First job this morning was to parcel up the Prisoner of War postcard. It appears to have gone to a collector. There were only three people in the bidding and two of them chased it up over £60. As far as I know it’s worth £20-30 as a piece of postal history so I presume it was the story they were bidding for, and that it will be well looked after from now on.
Second job was to parcel up a nice late Georgian medallion. It was struck in 1835 so it’s nearly as late as it can be whilst remaining Georgian. It has been on sale a few months and we turned down several offers because we thought it was a good piece. It commemorates the installation of the marquis of Camden as Chancellor of Cambridge University. Lovely medallion, as I say, but he’s no great looker, and it’s a dull subject. It has gone to America. A lot of our better medallions go to America or China. I feel slightly guilty about exporting our heritage, but we have an excellent stock of historical medallions which is hardly ever looked at in the shop.
Earl of Camden, Chancellor of Cambridge University and, as I said previously, no great shakes in the looks department. Roman nose, piercing stare and, doubtless, a commanding manner, but not easy on the eye.
I then spent the rest of the day beavering away at my desk loading a succession of modern coins onto eBay. They are weird modern combinations – a coin from Niue celebrates Edison and the lightbulb, one from the Cook Islands celebrates the Ascot Gold Cup and one from Somalia is part of a series called “Wildlife of North America”. The Cook Islands coin is quite pleasant apart from that, but the Somalian coin is an abomination and the Niue coin lights up if you press it in the right place. Words fail me…
I despair of any society where people actually collect these monstrosities
Can you see the light?
At least the design is good, even if the mis-match beggars belief.
The lighted coin fascinates me. Must be some sort of embedded LED powered by the piezoelectric effect when the coin is pressed in the right place?
I thought it was magic, but you are probably right. I can’t actually get it to work but Eddie has the knack. 🙂
Fascinating as always. The Chancellor Chappie may not be a looker, but the portrait looks better than most we see today.
The time and effort that must have gone into those high-relief portraits is amazing – the things they produce these days (like our woeful 50p coins) are almost flat.
Yes, a shame that our heritage is being shipped abroad but then how much of other countries’ heritage do we have in the British Museum (etc)? Coins are also easier to ship back!
At least if someone wants the heritage it might still be around somewhere for posterity 😊
When ebay first started we used to sell hundreds of white metal souvenir medallions to America where they became part of collections – in this country they were just thrown in dealers’ junk boxes. The interchange of culture is fascinating.
We stole a lot from China in the 19th Century, as we are constantly told, but the Communist government probably did as much, or more, damage and it turns out that w may accidentally have helped preserve some of it. Very strange…
Yes, mixed bag!! No doubt plenty of work for the historians of the future 😊
🙂 As they sift through the ashes in a thousands years time thy really will have their work cut out! 🙂
😊
Until I started following your blog, I had no idea how much variety there was in the world of coins. Some even light up! The things I learn from my blogging friends.
Thre are also some that smell like pizza when you sniff them. 🙂 I have seen the adverts and they had some in the shop before I worked there.
W-h-a-a-t?
And it used to come in a box that looed like a pizza box. https://coincraft.com/solomon-islands-pizza-coin
I agree with you about those gimmicky medallions. Why?!…..
To be fair to a lot of the producers they use coins and stamps as producers of foreign currency. It does nothing for numismatics, but it does help the residents of palces which are really too small to exist without help.
I understand; thank you, 🙂
North Korea produced a coin with penguins on (currently a fashionable subject. eBay doesn’t allow the sale of North Korean products. World politics? Who will ever make sense of it? 🙂
Crazy! 🙂
Certainly is! 🙂
The world of coins is a mystery to me. Why should the Cook Islands celebrate the Ascot Gold Cup? Don’t tell me, it would only spoil some wild surmises that I have been making.
I expect your imagination is making it more interesting than it really is. I won’t spoil it. When Scotland becomes independent and relaunches the bawbee as a world currency you could perhaps give them some suggestions…
I will avoid suggesting illuminated coins.
🙂
Mr Snail now wants the Edison coin… I will have to seek out your ebay shop (it’s his birthday soon)… you’d better give me the link. Sigh.
I just sent you a reply via email. JUlia says she shares your pain – living witha collector is not an easy thing. (That’s paraphrasing a slightly longer and more critical discussion we actually had) 🙂
I think of him as a squirrel!
Yes, a pleasing thought. 🙂