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Madness

The Proclamation Coins

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22 minutes ago, jelida said:

Grammar aside, I am really not sure what you are getting at here. If you go back far enough, we are probably almost all the product of African human evolution and migration, with multiple further phases of subtle racial and tribal genetic concentrations within populations and subsequent migrations and conquests. But even the Roman and Anglo Saxon and Norman population movements were no more than a few percentage at the time, and the inevitable incorporation of their genetic markers into the general population over time and reproduction  (and we were in those days talking of populations in the single figures of millions)  does not somehow confer a European nationality as opposed to  the multi generational ‘British’ nationality most of those of us born within the UK feel. So while I certainly accept that most if not all of us have a host of markers reflecting the population movements of humanity , what is your point? The majority of the population of Europe will also carry markers of their African, and subsequent Celtic, British, Scandinavian, Teutonic ,Germanic, Slavic, Arab and a multitude of other heritages.

Nationality is not a matter of genetic origin, it is a state of mind.

Jerry

 

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7 minutes ago, DrLarry said:

sorry I hold no value to the notion of nationality, or nationhood, most are simply constructs that seek to be divisive in some way attempting to create schisms of one form or another within populations.  Certainly not "probably" definitely depends when you want to stop going back but we will perhaps select a time when Homo sapiens branched off from H. erectus or H habilis or H. florisiensis  and there is also a percentage of  Homo sapien Neanderthal in mixed populations of Homo sapiens sapiens and migration across most land bridges simply divides a species population.  All constructs of nationhood in the modern age are established to enable one group to feel superior to another 

And you always know what to expect when a sentences starts with Grammar aside 

Which is why I ask what you were getting at by your post. 

And I have no Idea what to expect by a ‘Grammar aside’ comment, other than I wasn’t sure what you were getting at and the probematic grammar didn’t help.  I suspect the comment usually follows grammatically unclear sentances.  But you clearly have other interpretations which you wish to impose on me.

Jerry

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@DrLarry @jelida

Please take your discussion to PM rather than filling my thread with dross.

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8 minutes ago, jelida said:

Which is why I ask what you were getting at by your post. 

And I have no Idea what to expect by a ‘Grammar aside’ comment, other than I wasn’t sure what you were getting at and the probematic grammar didn’t help.  I suspect the comment usually follows grammatically unclear sentances.  But you clearly have other interpretations which you wish to impose on me.

Jerry

allowing for ironic sense a rhetoric device:  I think it works grammatically 

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1 hour ago, copper123 said:

They must be a bit thick anyway to accept a coin saying one penny on it circulate for two pennies

But this is the denominationless cartwheel, is it not? 🤔

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8 hours ago, Madness said:

@DrLarry @jelida

Please take your discussion to PM rather than filling my thread with dross.

That is fair comment, point taken.

Jerry

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9 hours ago, DrLarry said:

well luckily for most forum members, according to that Rees Mogg character, we will not see the benefit for at least 50 years .....so it won't have a direct consequence on our elderly residents 

9 hours ago, copper123 said:

So the £350 million that we all spent a week sending to europe will dissapear into the either when we are out of the eec , sounds like a tory tax raiseing trick to me they always use them as soon as they get into power remember the vat rises in 1979 and more recently to 17.5 %

 

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8 hours ago, mrbadexample said:

But this is the denominationless cartwheel, is it not? 🤔

it is and sorry I forgot it does not have its value on it anywhere :D

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11 hours ago, jelida said:

Grammar aside, I am really not sure what you are getting at here. If you go back far enough, we are probably almost all the product of African human evolution and migration, with multiple further phases of subtle racial and tribal genetic concentrations within populations and subsequent migrations and conquests. 

Yes, true.

But even the Roman and Anglo Saxon and Norman population movements were no more than a few percentage at the time, and the inevitable incorporation of their genetic markers into the general population over time and reproduction  (and we were in those days talking of populations in the single figures of millions)  does not somehow confer a European nationality as opposed to  the multi generational ‘British’ nationality most of those of us born within the UK feel. So while I certainly accept that most if not all of us have a host of markers reflecting the population movements of humanity , what is your point? The majority of the population of Europe will also carry markers of their African, and subsequent Celtic, British, Scandinavian, Teutonic ,Germanic, Slavic, Arab and a multitude of other heritages.

Sorry, what is YOUR point? Britain, along with the rest of Europe .. and America, and the Antipodes, and South America, and Asia, is - as you say - a big genetic melting pot. The EU on the other hand is not a nation, it's a confederation of nations each with their own genetic melting pot, that was formed to prevent obscenities like WW2 from ever happening again, at least in Europe. To that extent it has succeeded, even more than Winston Churchill - its great exponent - predicted. So now that the US is turning back in on itself with tariffs, and we're about to lose our membership of the world's biggest single market with no-one outside falling over themselves to make deals with us (as even Rees-Mogg admits), what on earth is Brexit all about?

Nationality is not a matter of genetic origin, it is a state of mind.

Jerry

 

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RANT

Not you too, @Peckris. This is not the place for political animosity.  Why are you all so hell bent on crapping on my thread?  Take it outside, gentlemen.  

If you insist on persisting, here's the place to do it:

 

 

Edited by Madness
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39 minutes ago, Peckris said:

The EU on the other hand is not a nation, it's a confederation of nations each with their own genetic melting pot, that was formed to prevent obscenities like WW2 from ever happening again, at least in Europe. To that extent it has succeeded, even more than Winston Churchill - its great

The Eu was winston churchills baby wasn't it he always wanted a united states of europe to avoid another world war.

The french however made sure that we never joined till after churchill was dead , so he never really saw his baby born

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26 minutes ago, copper123 said:

The Eu was winston churchills baby wasn't it he always wanted a united states of europe to avoid another world war.

The french however made sure that we never joined till after churchill was dead , so he never really saw his baby born

I guess I'll take Madness's hint and take this to the Dog Pit from now on. 

However, as it relates to your post - yes, that's exactly how it was. De Gaulle applied the veto to all our efforts to join, and it was his death or retirement - rather than Churchill's - that was the removal of the stumbling block.

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Any chance one of the moderators could move all the political ranting in here to the Dog Pit so that we can get on with the very interesting topic of the Proclamation coins?

 

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... and to get back on topic I found this site which has some good pictures of most of the proclamation coins (and a few others):

http://www.triton.vg/proclamation.html

 

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28 minutes ago, Paddy said:

... and to get back on topic I found this site which has some good pictures of most of the proclamation coins (and a few others):

http://www.triton.vg/proclamation.html

 

This is rather a nice way to collect as a series a great variety of rather pretty coins. I suppose you could do something similar with earlier English coins in that a number of continental coins did circulate freely at various times alongside our currency, I have metal detected examples from the low countries, Spain, France and of course Venetian Galley halfpennies, as well as Irish and Scottish. However I don't know of a comprehensive list, or equivalent values unless they circulated purely on the basis of fineness and weight.

Jerry

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Another interesting way of building a collection of "foreign" coins has been taken up by one of my regular buyers at market: He wants one decent coin from every country or territory that is or has been under British control at some stage. It is a surprisingly long list - I saw a map online somewhere suggesting that there are only 22 countries in the world that have not been occupied at some time in whole or part by the Brits!

He came with a list - and I promptly added a whole load more - Ionian Islands, Demerara & Essequibo, Straits Settlements etc. There are other surprises: Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates are all ones I would not have thought of.

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Themed collections are an aesthetically pleasing move away from the serried ranks of sameness associated with denomination collecting. Although a themed collection still confers boundaries, the almost inevitably eclectic result obtained on completion will provide interest for many collecting areas. Multiple areas of interest is a diversity that many collectors could benefit from.

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1 hour ago, Paddy said:

... and to get back on topic I found this site which has some good pictures of most of the proclamation coins (and a few others):

http://www.triton.vg/proclamation.html

 

Well, thanks for this Paddy and for the thread, Madness. This was a subject about which I knew nothing. Wouldn't have even known what proclamation coins were.

Certainly would never have guessed that coins from various lands were all used in Australia post 1800, and that each were allotted a different value. 

Perfect for collecting.

  

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22 hours ago, Madness said:

We of convict stock have many Neanderthal genetic markers.  To dispel another myth, not all of us are called Bruce.  Many are known affectionately as "Dickhead" or "Wanker".

There is the oft repeated anecdote from the Bodyline series:

Douglas Jardine had appeared at the door of the Australian dressing room, objecting that he had heard himself described as a "bastard" on the field. Vic Richardson, the vice-captain, turned to his team. "All right, which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?"

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8 hours ago, Paddy said:

Another interesting way of building a collection of "foreign" coins has been taken up by one of my regular buyers at market: He wants one decent coin from every country or territory that is or has been under British control at some stage. It is a surprisingly long list - I saw a map online somewhere suggesting that there are only 22 countries in the world that have not been occupied at some time in whole or part by the Brits!

He came with a list - and I promptly added a whole load more - Ionian Islands, Demerara & Essequibo, Straits Settlements etc. There are other surprises: Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates are all ones I would not have thought of.

My father told me about the israel conflict against the uk troops , apparently there were many sneaky terorist plots and bombings, they had enough in the end and just pulled out - who would have thought that from the most anti -terrorist country on this earth , being created from terrorism

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9 hours ago, Paddy said:

... and to get back on topic I found this site which has some good pictures of most of the proclamation coins (and a few others):

http://www.triton.vg/proclamation.html

 

That's a great site (though the maintainer unfortunately died of cancer in the last year or two I think).

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The helpful table linked by @Paddy raises an important question: What constitutes a proclamation coin? 

As I see it, the term has been used in at least four ways:

1. To refer to not only the coins in Governor King's 1800 proclamation, but also those that derive their face value from them: A halfpenny, half-guinea etc.  Without the shadow of a doubt these would have been in circulation at the time.  For better or worse, though, King includes a half-Johanna, which itself is a derived value.  This suggests that sixpences etc were not "officially" accepted tender, but may have lead to some confusion on the matter in colonial practice. 

2. To refer to early Australian colonial currency constitutes. This is unquestionably a misnomer. That would be like saying that every animal on the farm is a cow.  There is a substantial body of anecdotal evidence that other specie, particularly bullion, were widely circulated and accepted.  This doesn't mean that they were official currency, or even legal currency.

3. To refer to coins that constituted the official currency of the antipodean colonies only.   There were were twelve similar decrees between 1788 and 1825.  I see no reason why this is not a valid descriptor.  

4. To refer to the 1800 Proclamation by King alone.  This is a very narrow meaning and possibly needs further clarification when used.  

My nascent collection (at this stage consisting of the guinea alone) is limited by the fourth definition at this stage, for reasons that I shall elaborate upon in a future post.  

For further reading, take a look at this article *here*.  On this page they're plugging a book that I recently purchased, "The Coinage of Colonial Australia" by Andrew Crellin.  I'll post a book review some time in the next couple of weeks.

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I'm two weeks and two days into this hobby.  Why did I choose to begin with Proclamation coins?

1. I bought a guinea without any background research simply because of a certain uninformed mystique behind it 

2. I discovered that it was part of Governor King's 1800 proclamation

3. Being a fan of Patrick O'Brian novels and having read a little about colonial history, the period intrigued me

4. As an introduction to collecting, it provides me with the opportunity to consider coins of various nations, denominations, materials and production methods

Realistically, I'll only be collecting coins with an exchange rate equal to and less than that given by King to the Guinea.  The price of acquiring a johanna, half-johanna and gold mohur would just take too long to save.  As previously mentioned, I'll also be restricting my collection to those actually on King's list.  

What's next?  Perhaps a single groat of each monarch from Victoria back.  Time will tell.  There's one thing I can tell you, though: I'll be researching things thoroughly first!  My guinea fiasco serves as a cautionary tale.  

Edited by Madness
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The attachment may be of interest to anyone trying to find out about Proclamation Coins. As it is large I will send over a number of posts

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Number 2

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