Sorry, I went to the Numismatic Society last night, got home, ate, fell asleep in front of the TV and woke up at 1am with a raging desire to go to bed. So I did. Halfway up the stairs I realised I hadn’t blogged and thought of coming back down. the trouble is that “half an hour” tends to turn into two or three hours as I wake up. I may write a bit but I mainly waste time reading articles on the internet and two hours turns out to be twenty minutes of useful time and a lot of rubbish I didn’t need to read.

The talk at the Society was about medallions. It was by a collector who has been collecting for many years and has a high quality collection of medallions. The ones he showed us started with the Coronation of Edward VI (the first official coronation medallion, and went all the way through to Charles III. The early one was a bit crude, but it was 1547 and medallions were a comparatively new thing in this country. It had a picture of Edward on the front and an inscription on the back in Latin, Hebrew and English. The only picture I can find is a slightly different design.

It then went on through over an hour of superb medallions, which taught me a lot about medallions but very little about the history they commemorated. On the other hand, it would have taken too long to fit more in, so you can’t have everything. An hour and a quarter is really a bit too long for my elderly bones to sit in one position.

My more modest medallion display, on the other hand, went most un-noticed. I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth the effort. However, it does make me sort things out, so it probably is. Next month I am displaying paper fund-raising flags. The talk is in Edwardian Postcards.

The header picture is a tribute medal from Maybole in Ayrshire. The other is from Mottram and Hattersley, which is just outside Manchester. They come, as you can see, in a variety of designs.

Mottram and Hattersley Tribute Medal 1920