Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 43 i Coin Collector

Oh, not this again. Another week, another breathless headline about a ‘spectacular’ minting error that is apparently going to make its lucky finder richer than Croesus. Social media loves them: blurry photos of coins with a slightly lopsided rim, breathlessly described as ‘worth thousands’. Entire Facebook groups are dedicated to the pursuit of so-called treasures hiding in the nation’s pockets, where the only thing rarer than the coins themselves is a dose of realism. And yet, when these treasures actually reach the marketplace, the magic tends to vanish quicker than you can say ‘reserve price not met’. The latest case in point: a supposedly eye-popping €10 commemorative coin from Germany’s 2024 ‘Police’ issue, its blue polymer ring just a touch askew. On eBay it sold – drum roll please –…

I recently saw an auction lot of three Elizabeth II Imperial Service Medals (Figure 1). Details of only one recipient was given – Colin Richard Kemp. I have several of these medals, including a few awarded to people sharing my surname. I contacted the auction house, which told me the other recipients’ names, one to another Kemp and the other to a man named Leat. That was enough to prompt me into researching all three men to see if they were linked, and when I had finished, I submitted a successful bid. I started by checking the London Gazettes for the Imperial Service Medals and found all three men. The 30 March 1984 issue shows Colin Richard Kemp was lately a technical officer in the London region of the General…

Digitalisation at the British Museum As part of the British Museum’s programme to make its entire collection of eight million objects accessible to the public online, painstaking work is being undertaken to check entries on the museum’s online catalogue. The work, supported by the Headley Trust, is bringing new discoveries to the surface and helping the teams learn more about the collection. In the money and medals department, rare 17th-century copper Mughal coins from the reign of Jahangir, the fourth Mughal emperor from 1605–27, have been documented. The museum’s collection of Mughal coins was the first Asian series to receive a modern catalogue, by Stanley Lane-Poole in 1892. However, this catalogue omitted the lower value denominations in copper, in favour of silver and gold coins. The apparent absence of copper…

Offering gifts to the gods is a practice as old as recorded history. Hindus, Jains and Buddhists left jewellery, statues and clay tablets in temples to petition for divine assistance. In Judaism, a food sacrifice called a korban was made. Mediaeval Christians left small ex-voto figurines at shrines to represent the subject of their prayer. Even Islam, which rejects the idea of offering material goods to God to gain personal favour, encourages its followers to make zakat (charitable gifts). Times may change but beliefs persist, and when cultures adopted coins, they, too, became an intrinsic part of votive practice. That’s not so surprising. Coins are both valuable and represent, in real terms, a ‘transaction’. Leaving a coin at a sacred site could be considered the equivalent of a devotee buying…

Monopoly celebrates 90 years To commemorate the 90th anniversary of Monopoly, the world-famous property trading game, the Royal Mint has issued a 50p – the first time a board game has been honoured on a UK coin. Monopoly evolved from ‘The Landlord’s Game’, created in the early 1900s by Lizzie Magie and inspired by the economic theories of Henry George. Since its official introduction in 1935, the game has become a classic that is often associated with family fun during the festive season. Monopoly is the world’s most printed ‘currency’ with over 275 million games having been sold globally, and an estimated one billion people having played the property trading game that has been translated into 47 languages. Designed by Emma Noble, a Royal Mint coin designer, the reverse of…

BUY AND SELL ON DECAMPE, MORE THAN 80 MILLION COLLECTABLES ARE WAITING FOR YOU!…

An eastern campaign launched by Aexander the Great (356–323 BC) extended Greek influence into northwestern India. On this campaign, Aexander, who was a student of Aristotle, was accompanied by Greek philosophers Anaxarchus and Pyrrho. COINAGE OF ALEXANDER Alexander’s coinage was more than mere currency; it served as a strategic instrument for imperial unification, propaganda and cultural transmission. His eastern campaign facilitated the unprecedented spread of Hellenistic coinage across diverse regions. His famous silver tetradrachm, depicting Hercules on the obverse in the style of Alexander and Zeus enthroned on the reverse, valued at four drachms, was roughly equivalent to a month’s wages for an officer or skilled worker in his army (Figure 1). As his empire expanded, many coins continued to be issued both during his lifetime and after his death…

This year marks 60 years of self-government for the Cook Islands – an archipelago of 15 islands in the South Pacific surrounded by two million square kilometres of ocean. Following the passing of a motion on 26 July 1965 in its newly elected assembly calling for the islands to be proclaimed ‘self-governing in free association with New Zealand’, the Cook Islands became a self-governing nation on 4 August of that year. At the same time, the first cabinet was sworn in, with Albert Henry as premier (the title of prime minister came later). Marguerite Story became the first woman in the democratic world to hold the post of speaker of a parliament. To mark the anniversary, a series of commemorative coins has been released by CIT for the islands. The…