Author: BNS Blog Coordinator

A Day at the Museum – Part (i) The Search for the Lesser Elongated Squirrel

On 25 July 2023, the author and two members of the Bedford Numismatic Society visited Wardown House Museum and Gallery, in Luton. The “behind the scenes” visit had two main motives. Firstly, inspection and photography of the Museum’s collection of Bedfordshire tokens and also to work through the museum’s holdings of Anglo-Saxon and Norman pennies struck at the Bedford Mint.A follow-up visit to the Stockwood Discovery Centre on 15 August was arranged to view the Bedford Mint pennies, on permanent display there, and also to help the museum with the safe relocation of the Shillington hoard of 127 gold aurei found in 1998 and 1999. This will be written up in a separate Blog. Whilst on site the opportunity was taken to make an elongated penny using a machine in the visitor centre to be described here.

A Die Study of James I Shillings – Second Issue, mm Bell – Gary Oddie and Michael Thompson

This note continues the die studies of James I shillings, working backwards through the mintmarks of the second issue. Here the mintmark Bell is presented – issued between 11th May 1610 and 9th May 1611 when £9 12s 8½d of silver was in the Pyx trial.The issue is of average rarity with 54 specimens found struck from 32 obverse die and 31 reverse dies. As well as a single mm Bell over Coronet die, there are also an unusually high number of Bell over Key dies. For the obverse dies 14/32 are Bell over Key and for the reverses 5/30 are Bell over Key. Just two die sinker’s errors have been found, the first lacking a reverse mm, and the second has CONIVNIT for CONIVNXIT.

Tokens Used by Bedfordshire Market Gardeners – Gary Oddie

___________________________________________________________________________________ This note presents a brief introduction to market gardening in Bedfordshire and a series of tokens, bearing only initials, that were used as receipts or tallies for each sack or basket of produce picked. Once understood, the initials allow the identity of the farmer and his location to be identified. Two pieces of documentary evidence are also presented, from the 1940s, that confirm the use of London Market checks as pickers’ tickets in the fields of Bedfordshire. 

The Seringapatam Medal: Celebrating the Victory over Tippu Sultan – T. S. Suryanarayanan

The Kingdom of Mysore founded in 1399 by the royal family of the Wodeyars was a dominion in southern India.  For a brief period (1760 to 1799), Mysore came under the Muslim rulers Haidar Ali (c. 1720-82) and his son Tippu Sultan (c. 1750-99). During this Muslim regime, the British fought four wars to capture Mysore. Tippu Sultan was defeated and killed in 1799 in the fourth war in the Siege of Seringapatam (Sri Ranga Pattana), the capital of the Kingdom of Mysore. The British celebrated their victory over Tippu who was a major block in their plan to conquer southern India, by minting a special medal to be granted to the soldiers and officers who were responsible for defeating Tippu. Called the Seringapatam Medal, they were struck in gold, silver gilt, silver, bronze and tin both in Birmingham and Calcutta.

On Collectors and Museums Part 1. Some Historical Opinions and Correspondence – Gary Oddie

In the February 1947 issue of Seaby’s Coin and Medal Bulletin, H.A. (Bert) Seaby wrote a provocative editorial with the title “The Collector vs the Museum – or – Can Museums be Too Greedy?” The main theme was the accumulation of duplicates by acquisition or bequest and the loss of material from the collector market. At that time the coins in question were the classical Greek, Roman, and typically precious metal pieces.  The subsequent 75 years has seen much change in the coin world, with the interested population increasing at least twenty fold and almost everything small, round and metallic being collected and studied somewhere. Another factor in expanding interest in British numismatics was the invention of the metal detector and its effect on hardening and polarising the positions of members of some groups. On my mind when I first noticed the Seaby editorial were the recent increased scope of the Treasure Act and the trial and conviction of two

read more On Collectors and Museums Part 1. Some Historical Opinions and Correspondence – Gary Oddie

Illustrating Buckinghamshire Seventeenth Century Tokens – Gary Oddie

This note was started several years ago with the finding of some old printing blocks that showed seventeenth century tokens of Buckinghamshire. It is easy to take for granted the progress in technologies for photographing and printing images of coins over the past few decades. The processes used to be much more involved, and incorporating illustrations was the bottleneck and the main cost in the production of a printed work. The source of the 210 blocks was easily identified as Manton & Hollis (1933) and three “extras” were traced to Hollis (1937). The decision to use printing blocks was not obvious as that time, as options for collotype plates, screen printing and half-tones were widely in use in numismatic publishing (e.g. in the BNJ).

Boxed Coins Issued for Jubilees and Coronations – Gary Oddie

The finishing touches are just being made to a new book on Bedfordshire tokens etc. The net has been cast widely and a small group of boxed coins has been found issued by local councils and companies to celebrate Coronations and Jubilees. These are just ordinary coins in specially printed boxes. They were given to anyone aged 70 or over on the day of the event. Once separated from the box, this is just an ordinary coin and would be spent and the box discarded.This note will list those boxes known to the author, with the expectation that many more once existed.

A New Die Pair for Edward III Berwick Pennies by G. O’Keefe, D. I. Greenhalgh & D. Martin

The extremely rare Edward III pennies of Berwick were described by Blunt in 1931 as class VIII and re-defined by Withers in 2006 as types 11a,b,c. The last of these,11c, had only been added to the corpus in 1999 by the discovery of a single example with a new obverse legend. This coin was described by Lord Stewartby as “unique” when it appeared in Part 4 of his sales at Spink in 2016. Now this only child has gained a sibling which, surprisingly, has lost its bear’s head!

A Henry V or VI York Penny Conundrum – Dave Greenhalgh

A research project on medieval pennies has solved a long standing question of Late Henry V pennies of York and their position within the series culminating in their re-positioning to the reign of Henry VI. Note that opening the document in an Ipad or some other devices may result is image issues; if this is the case then it is suggested you download the article and then open it. If there are any further problems please notify bnsresearchblog@gmail.com