There must not be many British coin collectors.

Maybe is a loose assumption..but never the less it's odd.

There really isn't that much in books about British coins.

Take the US for example.

There are books written on series of coins. Guide book to morgan dollars, guide book to flying eagle cents, etc.

Whitman quit making GB folders, so there isn't much in that either.

The population of the UK is only a third of the US, but still...you would think there would be more stuff.

So is coin collecting not as a popular of hobby in the UK?

 

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Actually I think collecting is quite popular in the UK. They have a much longer history to draw on for collectors than we have. BTW, I noticed you were looking for bulk Canadians and thought Rob Ford might fill the bill..
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Sorry, the devil made me do it. Good to see you posting again Tim.

 

There are a TON of coin collectors in the UK, most of them just collect ancients.

 

I would agree - there are a great many British coin collectors over here, and stacks of books about coins going back over centuries. (I have a book called "The Table of English Coins" dated 1763 - before you lot even got started!)

Not all collect only ancients - there are specialists in every field. I personally know a collector who only does sixpences of Elizabeth the Firsts reign, and another who wrote the book on variations of Victorian Pennies. Even modern coins - like the series of 29 Fifty Pence coins produced for the 2012 Olympics - have attracted many new collectors to the game.

I think the domestic market in the US tends to take a very insular view of the world - if it is not American, it is not of interest - which results in far fewer "non-American" coins or books being stocked. And it is the same over here - if you judged the American market on the number of US coins at our coin fairs you would assume nobody over there was interested!

 

Thats just natural though Paddy, one would expect most collectors to have an interest in coins of their country, with a few who choose to diversify. That makes all the ancient guys from the US/across the pond that little bit more quirky. coin nuts !

 

I do agree - and I am always glad to see people diversifying. My main point was to challenge the assumption made by the OP that just because he sees fewer British coins over there, then there can't be many collectors over here!

 

Here is my take on the situation, with the forewarning that I focus entirely on US issues, with this being the opinions of an outside observer. Also, I seem to recall, that you collect the more recent coins, 1800-, if this is not so than most of the following doesn't apply.

There is plenty of literature available pertaining to British numismatics. There are a couple of problems you run into though. One, being, a large majority of it is pre-Modern era, focusing on Roman-Britain, Celtic issues, hammered coinage and others.That is not to say there are not literature relating to later coinage, but much of it is buried in periodicals and the big one, out of print books. But this is the case with almost many areas of study within numismatics, I don't believe I have a book in my library that is in-print, but the cost is worth it.

In the mean time here is something you may find of extreme value, that is, if you don't already know about it. The British Numismatic Society has made all/most back issues of their yearly journal, available by free download. Again, there is much about the early coinage but I'm sure you'll find plenty interesting. Here it is: http://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital BNJ.shtml

Also, with US coinages, there is so few series, that it is possible for research to study each in depth, even by die marriage. But with Britain, could you imagine, 2000 years of coinage to study, it's far more difficult to document it all, even though they got a head start on us!

Good to see you posting again. Happy reading!

Jesse

 

Hi Jesse,

Fair and reasonable comments. Most British collectors, particularly of the more modern stuff, would use the Spinks "Coins of England and the United Kingdom" as a start point - this book, which is over 600 pages long, is updated and reprinted every year to incorporate all the very latest issues as well as any updates on information or prices on older coins. It is not perfect, but certainly about as up to date as you could reasonably expect! Covers Iron age coins right through to the latest Fifty pence.

It tends to be the more specialist books that are re-printed infrequently - such as the aforementioned treatise on Penny variations by Freeman. For these I suppose the knowledge changes only slightly over the years, and so a complete reprint is only necessary every 20 or 30 years.

Paddy

 

I certainly get some UK coming into the shop. 1889 Crown the other day, with a few early 1900's Florins.

 

The problem is that most British coins have been melted down. They changed from the £sd system to the decimal system in 1971, so you cannot get any pre-1967 coins in circulation. They demonetized pre-1887 (i'm not sure about the date) bronze in Victoria's reign. and while silver coins of George III and later (1815 or so) were technically legal tender until the end, they stopped minting silver coins for circulation during world war 2 and started using copper/nickel.

Also, there were very few commemoratives prior to the 1971 changeover.

 

British coins are ugly

 

coin collecting a very old hobby in the uk so plenty of coins coming out of old collections,and massive numbers coming out of the ground so no shortage of british coins.remember we have had coins for 2000 years.even the hammered coins which were melted because of poor condition were replaced by coins of William 111.the only coins melted down were the ones of little interest to collectors

 

I respectfully disagree wcoins...I like the designs on a great number of British issues. But then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Bruce

 

evidence? which ones......or do you not know which ones?

 

It's all a matter of taste. Some people find UK coins ugly, others dislike coins from (insert country name), I don't like spinache, others hate mushrooms ...

Christian

 

I appreciate that, just wondered whether there was a reason.....or whether its just a random comment.

 

Of course most coins that were melted down were replaced with new ones. Only a fraction of the ones minted are still around. However, most of the copper-nickel coins from the £sd era were melted down when they changed the size of the ten and twenty Pee coins back in the early '90s.

 

Only on one side : - )

 

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