March 29th
2019.
Next
club meeting Monday 1st April
2019.
·
Subject - Edward
Stanley Robinson - Knighted for Services to Numismatics By Peter Preston-Morley
Monday 6th May 2019
AD 69 (The Romans) By Richard Noble
Monday 3rd June 2019.
·
Annual General Meeting and Display Competition
Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church,
Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
Notices
·
Our meetings will be back in the basement area as from
the April meeting.
March Meeting
At the start of the meeting, Michael reported on a remarkable sighting
he’d had whilst on holiday in New Zealand. Looking around an exhibit, he
noticed a photograph on the wall and was amazed to see one of the club’s
members commemorated there. Closer examination revealed the photograph was of
Ernest Shackleton, a virtual doppelganger of our own
John!
This was the annual club auction. Highlights from
the auction included a 1905 halfcrown and an 1887
currency year set both of which sold for a hammer price of £300, closely
followed by a 1790 Droz pattern halfpenny which was
knocked down for £285. Several other lots sold for over £100.
In total, the sale totalled £3,775 raising £377.50
for the club. Thank you to all the people who helped the auction to run like
clockwork.
Future
Events.
Past Events
Short Article (courtesy of Mick)
History repeats itself
Throughout
history there have been many instances where leaders have debased the coinage
to finance their self enhancing exploits. Some have been even more
enterprising, such as our own James II who issued the Irish Gun Money tokens.
Having fled to France to escape the wrath of the invading William III, the French
persuaded him to reclaim his crown by engaging William’s forces in Ireland. But
having little or no money to pay his troops he made tokens from scrap metal
with the idea that they could be redeemed for regal coinage once he was
reinstalled as King. And we all know the outcome. However, others must have
been aware of this ploy and here is a similar story.
The little 24mm diameter
copper token above is an emergency 1 Daler token of
Sweden, one of a whole series issued in large numbers.
The saga begins with Charles Pfalz-Zweibrucken (1682-1718) becoming king Charles XII in
1697. His main passion in life was not courtly affairs, but politics and
military campaigns. This was just as well because when the triple alliance of
Norway, Denmark & Poland + Russia launched the ‘Great Northern War’ Charles
was up to the challenge. Being a skilled military commander he defeated the
alliance. This was followed by several victories in Russia but eventually his
weary army was defeated at the battle of Poltave
(1709) and Charles spent the next few years as an exile in the Ottoman Empire.
Charles was renowned for his
energy and endurance during military campaigns and pushed his army too far.
This is clearly evident when, in 1714, he decided to return from Turkey to
Sweden and forced his entourage to reach Sweden in just 15 days. At home he
found Sweden under attack from those all around (Norway, Denmark, Poland, and
Russia) and immediately took charge of military affairs. And now we have the
same problem as James II – no money for his planned attacks on Norway.
So Charles in his usual
brusque manner ordered the chief minister, one George
Heinrich von Görtz to get the money by raising taxes,
or by any other means. To make matters worse Görtz
was in awe of Charles and he completely ignored the anger of the people due
near bankrupt state of the nation. As assets were extracted from the populace
so they were replaced by paper notes and copper tokens to be redeemable in
better times, a repeat of the Gun Money saga. However, the real problem was the
huge quantity of tokens Charles issued, which was far beyond what Görtz could cope with. Realising this, Görtz
entered into secret peace discussions with the Russians, while the hatred of
the people escalated.
Then came
the bombshell - in 1718 Charles was killed while on campaign in Norway,
although there were rumours he was assassinated by factions from a war weary
nation. The successors then realised the terrible plight of the nation’s
finances and looked for a scapegoat to divert the anger of the populace. Never
mind that it had been Charles that had bled the country dry they held poor Görtz responsible. A
show trial was convened, based upon trumped up charges of gross mismanagement
& unauthorised negotiations. The so called trial was a farce. Görtz was not allowed to
speak, have any legal representation or reference to any papers. The death
sentence a fore gone conclusion, some say state authorised murder as the
execution warrant was probably signed prior to the trial.
2018
Club Secretary.