November 26th 2018.
Next
club meeting Monday 3rd December
2018.
The activities will be as follows:
1.
The main feature will be a mini coin
fair for members to bring along items for sale.
2.
A coin quiz
3.
Members to bring along one or two items
that for some reason are considered special (e.g. recent acquisition, a long
sought after piece, an unusual find, an oddity etc.). A brief written
explanation as to why the piece is special to you.
4.
Christmas buffet!
Meetings are held
at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
Notices
·
Please continue thinking about Short Talks for
January, and Auction lots for March!
November Meeting
Jeremy
Cheek gave a talk on Coins and Medals in the
Royal Collection.
Jeremy’s visit was timely. His book - Monarchy, Money and Medals: Coins, Banknotes
and Medals from the Collection of Her Majesty The
Queen - is due to be published on 30
November 2018. With this as the background, Jeremy’s talk was structured into a
history of Royal Collection followed by a closer look at some of the more
remarkable examples held in Collection. Jeremy paid tribute to the work of
Laurence Brown LVO (who died in 2012). It was while Laurence Brown was
doing research for his book at Windsor Castle that he noticed that the Royal
Collection was not organised. He offered to sort it out, working voluntarily at
Windsor Castle (the main location of the collection) one day a month from 1973
to 2009, meticulously recording everything in the collection. During the
cataloguing, many items gravitated to Windsor.
The Collection was started by Prince Henry Frederick Stuart. Born in Stirling Castle in 1594, the son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, Henry was intelligent, well-read and an avid patron of the arts. When he died at the early age of 18, he had amassed a sizeable coin and medal collection, spending more money on coins than art, and for example, paying £2,200 for Roman coins from the Dutch antiquary, Abraham Gorlaeus. Other pieces were added to the Collection, including a Scottish coronation gold medal (by Briot) for Charles I in 1633.
After the death of Charles I, much of the Royal Collection was sold off, although there is evidence that by 1652 the coin collection was still intact. Thereafter much was dispersed. However, after the Restoration, Elias Ashmole, a Royalist, started the rebuilding of the Collection. But, in 1698, the Collection was effectively destroyed in the fire at the Palace of Whitehall.
On the death of George III, the Collection had recovered to 15,000 pieces, being ancient coins and medals of important people, for example, a medal to commemorate the coronation of Edward VI in 1547, donated by George IV to the British Museum in 1825. More recently, George VI was said to have an interest in coins but no attempts are being made to acquire new pieces.
One source for acquisitions is through hoards found in the lands of the Duchy of Lancaster, such as the Cuerdale Hoard (found in 1840), one of the largest Viking silver hoards ever found dating from the period 895-905. But few are left in the Collection. More recently, many coins have come from presents/ donations, including a gold £1 in celebration of B A Seaby Ltd 21st Birthday.
Jeremy
continued with interesting examples of coins held in the Collection. This included
disputes between experts on how they were produced. Illustrated by a James I
silver plaque cast(?) by Simon van de Passe, but appears to be engraved. Others commemorated
important event such as the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to Frederick V,
whose grandson became George I. The Collection acquired a magnificent group of Jacobite medals and three touch pieces in an Italian 18C
case which was given by Bonnie Prince Charlie to his Secretary, Andrew Lumisden.
Conflict medals
are well represented both with a Commonwealth gold naval award (1654) (Blakes Medal) issued in 1654 during the first Anglo-Dutch
war which led to a long dispute about its provenance – with most of the
documentary evidence disappearing! The successful lifting of the longest siege
in British history, Gibraltar 1779-1783, was commemorated by a gold medal by Pingo, for General Eliott. This
found its way into the Collection.
Jeremy
concluded his talk with an interesting tale about a
Edward VIII pattern gold sovereign and silver half-crown dated 1937 left in a
box in the Royal Mint and an extraordinary medal
made by Hans Reinhart (the Elder) in Germany in about 1536. The obverse of this
medal represents the temptation of Adam and Eve and the reverse shows the
Crucifixion.
The
Club thanked Jeremy for an excellent presentation and introduction to some of
the treasures in the Royal Collection.
Future
Events.
Past Events
In November 1978 the annual auction took place....
.... as it did in November 1988,
however...
In 1998 Steve Album talked
on “The Coinage of the first Anglo/Afghan war”
In 2008 we had a talk on the Siege Coins of Charles I
by Tony Travis
Club
Secretary.