Geoff T

Hi Tim, I'm Geoff and I collect British commemorative medals and milled silver, chiefly half crowns, but with a growing weakness for Indian silver rupees. Beyond that it's a question of having an eye for a bargain...

Well said Kuhli. Everyone is a beginner once and the best response we can give to questions like this one is one which is honest and encouraging but never patronising or dismissive. I don't know what it's like in the States, but it appears that many people in the UK have only a hazy grasp of history and consequently anything produced before they were born - even a 1967 penny - is old and therefore potentially interesting. The fact that they find anything historical interesting in the first place is to be welcomed in a culture whose collective sense of chronological history often appears to stretch back little further than the last decade.

No need to! In my experience there's a lot of confusion between the terms used in what is grandly called exonumismatics. Medal - medallion - token... From your description it sounds as if you have what I would call a medal or medallion. Any chance of a picture? PM me if you want.

I don't think this is a medal. Wybrit is correct; an Edward VII crown fits the description but they were only issued in 1902. It could possibly be a modern retropattern. An indication of the size or a picture would help (you need to register to post a picture).

Hi Scott, This might be useful for the official medals, although it doesn't look to have been updated for a while. http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/coronation.htm There are also various dealers' sites, although in my experience this sort of medal doesn't come up that regularly. One of the best is www.christophereimer.co.uk The problem with the unofficials is that there are hundreds of them, and most are not dealt with in detail anywhere because they're almost all anonymous and not made of precious metal, so most experts aren't interested. In 1902, for instance, every local authority in the country issued its own coronation medal. It also depends on how far back you want to go. Pre-20th century royal commemoratives, if they're by known designers, will be in British Historical Medals. The big names are Simon and Roettiers in the 17th century and Croker in the 18th, then Wyon and Pistrucci in the early 19th - all names we're familiar with in a related context. I have a personal attachment to the medals of Sir Edward Thomason (a pupil of Boulton), but then I would, wouldn't I. The Canadian medals sound interesting. How old are they? I know that in the present reign various events - like the jubilees - have produced a separate official medal for Canada. I've not seen any older commemoratives which are Canadian-specific (ouch!), despite looking when I've been in Canada. Get back if you have any more queries, or pm me. Geoff

Kathy, The first one is a commemorative medal for the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. Without seeing a picture I would guess that it's possibly the one produced by Spink with an obverse (heads side) designed and signed by Bowcher. This is silver-coloured and has the legend in the field "To commemorate the 60th year of her majesty's reign". The reverse (tails) has four shields with the Queen and the next three generations of monachs - the future Edward VII, George V and Edward VIII. The last is a 3-year old. There's also another a smaller, bronze medal with a similar obverse inscription round the edge and the shields of England, Scotland and Ireland and on the reverse the four heads in a row with the Queen on the right. This has the reverse legend you quote "Four generations of the royal family". The second medal is an accession medal for Edward VII of 1901. These are far less common than the coronation medals from 1902. I've not seen one like the one you describe. Your third medal is a coronation medal for George V of 1911. Again, there are lots of these so I can't really judge without a picture, but from what you say it sounds like one of the commercial ones rather than an official one. Hope this helps - Geoff

hmm, if i remember corectly, tony blair came into power in 1997, so the next general election should be in 2007...but i am not 100% sure The UK doesn't have fixed-term parliaments, unlike the USA where the president holds office for four years before another presidential election and can then only stand for one more period of office. The only stipulaton is that a general election must be called after a party has been in office for five years. This means that a prime minister can call a general election at any time during a parliament up to the maximum of five years. In practice this means that an election can be called at a time which suits the party in power. In recent years there have been wide variations in the length of parliaments. In 1979 James Callaghan went the full five years before losing to the Conservatives in May of that year, ushering in the Thatcher period. In 1974 Labour under Harold Wilson scraped in with the smallest of majorities, so Wilson called another election that same year as a means of legitimising his position through an increased majority - which he achieved. That was the first year I was able to vote, so I got two general elections for the price of one.

His farthing list is a kind of copper colour, no doubt intentionally, but I've not noticed any smudgy quality. I've just bought a stunning 17th century silver medal from Colin which didn't even get as far as his list I'll try and post a link to a pic once I've scanned and photobucketed it.

This is a 2 Ore piece of Gustav V of Sweden (reigned 1908-1950). The motto "Med folket for fosterlandet" means "With the people for the fatherland". Geoff

Really? I thought the reason why we've had to suffer the fiasco of postal voting is that these are the people who can't be bothered to get off their backsides to walk to a polling station because daytime TV is showing a riveting programme on Victoria Beckham's wallpaper? I constantly wonder if universal suffrage is a good idea after all, then I come back to the words of Winston Churchill, who said that democracy is a very bad system but better than all the alternatives.

Numismatic ignorance can be forgiven in those who know no better, but the inability to write one's own language correctly cannot

Strong leaders consult. They listen to advice and aren't afraid to take it. Margaret Thatcher did none of these things, which fact severely compromises the claim that she was a strong leader, as opposed to one determined to impose an ideology come what may. Thatcher wasn't quite Reagan's poodle as Blair is Dubya's but she came pretty close. Who was happy to allow American nuclear weapons to be based in the UK? Who was prime minister when the number of US military installations in the UK was in triple figures? Which European prime minister not only endorsed the US attacks on Tripoli in 1986 but allowed their warplanes to take off from her own country's bases? Granted she opposed the invasion of Grenada, a Commonwealth country, where Blair might have said "walk right in", but in most respects when it came to playing good guys/bad guys US-style she made Rumsfeld and Co. look like a bunch of pacifists. Short-sighted Americans are trying to claim that Reagan single-handedly brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Margaret Thatcher is on record as saying that she did it. She made greed, materialism and self-centeredness respectable again. She became power-drunk on her own hubristic belief that she was infallible. Blair is equally consumed by hubris, but compounds the fault by turning on the charm and trying to convince us he's a nice guy. At least Margaret Thatcher's one redeeming feature is that she knew she couldn't get away with that trick.

In the end I didn't bid. Had this been sold by a dealer at a fixed price, and I could have gone into the shop and examined it first, then I daresay I might have been willing to part with a substantial amout of money. But eBay, when all is said and done, is a lottery, and I'm not prepared to gamble that sort of money for what might turn out to be a pig in a poke. The fact that I knew what the seller had bought it for also suggested that it was always going to go for something over its current value - which it did. The piggy bank survived.

There was only one of him - so Requiescat in pace (singular). Alas for the decline of Latin

No, I'm at work tomorrow morning, and London is a bit of a trek from Manchester, especially if you have to pay your own train fair (i.e. I can't wangle this as a business trip). I do go to a coin fair held every month just outside Wakefield. This is the misleadingly named Leeds coin fair you see advertised in Coin News.

Yes, both are valid. You can't take your PC to a coin fair that easily - even if it's a laptop.

On the t.p. I think NON GOLD should be hyphenated as NON-GOLD.

Chris, it's looking really good. Two points:- 2005 will be the 32nd edition, not the 31st If you're aiming at an English-speaking audience, then the English spelling "Hanover" is preferable to the German "Hannover".

Whether it is nobler in the mind...

I know - hence the crisis! I won't rest till I have one, but will I sleep soundly knowing I've paid out 4 figures for it? Useful to know what he paid for it though. Colin sold a BU one a while back for £2,000. Nessun dorma...

Part of me wishes you hadn't drawn my attention this (except that eBay will because I have "1905 half crown" bookmarked for alert). I always said I'd bypass all those just about fine 1905s and wait for a really collectable one and then nuke the piggy bank. Crisis of conscience starts now. The rational part of me says at this level you really want to see the coin in the flesh before you take the plunge. There are fake 1905 half crowns and shillings out there. Help!

Seriously, yes please if possible. I'm an editor and proof-reading is something I do a lot of.

Suits me - I'm a died in the wool silver fan. I dread to think how much I spend on half crowns

Yes please. There aren't that many of us so it increases our chances of striking lucky.

Since turkey is just about the most boring poultry ever, you're not missing much. How many times have you seen a top cookery writer give a recipe for turkey? Precisely...