Notice of Meeting

The next general meeting which is also the Annual Meeting of the PEINA will be held 7:30 p.m. on Monday, November 20, 2000, in the Library of Colonel Gray Senior High School, 175 Spring Park Road, Charlottetown.

Parking is available in the teachers' lot, on the north side of the school.

Come a few minutes early to browse through the month's accumulation of magazines, newsletters and catalogues including the most recent catalogue from Harlan J. Berk Ltd. of Chicago (ancient and mediaeval coins) and The Phoenix from Coincraft of London, England (with lots of modern material) as well as the latest Canadian Coin News.
 

On our agenda:

We'll have before us a list of tasks to be performed in order to successfully bring off the Spring Meeting, Show and Sale for the A.P.N.A. in 2001.

The dates are Friday May 11and Saturday May 12, 2001, at Rodd's Royalty Inn on the Trans-Canada Highway.

We gained a lot of recognition last fall for the successful rally at the Confederation Centre and we'll all have to pitch in and do our bit in order to make this one a success also.
 

New 2001 Executive

We must also turn our attention to electing a new clubexecutive for the calendar year 2001

According to section 4.1 of our constitution, the annual meeting is held in November and the new executive serves from January. Be assured we won't have debates in both official languages nor will be cast our ballots in Florida!

We'll be in the market for people to serve (or serve again) as President, Treasurer, Secretary and Past-President.

And, to make sure we have a little fun, let us devote an evening to British and American coins and tokens. If you have anything not identified which you think may be from the great republic to the South, or British (or Irish or Scottish or Welsh) then bring it along. Bring reference books also. And don't be bashful, if you have a coin or two you would like to sell or swap then by all means, let's have a look at it!
 

The October Meeting

Thanks go out to fellow numismatist Gary W. for his interesting presentation on bimetallic coinage. We are used to seeing the Polar Bear "twoonie" these days as well as the very attractive year 2000 version, but as Gary illustrated with examples from his own collection, coins composed of two metals are also common in other parts of the world.

Some of these coins have quite spectacular designs but the Canadian contribution to this genre is hard to beat for clarity and design quality.

One point made by Gary is worth repeating here. One does not have to spend a great deal of money collecting in this "modern world" area in order to develop a really interesting collection. Let's hope that Gary takes up the challenge to assemble a display for APNA next May. His collection will certainly win a prize.

Fall APNA Rally

A general discussion of this numismatic gathering was held at the October meeting, and the general consensus seemed to be that we all had a good time, enjoyed meeting and talking with fellow collectors from around the region, and that quality tokens especially appeared to be in short supply. The "show and tell" portion of the evening seemed to suggest that we indeed contributed to Fredericton's economy, spending a little money and picking up some special items for our collections. It is interesting to note that even those of us on modest collecting budgets were able to uncover a few gems. This writer found several worthwhile items including German and Austrian notgeld notes at very reasonable prices, inflationary notes from Brazil, a variety of Canadian tokens and a 15 cent coin from Jamaica which I am sure will fascinate my Economics students!

Congratulations go to the organizers and also to the dealers who put in a long day at the tables. It was great to see our friends "in the trade" and have a few moments to say hello. Some new (to this writer at least) tables were noted, including banknotes offered by Gordon and Anne Simons of Nova Scotia and a table hosted by Dave Burton, who has opened a numismatics and antiques shop in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, across from the Post Office. This sounds like a place worth visiting. It was also a pleasure to see Vic Lotherington of Moncton, a veteran collector and dealer at his "positively last" show with, among other things, some stunning Canadian large cents. This writer was pleased, for a reasonable consideration, to separate Vic from some western Canadian trade tokens. We hope he and his wife will also grace the APNA Spring 2001 show as part of his ongoing retirement "farewell tour".
 

Other Business

The subject of membership dues came up at the October meeting. While our Treasurer reported a bank balance comfortably in the black, this situation can change over time.

We must remember that dues are now on a calendar year basis and the amounts are $15 for an individual member and $20 for a couple with $10 the amount set for student membership.
 

Off-Centre Twoonies

While not a collector of "errors" I could not help but notice, a few days ago, a very odd $2 coin received in change. The inner core was slightly out of true and in fact the centre "gold" portion -- actually, aluminium bronze according to my Charlton Standard Catalogue -- was sufficiently off-centre to be touching the top of the 1999 date. I'll bring this along to the November meeting where our resident bimetallic expect can give us the benefit of his opinion. I might even be persuaded to part with this oddity, in exchange for two normal loonies and future consideration at the bar in December! But I wonder how many such interesting errors exist? Probably very few.
 

Book Review:

Money - A History.

Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Press, 1997. Edited by Jonathan Williams with Joe Cribb and Elizabeth Errington
 

This hefty paperback is a great read for 14 pounds 99 pence or about $33.75 Canadian if you take the pound to be worth about $2.25 The paper is of high quality and this is important: the reproductions in this book, both colour and B&W are wonderfully sharp and clear.

So is the text. The book is intended to accompany and enhance the British Museum's HSBC Money Gallery which was officially opened in January 1997. This reviewer visited the Gallery in August and was overwhelmed by the range and quality of the items on display. If it was ever used for money, an example of it is probably here.

The HSBC Money Gallery is an innovation for the Museum. For the first time, one display gallery presents items drawn from across the Museum's many separate curatorial departments.

The display fills a huge area, and presents a wide range of objects used as money during the last four and a half thousand years. It traces the development of money from the earliest recorded forms of payment, such as barley grains and weighed amounts of silver in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and cowrie shells in China, to the coins, banknotes and electronic money in use today. This display also looks at how money has been organized, manufactured and used throughout the world.

How to explain all this, and each of the objects displayed, to the average visitor? Three solutions were in place during my visit.

The first, printed labels to identify or explain each object and/or group of objects. Second, the 50-pence Introductory Guide, essentially one large piece of coated stock paper, folded twice to present three columns of chronological and historical data on both sides. It's an easy-to-carry overview, a guide to how the Money Gallery is organized, and was sold out when I went looking for it. I had to scrounge a copy from the main information desk downstairs. Yes, this is a very popular show!

And finally, the book. You can order the paperback copy via any reputable bookseller. The ISBN is 0-7141-0885-5.

The book approaches the history of money on a geographical basis while that of the Money Gallery is thematic. In the Preface, however, Andrew Burnett, the British Museum's Keeper of Coins and Medals, argues that these different approaches are intended to complement each other and give visitors and readers different ways of looking at and understanding the same theme.

Money plays different roles and touches peoples' lives in different ways. The display opens with the earliest forms of money, units of grain or metal, the latter often worked into common shapes such as spades, hoes, arrowheads, fish, and the like. The metal object is not a real fish, but its shape suggests its value is that of a fish, and like a real fish, the metal object has value of some sort.

The functions of money as a means of exchange, a measure of value and a store of value took a while for our ancestors to sort out. This may explain why what some folks call "primitive money" continues to fascinate many collectors. It was some time before we caught on to having coins of uniform size, clearly stamped with a value and the issuing authority. To get to that point we explored some wonderful ideas, and both Chinese and ancient Greek coins illustrate this very well.

The sections on Money and Society, and on Politics, show where these two ideas overlap. Designs on the earliest coins have images and messages that present ideas about such human values as identity, allegiance, power, religious affiliation, to say nothing of value in terms of actual purchasing power. This tendency continues to the present day.

The section on Globalisation shows how trade and colonisation spread European traditions of coinage and paper money across the world and displaced so-called "primitive" forms of money. Most telling is a Banco Nacional Ultramarino banknote, printed in Britain for use by the Portuguese in their colony of Goa in western India. The design reflects both east and west.

Later sections of the display, and the book, illustrate the money of the post-colonial era where Asian and African nations select images that better reflect their culture.

How society sees and uses money is a fascinating theme of this book. In the display the visitor can enjoy "the real thing" and for an afternoon this reviewer was captivated by a collection of coins, tokens and paper money that is said to be one of the best in the world. One cannot experience quite the same thing in the book, but the quality and range of the reproductions is very good. This is a book that one savours. There is much to read, in terms of the development and history of money in various parts of the world, and there is also much to look at and enjoy, over and over again.

One further point: some of the examples in both display and book are, quite simply, among the best examples extant. The ancient coins especially will make you weep! They are so beautiful, and rare. Yet, many of the examples in other display cases are of common coins and banknotes. It would not be impossible to assemble one's own version of this collection, to illustrate many of the interesting chapters in the history of money.

There is no doubt this popular display will be in the Museum for many years to come. If you are a numismatist and in London, this collection is a must-see on your list.
 

British Tokens

A browse through the Charlton Standard Catalogue of Canadian Colonial Tokens reveals a considerable number of these early pieces made in England with a lesser number perhaps from Ireland.

British mints, most of them private, turned out the penny and halfpenny tokens that pre-Confederation Canadians used in their everyday trade. Coins made under government authority tended to be scarce, so the story goes. Authorities underestimated or ignored, or both, the need for small copper coins and merchants obligingly filled the gap. Gold and silver were noble metals, worthy of the Royal Mint, but copper was obviously not. Consequently a host of coins and private tokens awaited the colonials, both buyers and sellers, in the marketplaces of British North America.

Charlton, and before him such early numismatists as Breton and Sandham, identified those pieces minted overseas which through widespread usage could nevertheless be classified as "Canadian". But what of those copper coins not so endorsed?

Almost every coin show reveals two or three coins that are not in Breton or Charlton but are however British-made and over here. How did they get here? What are they? Have they any value?

The answer to the second question can be found in a small number of reference books on British tokens. The answer to the third question can be gleaned through British dealers, auction catalogues, price lists, and the like. In fine condition and better they sell from perhaps 5 pounds and up. The highest I have encountered is 85 pounds, about $195 Canadian, for a rare Irish Wellington token with original lustre.

To answer the first question is to face a central fact of coin collecting. Coins are mute, and not often can they tell us of past owners and past journeys. One or two might bear clues, but resting at the bottom of a cigar box or cigarette tin, the British token is indeed a neglected and mostly unwanted stray in this country.

One wonders if those British tokens found here came by way of petty trade, in the pockets of sailors (very frequent travellers) and soldiers (rotated through the Imperial garrisons on a less frequent but nevertheless regular schedule). One other source, too, might have been the immigrants who came here from all over the British isles and only after converting into cash almost all they had and did not think they would need in the new world. These groups would have brought over a sample of the coins and tokens then circulating in their areas of Britain as well as coinage current in the seaport through which the hopeful immigrants passed. Once here, the coin might enjoy a certain circulation until set aside, as a souvenir, a keepsake, a novelty, or a downright suspicious piece of foreign trumpery!

The souvenir or keepsake would serve for a generation or two, harking back to parents or grandparents who "came out" years before and serve as a reminder of "home", but eventually it would be banished to the cigar box or made into a washer, like a worn piece of Irish "gun money" in my collection. Soon its history would be forgotten.

In Britain there are many active collectors of token coinage. The first publication, by Charles Condor in 1798, gave his name to a range to copper tokens issued in the 18^th century. There is now even a Condor Token Collectors Club. Condor's book on 18^th century tokens was the standard work for almost a hundred years, until the publication in 1892 of a book by Atkins. Keeping in mind that, between 1648 and 1672 some 10,000 different tokens were issued, or that between 1788 and 1796 another great boom in token manufacturing took place, and that the Napoleonic era (and especially 1811-1815) saw many more tokens issued, the need for useful reference works is clear.

Let me point our a number of useful sources for anyone attempting to research in this area.

From the library of the C.N.A., members can borrow by mail and at a very modest cost a number of helpful books. W.J.Davis, The Nineteenth Century Token Coinage (1904, reprinted 1969 by B.A.Seaby Ltd.) contains a very useful introduction and a huge amount of information together with reproductions of many tokens. Many of the tokens illustrated are "Breton" tokens struck in Britain. Here you'll find Wellington tokens catalogued by Breton and others that were not included in his listing.

A second book available from the C.N.A. library is R.C.Bell's Copper Commercial Coins, 1811-1819 (1964), and by the same author is Tradesmen's Tickets and Private Tokens, 1785-1819 (1966). Again, lots of information on British and Irish tokens including those with a Canadian connection.

The "standard" reference is Dalton and Hamer, Provincial Token-Coinage of the Eighteenth century. This is the "D&H" number which appears in many places, including catalogues, books, and occasionally on dealers' labels. D&H appeared between 1910 and 1919 in 14 parts, reprinted in one volume by Seaby of London in 1967 and reprinted again in the U.S. in 1977 by Quartermain Publications. The latter two appear from time to time on the lists of dealers in numismatic books. This is a scarce publication, so two later works many be of interest.

The first is the Schwer Price Guide to 18^th Century Tokens, compiled and published by Siegfried E. Schwer, a dealer and collector in Suffolk. The ISBN is 0-9509203-0-4. My copy cost me 8 pounds 50 or about $19 Canadian. The second useful little book is British Tokens andTheir Values, published by Seaby in 1970 and revised in 1984. The ISBN is 0-900652-65-9 but be warned, it is probably available now only from book dealers. [Try www.abebooks.com] My copy doesn't have a price on it, but it was less than $20. The Seaby book covers 17^th, 18^th and 19^th century tokens, the latter mainly 1812-1815. Most interesting is the chapter on imitation regal halfpence and farthings on the 18^th century, because several of those coins look remarkably close to our "blacksmith" tokens. The Schwer book concentrates mostly on the tokens of the 1790s but is useful for the illustrations. Both Seaby and Schwer use, where appropriate, the D&H numbering system

So what does all this mean? Those mysterious and unidentified copper tokens you have many not be freaks after all, but rather they could be British merchant tokens. Most of the ones I've seen in Canadian shows and shops are of the 1790s. Most are of modest value. But it's not the money: it's the thrill of discovery and identification which comes from patience and determination which often gives the greater pleasure.

These tokens will often present people and places of local interest, including contemporary heroic figures from the army and navy. Often you'll see scenes relating to local trades, the industrial revolution, ports and shipping, and architecture. Many have rim inscriptions, a feature almost always lacking from our colonial tokens. Finally, the huge quantity of these British tokens (and this includes contemporary forgeries) make this an interesting and challenging collecting area.
 

APNA 2001

What follows is a list of chores to be done by volunteers in order to get ready for this important event. Look it over, give it some thought, and be ready to step forward!
 

* Registration, Friday evening

Pass out registration kits to those who have pre-registered
 

* Reception Committee,

Friday evening meet and greet those attending, check on trays of hors d'oeuvres, answer questions from visitors
 

* Display Chair

Assign cases and locks to those who need them; gently convince our members to enter display competition
 

* Display Judges
 

* Wooden Money Meeting

Be early to Rodd's and direct those attending the breakfast meeting to the appropriate area
 

* Bourse and Dealer set-up

Be at Rodd's early to make sure dealer tables are properly placed and assist dealers as needed
 

* C.T.C. Collectors Meeting

Be available if CTC group wants to hold a meeting and find suitable location depending upon numbers
 

* APNA Meeting

A go-fer to assist president Terry Cochrane. Other duties as may be assigned
 

* Fund Raising

Selling draw tickets to raise funds for PEINA, organize rota for looking after ticket table
 

* Security

To circulate throughout bourse area, making presence known to all - smart attire required!
 

* Banquet

Obtain count of those attending, liaison with Rodd's staff, help executive find appropriate speaker
 

* Advertising & Promotion

Responsible for paid advertising and free promotion of show to general public, keeping in mind our limited budget
 

* Web Master

Get out the word via the web
 

* Other?
 

This list is freely adapted from our records. We'll have to give some careful thought to our schedule and "take it from there".

It's worth noting that we have a box of over 700 centennial 1867-1967 brass medallions from the RCM, still in their original plastic wrapper. Perhaps we could offer one to the first 200 visitors as an inducement, and perhaps have an hourly draw.

Finally, as our treasure-house is empty we'll have to come up with some suggestions for draw and raffle prizes.
 

Wanted!

Wanted. Keen collector seeks a copy of The Currency and Medals of Newfoundland, published (date not known, but in the fairly recent past) in the Canadian Numismatic History Series by or with the assistance of the J. Douglas Ferguson Historical Research Foundation. If you have a copy you no longer need then talk to Mark Holton or call him at (902) 566-5837

or e-mail at holton.fam@pei.sympatico.ca.
 

Reminder: Next PEINA meeting on Monday, November 20, with the topic of US and British coins and tokens. Bring your goodies and reference books!