May 31^st 2023.

Next club meeting Monday 5^th June 2023.

· Annual General Meeting and Display Competition

Monday 4^th July 2022.

· TBC By Alastair Mackay

August 2022.

· Summer Social – TBC

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.

Notices

The club's AGM and Annual display Competition for the Michael Broome Cup is the meeting where the officers report the status of the club and the membership voice their concerns/ideas. It is also the time where the club committee is elected for the forthcoming year and time to renew your membership.

As last year, with this newsletter is a single Committee Report with contributions from all the officers and the financial balance sheet. We will not be repeating the content verbatim at the meeting. After the formalities, the agenda points that the Committee requires membership feedback will be discussed. Then there will be the opportunity for members to raise any issues, so please take time to read the report and gather your thoughts prior to the meeting. The election of officers will follow.

If you are willing to stand for election to the Committee please contact the secretary at the number at the top of this newsletter.

The second part of the evening will be devoted to the annual display competition, with the winner being awarded the Michael Broome Memorial Trophy for 1 year. Please bear in mind that all the displays should be treated respectfully, these are members own pieces and all should be handled carefully. The competition is open to all members and can cover any topic connected to numismatics. So to all members, please have a go and enter a display. This year we have a newly refurbished cup, thanks to Will for doing this.

Because the formalities of the AGM now take very little time, there WILL be some time available at the end of the meeting for dealing but ONLY AFTER the Display Competition has finished. Dealers can put their coins out but should COVER THEM till the competition has completed. Note that Displays have priority over the use of tables.

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.

May Meeting

Apologies were received from Tony.

Categorising coins and banknotes that do not appear ‘genuine’ is a mammoth task. Michael’s long and sometimes hard-won experience in the trade allowed him to classify, explain and illustrate the various reasons why they existed – and introduce the idea of genuine copies.

Typical coins encountered by members include restrikes – 1780 Marie Theresa Thaler and 1914 Ducats, for trade, especially in the Middle East, British Museum electrotype for study of rare coins, W.R.L. coins for tourists, and other replica coins. But the range is far wider, and Michael has categorised them as follow:

1. Genuine and unique copies by the Royal Mint and the Bank of England. In a sense, all coins are copies!

2. To deceive the public: Coins – in our time, the number of fake £1 coins reached at least £41 million in 2015 and caused a redesign of the coin, but fakes of other coins – from £2 down to 5p are known. Following the recoinage of 1816, there was widespread forging – even down to one penny. Banknotes were also forged and, as each fault was identified, so the forgers improved their technique. From 1694 fake banknotes were in circulation, watermarks were introduced and the many forgers were arrested and hanged. By 1832, this punishment was replaced by transportation. In 1999, in was estimated that there were 50 million fake £20 banknotes. Currently faking has been detected in $20 and €50 notes.

3. Copies of necessity – many issued by competent authorities to facilitate trade, and including continental sterlings, for circulation in the low countries, copies to counteract the chronic shortage of small change, and following the rocketing cost of copper, the replacement of copper coins in circulation with ones with less copper.

4. Exact replicas made by the Mint – for collectors, including attractive sets for Luchino Visconti (1339), and Galeazzo Sforza (1466).

5. Deception by alteration – for example, an 1887 silver sixpence issued to honour Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee was gold-plated to resemble a half sovereign, and banknotes were particularly attractive to fakers: including 1711 note £11 to £50, and more recently, UK £5 notes to £50.

6. Foreign Governments – apart from the well known and ultimately successful forgeries of British £5 and £50 notes (operation Bernhard and Andreas during WWII, there is an intriguing story about the forging of a 1691 Half-crown, where dies from the Royal Mint were smuggled to France by Jacobite sympathisers, alongside skilled engravers, and used to create a new design, but with some obvious faults.

7. To deceive collectors – fakes are common in all metals, including some exceptional gold coins (and unique) gold coins.

8. Copies made for the media – the demand for coins is strong, especially in period dramas and films about theft. They are mostly used for creating an impression of wealth and vary from Angels (1664), Guineas (1689) and Sovereigns. Sometimes, they are reproduced greater than life-size to impress the audience. Banknotes are sometimes used but the Bank of England jealously and assiduously protects its copyright.

9. Art – is it a forgery? Many artists have created artwork on a copy of a banknote. The most famous was J.S.G. Boggs, an American artist whose realistic drawings of banknotes led him to worldwide fame, and landed him in jail.

10. Education, novelty, etc… - These are common place with reproductions of coins and banknotes on everything – posters, paper towels, ashtrays…

11. Mystery surrounds what Michael describes as the Perfect Fake the 1900 SA Kruger Pond – manufactured to exactly the same specification as the British Sovereign. As the Boer War was reaching a conclusion, the dies commonly used for this coin were enhanced and the coins produced better than the originals!

Michael brought along a sizeable and impressive display to illustrate each of the categories. After taking questions, the Club thanked Michael for his talk.

Documents for the AGM

Annual Committee Report – Final

2022-23 Committee = J , P , J , H .

Our membership has returned to a moderately healthy 34 members. This is not back to pre-covid numbers, which averaged 44 members, but is ample to keep the club solvent and operational. We have lost members for a number of reasons, including sadly, some who have passed away (Doug Dean, Michael Dexter-Elisha). Other reasons have been the parking issue and our gradually older members not being so willing to come out at night. We continue to attract a small number of new members who have found us on the net.

The Hon Sec. is still receiving a steady supply of people contacting the club with coins for sale that belonged to various relatives or that turned up when houses were cleared. These all receive a standard reply, pointing out that the club is not a shop but that we have a ‘Links’ page on our website which gives details of local dealers.

This has been the first normal year for three years and all our meetings have been in the Abbey Baptist Church, with an average attendance around the 20 mark, which represents about two thirds of the membership at any one meeting. We are back to our normal allocation of external speakers and Club events, and we are planning a Summer Social in August 2023.

During the year we have covered topics in areas such as Varieties in Milled coinage, Medallions Issued for the Bridges of London, Objects of War, Antique Advertising, Smeaton’s Lighthouses, and Coin Collecting in a digital age. In addition, we have had various Short Talks and Displays from our own members during the year.

This year, following the summer social at John and Kay’s, our only other social events were the Xmas dinner at The Bull, Streatley, and the Party (thank you to Henry for the spread and to Michael for the quiz). Thanks are also due to Ian for his work at the auction. We may try and resurrect the Bowls evening in 2023-24 if there is sufficient interest.

On the thorny issue of committee members, we are pleased to report that James has been helping out those of us who are left, however, Peter and John have indicated that they will stand down in June 2024. The positions of Hon. Sec and Hon. Treasurer are crucial to the well-being of the Club, and members need to address this.

On the equally thorny issue of parking, we are now able to offer speakers a parking space at the front of the church. Sadly, it is not possible to allow other club members to park there.

We are going to be collecting subscriptions again at the June meeting. The Committee have decided that we will not raise the rate which will remain at £20 per annum.

In spite of a difficult year, the Club finances remain robust because of the strength of our reserves. Details are shown in the attached draft financial statements. They have been Inspected by the Club’s Auditor. In essence, they show a deficit of £177.73 for the year. The main reasons for the deficit are the new obligation to take out insurance for our meetings at the Church (£174), increase in room hire (from £55 to £65 per evening), 10 fewer members (£200), offset by a very successful auction, which raised £70 more than usual. The Committee has concluded that the Fixed Assets: Library, Cabinet and Computer Equipment valuation is still too high and a further reduction of £50 has been made this year to reduce the valuation to £82. As most BNJ’s are now available online, they are free to members. Special thanks go to Ian Petrie, for his generous donation of coins for the auction which raised £68 for club funds.

READING COIN CLUB
INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT (subject to audit)
	Year to		Year to
	30 April 2023		30 April 2022
	£	£	£	£
Income
Subscriptions		680.00		55.00
Auction Commission Sales	2,480.00
Costs	- 2,204.10	275.90		189.30
Donations & raffle		89.20		56.00
Bank Interest		5.55		0.24
		1,050.65		300.54
Expenditure
Room hire	625.00			385.00
Speakers' expenses	100.00			50.00
Computing, printing, postage & stationery	162.09			103.50
BNS subscriptions	32.00			37.00
Library	20.00			-
Insurance	174.00	1,113.09		-
Skittles Cost	-
Income	-			-
Xmas Buffet & refreshments (2 events)		65.29		26.02
Winter Social - cost	-
- income	-	-		-
Depreciation of fixed assets		50.00		50.00
		1,228.38		651.52
Surplus (Loss) for the Year		- (177.73)		- (350.98)
BALANCE SHEET
	30 April 2023		30 April 2022
Fixed Assets
Library, Cabinet & Computer, Projector	132.00		182.00
Less depreciation	- 50.00	82.00	- 50.00	132.00
Current Assets
Bank current account	419.13		552.41
Bank deposit account	2,209.42	2,628.55	2,203.87	2,756.28
Sundry creditors		-		-
Assets		2,710.55		2,888.28
Represented by:
Revenue Reserve
Balance brought forward		3,134.86		3,485.84
Surplus (- Deficit) for year		- (177.73)		- (350.98)
Balance carried forward		2,957.13		3,134.86
Hon Treasurer Peter
10-May-23

Future Events.

· London Coin Fair at Holiday Inn, Bloomsbury 3^rd June

· Midland Coin Fair – National Motorcycle Museum 11^th June

Past Events

• 10 years ago – “Some rarities of the shilling series” – G Oddie

· 20 years ago – “The origination of banknotes” – Michael Gouby

· 30 years ago – “A History of Christies” – Mr R. Bishop

· 40 years ago – “Viking coins” - Marion Archibald

· 50 years ago – “Maria Theresa Thalers” – Michael Broome

Club Secretary.