TomGoodheart

Well, they were generally supportive of womens suffrage and wider access to society. And likely anti-slavery. As for gender, that's a more modern issue as science and society have progressed, though there were people living as another gender as far back as the 19th century .. I expect they would have been labelled 'liberal' and criticised for interfering with a free market and 'tradition' .. Ultimately I see this through the lens of those detective stories where one has to ask 'who benefits/gains from this?' If you are a weak and not particularly popular leader, what better way to dilute your opposition than to get the general population angry about minor issues over the important ones? A 'war' with Ukraine distracts from problems in Russia. Abortion, gender and 'the swamp' distract from poor social support and increasing division of wealth in the US. A focus on homosexuality or religion/race distracts from questions about freedom of assembly, excessive prison terms, killings of opposition supporters elsewhere. Woke is now just a pejorative, like 'anti-fa' or BLM for what a long time ago would probably have been thought of as part of being 'socially conscious'.

To me "woke" is just a dismissive term for things some people don't like. It's become so much a catch all it's almost meaningless beyond a rallying cry. Were philanthropists such as Lever 'woke'? They'd have possibly said they were spreading the ideals of Christian brotherhood. Similarly those who opened university education to women or advanced suffrage. All things that I suggest, were they proposed today, might get shot down by some. Leftists (I include myself) just feel there could be more compassion and recognition of the difficulties faced by 'under-dogs' in society, whether they are poor, an ethnic or religious minority, or differ from the majority in some other way. However it feels as if almost any attempt to provide opportunities for them to achieve their potential, or to recognise that they do struggle because of the attitudes within society, is often labelled as woke. Of course, to question how a number of so called Christian conservatives drifted so far from the message of Christ and now actively focus on issues such as gender, abortion, sexuality, to further divide society and ridicule those that disagree with them, is peak woke. That they play a part in punitive laws against, homosexuality and womens rights being introduced in parts of Africa, Russia or Hungary is not something often discussed in our media. Perhaps because they are busy targeting refugees. How woke of me to suggest it.

I have to say, this is all most interesting. I was really missing this sort of thing after Musk dumbed down Twitter and handed it to people with more dollars than sense. But now I can come here and see it all laid out again! Though I'm not sure a small coin forum is quite the replacement for TwiXer the social media world had hoped for.

And where does it leave whoever paid those $millions?

Yes, very disappointing that he persisted with the stories after confronted by the BBC. And does make one (well, me) wonder occasionally about pieces that I've been given minimal provenance for and where they might have come from. Last thing I want is the BM telling me they want something I bought, back for their collections!

@Chris Perkins ?

Very nice. Particularly for a freebie!

The absence of things I want to buy, in the quality I want to buy them in, has allowed the pocket money to build up a bit. (The only advantage to having a rather niche collecting interest!) And hopefully a touch piece might be a bit cheaper than an un-holed Angel! Particularly as I don't mind which mint mark it has. Yes, a bit of a long shot, but it would tick both the Charles I medallion and apotropaic amulet collecting boxes!

Shirley and her partner took over the name of Peter's business some years ago. They operated out of Nottingham. They made me a tray last October. I paid before the work was done. However they have, as far as I am aware retired. Certainly they were looking for someone to take over from them last year. Sounds .. odd this would pop up now. They were pretty good at keeping me updated on my order so curious there wasn't anything from her before if it's genuine.

This by comparison, is rare, hence the condition! A 'Military and Naval Forces' medal. Supposedly struck at a time Charles was demanding better funding from Parliament to enable him to rule by sea and land. Issued in 1628 at a time England was much concerned with the siege of the Huguenot city of la Rochelle by the Catholic forces of Louis XIII. Charles was keen to bolster Protestant interests in Europe and Buckingham was allowed to raise forces to supposedly support the Huguenots. However this went poorly and Buckingham was forced to return to England. Charles blamed Parliament for not providing the finances to reinforce Buckingham's expedition. The medal shows Charles with a radiate crown. The reverse, a sceptre and trident intertwined REGIT VNVS VTROQVE sends the message 'one rules with both', ie sceptre and trident. The design of this medal is by Briot, with a sideways B as signature below Charles' bust. Traditionally this medal has also been suggested as a pattern for a shilling, but although silver versions exist, there's no evidence I've seen to suggest this was ever taken further than a possible proposal. MI 250/26, 29mm.

A so-called "War and Peace" medal from the reign of Charles I. Struck in accordance with the views of Charles after the defeat of Waller and the surrender of Bristol to Prince Rupert, when Charles summoned his Council "to consider how these great blessings in war might be applied to the procuring a happy peace." Obverse, a laureate bust of Charles, reverse a sword and olive branch, crossed between crowned initials. The legend IN VTRVM QVE PARATVS signifies the King was 'prepared for both', i.e. peace or war. Date below. MI 308/134 29mm. Thomas Rawlins' initial under the bust. There are a few variations of this medal, with this being the commonest.

That's .. very cheeky of them!

When the Platt collection of medals was sold I wanted a catalogue and discovered it was print to demand! Very disappointing I thought, given that this was a major collection, owned by the author of three specialist books on the topic, I'd expect the sale catalogue to be in future demand as a reference for collectors. Maybe it's assumed that everyone is happy with online/ downloadable versions. However I, and I know a few others, prefer print for ease of use and true to size illustrations. Compare that to the Christopher Foley collection, not only did the auction house print excess copies for future use, but every item was accompanied by a specially printed card to show it came from that specific collection. Yes, it all costs, but as Kipster says ...

Just saw this posted on Facebook and thought of you guys..

Shop I work in, we don't get many cash sales. Perhaps two or three a week. I think people still like to give cash for birthdays and the like, and of course there are those that trade mostly in it, so we still keep a float. Essential if we have to give refunds things that were bought with cash. And also for any of our petty cash (mostly postage costs and the window cleaner) needs. Personally I always keep about £10 on me, usually in case I want an drink or ice cream when I'm out running. The plastic notes are brilliant. I no longer have to worry I'll find a soggy mess in the laundry if I forget to check my pockets! So while the majority of people use cards or their phones/watches to pay contactlessly, I can't see cash disappearing completely any time soon.

Yes. Just because something is rare as a graded example, doesn't mean that others, possibly better, don't exist in considerable numbers. The whole 'top pop' thing really doesn't mean much IMHO. Always buy the coin, not the slab.

A thread elsewhere (regarding an Edward I groat) reminded me how relative the term 'rare' can be. For collectors of Kew Gardens 50ps it's apparently where there are 'only' 210,000. For me, it's more down to 'how long will I have to wait until an example of this becomes available for me to buy?'. Surely, anything more than one dealer has listed right now can hardly be that rare, can it? Whereas if it's likely to take me a few months to track down an example it's likely to be scarce. And if I can only find one or two examples in museums and no record of one coming up for sale in the last few years, then I would consider that to be somewhat rare. Which doesn't necessarily mean desirable to me. If the only available examples are barely recognisable slugs, I'm only really going to be interested if the slug I can buy is better than the example in say, the Hunterian, because... I want things that look nice. Guess I'm shallow!

I think the 'rarest' coin I have isn't all that rare (6 examples now known). I feel it's very hard to be certain about 'rarities' in respect of currency coins with so many detector finds nowadays. One coin I have was a new type discovery in 1995, but since publication and listing in Spink a further 13 have turned up, so it didn't stay unique for long! Patterns and trial pieces might be a bit easier to be certain, especially if it's clear how many have gone to museums and the like. The rarest 'thing' I have is probably a small Royalist medallion from the 1640s, of which I'm only aware of one other example apart from the British Museum's and which Medallic Illustrations classes as 'Very rare'. But the likelihood there are others, in personal collections (or in museums, poorly or incorrectly identified), has to be pretty high, given these were mass produced items (albeit not in huge numbers when you compare to how many - what are now considered as rare - coins were struck). Similar to Sword, an example in above average condition (or for me, with decent provenance) is now more attractive to me than simple rarity. I have parted with many rarities, because in the end I didn't find them pleasing and valued being able to buy something commoner, but that I would enjoy owning, more.

That's lovely Rob! (Unlike the really shit copy on ebay!)

As I understand it they struggled with production, despite the extra mints. They simply didn't have enough new coin at first so had to allow some hammered to continue in circulation. As for why not clip after, firstly because no coin that wasn't full was acceptable as legal tender (so you risked having it refused) but more importantly because clipped coin (well sixpences and as far as can be seen, shillings) were exchanged by the authority at full face value providing they were not clipped further than to the inner circle. Effectively this meant that if you were going to clip a coin (which was still illegal ) you'd be better clipping first, keeping the extra silver, then handing the central bit in to be melted in return for new coin to full face value! Basically the whole process appears to have been a nightmare and full of problems for the authorities, but I presume the hammered pieces were getting to the stage that foreign traders were refusing to accept them in payment and a reliable modern coinage became essential, despite the cost to the treasury.

Here you go. Silver coinage was basically worth its value because of the weight of precious metal it contained. So older coinage still circulated. The recoinage permitted some coins to continue to be used for a while providing they were on full flans. The official piercing to show they'd been checked was done in a way that didn't remove any metal. This is an officially pierced shilling of Charles I. Not the neatest of examples, but they're quite hard to find, so I'm happy enough with this one.