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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lordmarcovan, post: 3496845, member: 10461&quot;]Tonga.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.ma-shops.com/emporium/item.php?id=22711&amp;lang=en" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.ma-shops.com/emporium/item.php?id=22711&amp;lang=en" rel="nofollow">Not my coin</a>, but one of these 1962 gold pieces from Tonga is on my &quot;someday&quot; want list, for personal reasons.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://img.ma-shops.com/emporium/pic/22711_000005x00.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>You see, I knew the designer of these coins, British artist <a href="http://bahaichronicles.org/dudley-m-blakely-and-elsa-blakely/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://bahaichronicles.org/dudley-m-blakely-and-elsa-blakely/" rel="nofollow">Dudley Moore Blakely</a> (1902-1982).&nbsp; He was a friend of my family and he and his wife Judy are buried here on St. Simons Island, Georgia, next to my grandmother, who was also an artist.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://www.cointalk.com/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fbahaichronicles.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F03%2Fbwns_5227-0.jpg&amp;hash=094fa9b99aa1ff9e82a07c39723282c4" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>When I was a kid, Mr. Blakely taught me wood carving and in his workshop full of souvenirs of their South Pacific sojourn, he had the original models for the dies of Tonga&#039;s first coinage.&nbsp; What&#039;s more, he once showed me a case containing the <i>very first strikes</i> of Tonga&#039;s first gold coins!&nbsp; I have no idea what became of that set, and fear that whoever owns it now has no idea what they have.</p><p><br /></p><p>He was quite an interesting character, and used to drive around the island in his beautiful one-owner 1956 Thunderbird, which was robin&#039;s-egg blue.&nbsp; I&#039;m not sure what impressed the teenaged me more: the coins, or the car.</p><p><br /></p><p>For these sentimental reasons, I would love to own at least one 1962 Tongan coin designed by Dudley Blakely.&nbsp; And I will, someday.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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