers of Averroes, such as Siger of Brabant, would be sent into oblivion. Their works would soon appear on the Index, the list of condemned books. The University at Louvain, the Collegium Trilingue, now the centre for Humanist studies in Europe, would be investigated by the Church, its lectures censured, its books burnt, and its teachers dispersed (some to lead Protestant communities in countries outside the Empire). For the Catholic Church, Sacra Philosophia would rule. This was the beginning of the Counter Reformation. In Spain the position was greatly altered by a major political and religious crisis that was unleashed 1557-1559 when whole communities of 'Protestants' were discovered in Seville and Valladolid. The archbishop of Toledo was arrested, and the Inquisition held two grand autos-dafé. The dream of the Emperor Charles of a united Christian Europe would soon become for his son Philip a blinding vision of a united Catholic Europe.

The medal remained as a reminder of what might have been. A similar allegorical scene was to be used fifty years later, to adorn a Triumphal Arch in Antwerp that greeted the Archduke Ernst of Austria in 1595, but in a different milieu the original meaning was lost and by the time it made its appearance in print the scene was completely misread. The strong and active figure of Sacra Philosophia was mistaken for the usually meek figure of Peace, and the Temple of Moral Philosophers was mistaken for the Temple of Janus. This was the meaning wrongly given fifty years after the event by Typotius in his Symbola divina et humana, printed in Prague 1601-3 with engravings by Aegidius Sadeler, and by Francisco Gomez de la Reguera in his Empresas de los Reyes de Castilla y de Leon, printed c.1632. Gomez had clearly not seen the medal and must have been guided by a verbal description, for his accompanying engraving makes a nonsense of the scene. He places the crowd well apart from the central figure, and he is unsure why there is a temple and so he adds 'de Jano?' This is an easy mistake to make if you have not seen the medal, for Peace was indeed sometimes depicted setting fire to a trophy of arms, as in a medal for Philip II by G. Paolo Poggini. In this case however the attribution is certain, for Peace wears a wreath, holds a full cornucopia, and the temple of Janus is depicted with closed doors, exactly as it is on Roman coins of the same subject. Even the motto tells us 'PACE TERRA MARIQ COMPOSITA'. On the medal of Mary not one of these important attributes is present.

The prominent Temple of Moral Philosophers is in fact an important element in da Trezzo's allegory. The genre of works on Government, known collectively as 'The Mirror of Princes', discussing the 'great chain of being' and weighing the claims of moral and religious principles on the one hand and political expediency on the other, had been popular since ancient times, but the early 16th century had seen a proliferation of such works, written in all languages, and now brought to the printing presses in all European countries, regardless of religious allegiance. For some there were too many. Thomas Smith complained to the Duchess of Somerset in 1550 of the great number of men who 'kneel on your grace's carpet and devise commonwealths as they like'. Ralph Robinson in his preface to his 1551 English translation of Utopia observes 'every sort and kynde of people in theire vocation and degree, busilee occupied about the commonwealths affairs and especially learned men dayly putting forth in writing newe inventions and devices to the furtherance of the same.' This was nothing new. The Florentine civil servant, Matteo Palmieri, whose Della Vita Civile had circulated in Italy 1440-1450 and was finally printed in 1528, had written dismissively of impractical imaginary constitutions and 'the imaginary goodness of citizens never seen on this earth, such as Plato and other great intellects dream up,' and Machiavelli in his De Principe, written in 1513 but not published until 1532, had felt obliged to state that he was interested in 'the actual truth of the matter rather than the imagination of it.'(insert marytif image with close up of the temple - soojust detail if possible) It was the 'learned men' and 'great intellects' that da Trezzo placed in his circular Temple. Sacra Philosophia rules with Divine guidance and she does not need the abstract arguments of these moral philosophers.

Gomez's misinterpretations go further. He 'corrects' the legend of da Trezzo's medal to read 'CAECIS VISUS' and states that this is Mary's personal motto. In fact Mary did have a personal motto, but a very different one, 'VERITAS TEMPORIS FILIA', Truth, the Daughter of Time. Gomez then concludes that the scene was a compliment to Mary on her defence of Catholicism and her persecution of heretics. When it is remembered that the medal was produced in 1554, this is of course reading history backwards. Others have argued that the allegory refers to Wyat's rebellion earlier that year, which again is imaginative. The proposition that the figure of 'Peace' was in fact meant to be taken as Mary herself is almost a cruel joke. The queen was a diminutive woman, and by all accounts she did not have a commanding physical presence at all, and after one year of rule she had struggled to keep the peace in her kingdom.

Silver Groat of Mary, her long hair falling down her back. The reverse bears her personal motto, Veritas Temporis Filia (Truth the Daughter of Time)

Can a medal become so misunderstood so soon after its production? Certainly a medal can be misinterpreted immediately. In a letter to Cosimo de'Medici dated 28 February 1562, the Milanese medallist G. Paolo Poggini describes another medal he has recently made 'per questo buon re mio signore' (Philip II), and as he explains 'La donna che porta a offerire il mezzo mondo è figurate per la India provincial, come piace al signore Gonzalo Peres. Ma io atribuisco alla fortuna o providenzia, seccondo il motto suo; e detta invenzione fu prima mia..' . (The woman who holds the half globe as an offering represents the Indian Province, thus my lord Gonzalo Peres is pleased to have it. But I prefer to interpret her as Fortune or Providence, with her appropriate motto. The idea was mine in the first place…'). This is the artist, writing from the Spanish court, talking about his own recent medal. Meanings can certainly become obscured very quickly.

The silver medal illustrated here is in the collection of Spink. It is a magnificent early example, cast and chased in high relief. It sits well next to the two silver medals of Henry VIII and Edward VI, both proclaiming the King's Supremacy of the Church in England. This Habsburg medal can be seen as a reply to those two English 'Protestant' medals. Like them there are two examples of the da Trezzo medal in gold. One has been in the British Museum since 1927. The other, in a private collection, was sold most recently for £276,000.

La Peregrina was returned to the Spanish royal treasury, and Philip gave it to his next wife, Elizabeth of Valois. It was worn by successive Habsburg wives until it was sold in the 19th century. It is now owned by the film star, Elizabeth Taylor.

The Spink Auction Insider recently sat down with William MacKay, one of our newest additions to the Spink coin family, to find out a little bit more about his history as a collector and what drew him to Spink for a change of career.

William, thanks for taking the time to sit down with us today. We realize you have the rather laborious task of finishing your September coin auction catalogue and time is limited so let's get started. We already know you are a great enthusiast when it comes to Numismatics. How did you get your start in coin collecting?

After a good number of years the origin of my interest in coins all seems a bit misty. But I guess it began when I was about 8 years old with a few old copper coins of George III dated 1806 which my grandmother owned. I wanted them to be dated 1805 as that would link then to Nelson whom at that age I considered to be the most famous person ever. This began a love of dates and soon after I was given a little book which came with The Reader's Digest that listed British coins made since 1816. Of course this being the late 60s many of these coins were still in circulation and so I discovered the thrill of the chase in looking to find date runs and rare issues from change. Making friends with shop keepers at this time was not just about getting the best sweets but also the opportunity to rifle through their change. The true collector's drive had taken root.

So you were interested in coinage that was currently in circulation. How did your interests evolve from that point?

A year or two later my parents saw that I had a keen interest in coins and history. As a result I was given, a present, a little bronze coin of the Roman Emperor Constantius II (d.361 AD). Funnily enough, the coin was bought from the coin shop which was later to become Spink in York. Like most parents they spotted something which a child was enthusiastic about and sought to grow it as a worthwhile interest. As I grew older the interest in history extended to archaeology with a fascination in the ancient and medieval world. This led me to spend more time on Ancient and English Hammered coinage which continued through my years at Durham University where inevitably I studied History. Here I discovered my true passion was for the coins of Anglo-Saxon England. When eventually I had some spare income - setting up home and getting a career meant coins had to take a back seat - I sold my 'youthful' collection at auction in 1988 and used this money to start a collection focused solely on Anglo-Saxon coinage. With a list of coins to acquire, this project has continued until the present day enabling me to experience the thrill of the chase in securing key coins and feeling of fulfilment as each coin was ticked off the list. Each tick is like an objective met and to have seen the collection take shape has been very rewarding. This is a collection I continue to build.

You mention of love of history. Do you believe this is important for a collector of coins?

Apart from the thrill of building a collection, there is a real pleasure to be had from handling the coins. They are not just a piece of impressed metal but each is a mirror of human experience and endeavour. When you hold a coin it's as if you hold a piece of the world's history. This is a personal thing and not everyone will feel the same way. Some people buy coins and never hold them preferring to place them somewhere while they hopefully appreciate in value. For me it more than this. It's about the what, who, when, how and why questions of history. Coins are part of history and in some cases the only record we have. For example without coins we would not know that several East Anglian kings of the ninth century ever existed!

How did we come to find you working at Spink?

Up until a few years ago my collecting of coins was a hobby. I had a career working in business management and marketing in the telecommunication industry which took me aboard a lot. At this time coins were a way to relax and to focus my energies on something other than work. This was the time of the tech boom and working where I was I could indulge in adding some impressive coins to my collection. Looking back I could have invested some of my spare money in the stock market but there was no enjoyment for me in doing so? At least putting some money into coins gave me a tangible asset that I could appreciate, which might also in time appreciate financially as well. There did come a point when enough was enough. My real passion for numismatics was becoming more stimulating than my current job. It was time to do something different with my life. A tough call to change, but I decided to take the risk and fell on my feet joining one of the best known collectables auction houses in the world.

What was it like to move from a job in industry to working for an auction house?

It was like starting back at age 18 again! As a collector I thought I knew quite a lot about the subject and it was humbling to realise I had so much to learn. No one can possibly know everything about numismatics. It is such a wide field of study that every day you see something you have not seen before. The key has been to specialise around what I know best whilst at the same time listening and learning from others in the business. I've enjoyed the opportunity this has provided me to extend my knowledge and experience new things.

Perhaps the best part of working at Spink is dealing with our customers. It takes a collector to understand a collector and from my old career I know that the best businesses are those which understand their customers and use that knowledge to ensure the customer's experience is always beyond their expectations. In a sense combining my old career experience and my enthusiasm for numismatics helps with getting the most from my new career. I enjoy helping clients with their collections and it is always a great privilege to be asked to assist when the time comes to dispose of a collection at auction. I'm constantly on the look out for our clients when it comes to coins they are seeking. If we have something come in that say, Mr. Smith absolutely must have, I'll look to give him a call to let him know it's coming up for auction. I would want someone to do the same for me.

Is this love of collecting something that you have passed on to a future generation?

Indeed, I am hoping to. My daughter Elizabeth is becoming a keen collector. In fact, we did an interview with her for the magazine. I suspect few of us are born collectors but we can be made into one and get much enrichment in our lives from being so. Her mother and I have both so enjoyed the study of history and we have done much to instil some of this in her as she has grown. At one level this would involve showing her coins and archaeological objects we had at home and capturing her imagination by looking at them and thinking about who made them, when, why and what the designs show. From doing this an interest has grown. And she has also had the opportunity to come in and see what I do at Spink. I think that this has had a huge impact on her. She sees a desk surrounded by books and rare coins. Once a year her school holidays coincide with a sale and she likes to attend. As a result she has developed an interest in medals, seeing the action of the July medal sale and acquiring some for herself. Medals, like coins, come with a great deal of history. However, the medals come with tales of great heroism and I think that really appeals to Elizabeth. She has had the chance to hold a Victoria Cross in her hand…which not many children can say they have done. Her mother and I have encouraged her collecting and decided it was better to put money forward for Elizabeth by investing in medals rather than placing the money in a bank. We are giving her an asset that she can hold in her hand and appreciate.

You mention your exposing Elizabeth to all the collectables at Spink has changed her collecting interests. Has it also done this for yours?

As a collector I believe you are always tempted to collect other things. I've been pretty good by being deliberately focused. I enjoy helping Elizabeth collect medals but I continue with Anglo-Saxon coins.

Is there one moment in your time at Spink that sticks out above all else?

I remember in 2007 when a Petition Crown came in with a collection. I knew this was a special coin but to make it really special we needed a provenance for it. After some searching I found it in a 1908 sale catalogue and from that we could take its pedigree back to 1750 and then see it sell for £230,000.

In this job, as with most, there is much that you see which is ordinary but every now and then you have those moments when something special shows up like the King Eadbald gold shilling struck c.640 AD that was brought in earlier this year. This coin was the first to be struck in the name of an English King. That's a huge piece of history! I instantly knew it would be a fabulous story to tell and a very important piece for the numismatic community. To have an opportunity to research and catalogue a coin of that magnitude is very special for me. And again to see it sell for a record price all helps generate real satisfaction.

Any random fact about you which our readers should know?

I think it is important if you specialise to take the interest beyond purely collecting by discussing and researching with other specialists.

By Peter Galloway

The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle was instituted by King James VII (of Scotland) and II (of England) in 1687 to recognize the loyalty of those who governed Scotland in his name. From those early years and through eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when political allegiance was often foremost in the selection of a knight, the Order of the Thistle has matured into an honour that recognizes Scots men and women of outstanding reputation and pre-eminent service, both in Scotland and on the wider stage.

This history of the Order is the result of years of careful research, and disposes of many of the myths surrounding its origins. The author traces the history, development and progress of Scotland's national order of knighthood and the changing face of political life in Scotland from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries, and illuminates it by reference to the many colourful and sometimes eccentric personalities that have featured in its life and contributed to its reputation. This book is the first full account of the history of this great Scottish Order, its insignia and its members.

Spink, 2010. Quarto, pp. xx, 466. Casebound in cloth, gilt, paper jacket. 45 beautiful colour plates. Foreword by Prince Philip.

To place your order please contact the Book Department at Spink.

Tel: (44) 207 563 4046 or email: books@spink.com

£75

By Christian E. Dekesel & Yvette M. M. Dekesel-De Ruyck

Early numismatic publications contain invaluable evidence which can throw new light upon unsolved numismatic questions. This new work contains over 6000 numismatic works published between 1700 and 1800. The authors have studied each publication page by page and have meticulously categorized and analysed their contents.

The first volume includes a detailed geographical, chronological and categorical analysis of all 18th century numismatic publications. It also contains the indexes which cover an extensive bibliography of 18th century publications in general, authors, editors, translators, printers, publishers, places and dates of publication, categories and more, making it easy to locate a specific book from numerous different angles.

The remainder of the first volume and the following four volumes consist of an alphabetical catalogue of all 18th century numismatic books which have been located and analysed, excluding all nonidentifiable secondary references from other bibliographies. Each book has been the subject of a detailed bibliographical analysis and no less than 8785 illustrations accompany the entries.

The authors have also published Bibliographies of 16th and 17th century numismatic books. This Bibliographic Opus is destined to become the standard work of reference for early numismatic books.

Volume I, A-B: 1212 pp.

To place your order please contact the Book Department at Spink.

Tel: (44) 207 563 4046 or email: books@spink.com

£135



Spink is pleased to announce Anthony Spink's 45th year with the company. On September 1st 1965, Anthony Spink joined the firm to carry on the family name. He has been with us now for 45 years.