ColonialCoinsUK

Congratulations, some great grades there and even some 69's!

Diameter is 51.5mm and the depth is about 11mm so maybe just too big for the usual slab? It would be a shame to have it disappear in an very large oversize holder and they take up so much space

In a previous Journal Entry (Copper is good - September 2021) I highlighted a Napoleonic medal depicting the column in Place Vendome, Paris which was commissioned to recognise the success of the Grand Armee in the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. Following Napoleon's defeat the original Romanesque statue of Napoleon was torn down and replaced by a flag with the fleur-de-lys representing France. 1830 witnessed another revolution in France which saw Louis Phillipe and the Bourbon's back on the throne, albeit for the last time. In 1833, on the anniversary of this new period in French history, a more realistic statue of Napoleon was reinstated on top of the column and in my collection I have a large copper medal by Emile Rogat commemorating this event (Bramsen 1915; Julius 3900 var.; Essling 1685). This medal has Napoleon's portrait, and in particular the iconic tricorn hat, in very high relief making it quite unusual for the period and also for my collection as I don't have any of the modern high relief coins - so would it fit in a slab??

It would be great to visit the medieval city where the stone birds came from, what remains must be very impressive 'in person' and yet only a hint of its grandeur in the past.

The area in south central Africa now bordered by Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa went through several reincarnations and amalgamations of territories before becoming Zimbabwe in 1980 - apparently they have inflation problems. I have a number of coins, almost all ungraded, from an earlier period, 1923 to 1953, when the area was called Southern Rhodesia and it was under British control. My original target was to complete a full date run for all of the denominations but after 20 years or so this is still not finished and my excuse is that life just got in the way. One of the great things about collecting coins is that you can start, stop and start again at any time and a few years ago I decided on the smaller goal of trying to put together a graded typeset for Southern Rhodesia for both George V and George VI. So far my Registry sets for these are still looking a bit sparse although I recently acquired a graded 1939 shilling (PCGS MS62) to make a little progress. As this year has the lowest mintage at 420,000 it is the key date shilling for George VI and at MS62 it is also the highest grade recorded at both PCGS and NGC (when I last looked) so I am very happy with this addition. I should sort through my other coins as some are certainly worth grading, particularly some of the sixpences and threepences and this would start to make the sets a bit more respectable. That Great Zimbabwe bird seems to get around quite a bit so it must be able to fly as it can't be sat down all the time!.

Congratulations - it takes much commitment to get a Best Presented Set and more so with one at NGC and one at PMG

Very nice examples. When decimilisation happened here in the UK (later than most places) - 'pounds & pence' changed to 'pounds & new pence' so we never had all the wonderful name changes most people had to deal with, although my old sixpences at 2.5 new pence didn't last long

Sounds like I should think about submitting things now to make the December deadline

I now know why people collects crowns Hopefully this is a bit larger for a tiny coin - reminder to myself not to combine images into a single picture! The later Spanish issue half real is even smaller than the colonial version, hopefully it is also easier to see as a nice high grade example I may have to concentrate on banknotes now as I can read them, even if they are in Spanish, or get a decent camera set-up or both

As a collector of British sixpences it is no surprise that on the addition of Napoleonic and Spanish coinage I was drawn to the smaller denominations. Often these are less well documented than crowns and the gold coinage and as such there are often new varieties that remain to be discovered. In my collection I have a Mexican 1773 half real coin where the King's name is spelt CAROLS rather than the usual CAROLUS - in this case a well-known variety (Calico 2019: 196, Cayon 11118, it's even in Krause KM#69.2). You will have to forgive the terrible scan, I blame my example being very dark and low grade. Along side is a 1805 half real depicting his son Charles IV as IIII - just to prove that there was plenty of room for the extra 'U'. I wonder what the penalty was in those days for making that mistake! And people think quality control at some mints is bad today but in the 18th century no one was worrying about MS70.

The start of more interesting sets, and no doubt a challenge to find high grade examples! I know you are beyond help when you post your first million mark coins and notes from Germany

Very nice coin - you now have the excuse to get the MS65/66 as another date and start a new set.

The Treaty of Amiens was signed in 1802 by France and the UK and ended the War of the Second Coalition and thus the French Revolutionary Wars. The resulting peace in Europe was only temporary with the British declaring war on France only a year later in response to Napoleon's continued and expanding occupation of territory thereby initiating the Napoleonic wars. This conflict then consumed Europe for more than a decade estabilishing the basis for the national boundaries we know today. Napoleon had a medal struck in response, with the English breaking the Treaty of Amiens represented by a large cat tearing up the Treaty. Over the years I have seen this cat described in auction listings and books as a lion, a leopard or a panther and even a pitbull so which it is? I posted this question on several forums and the polls favoured a panther whereas the comments seemed to favour a leopard. My original thought was it was a panther as these are usually depicted as maneless lions and, to me, it looked more like that. However it looks like panthers are spotted in heraldry etc and often have what appears to be fire coming from their mouths and ears which this big cat doesn't. That left maneless lion or a leopard and I would expect a 'lion' to have mane and all other lions seem to have one but I thought leopards had spots - in heraldry it seems not. It is well known that the English Arms are referred to as three lions however I found it interesting that these cats were called leopards until the late 1300's and it is only later than they became lions to the English - with the French and neighbouring nations still referring to them as leopards. A possible reason for this is that that leopards were thought to be a result of the mating of a lion and the mythical Pard, with the offspring therefore being leo-pards. This mixed heritage meant that leopards could not have young and was therefore also used as a term to describe someone born of adultery as such children were left out of the line of succession. It would not surprise me that, for such reasons, the English switched to calling them lions whilst the French were still calling the English leopards and hence 'barren bas*&"ds', or whatever the equivalent is in French! As this medal was struck in France, and blaming the English for ending the Treaty of Amiens, I am therefore going to refer to the big cat as a leopard from now on - of course all this could be complete rubbish and it is the local farm moggy Any other ideas?

You're brave - I have enough trouble with French, Italian and Spanish coins. Trying to work out legends on coins from China, Japan etc would be a step too far

Well spotted and great to get it graded as such - congratulations!

Thankyou both - I have been following Mike's progress with his Ukranian collection which demonstrates the knowledge and dedication needed. As does the Zimbabwe series I definitely need more practice grading banknotes on the PMG scale rather than the UK version and for the area I have settled on the graded populations (other than for certain issues) were surprisingly low so I will have to submit notes. It sounds like it is not just me that finds it difficult to see slight folds etc on scans, at least the older stuff has an end date.

Same reasons I do not collect moderns, at least you roughly know when old stuff starts and finishes but then I tend to look for new die varieties which results in the same problem

For many years I have not only been following coins, and medals but also banknotes - and with a username of 'ColonialCoinsUK' it will come as no surprise that the focus of this was the banknotes of the British colonies. Congratulations to Alan Collection Malaysia for their Overall Acheivement Award in the 2021 PMG Registry Awards. To date I have resisted the urge as I would like to collect everything but the British Empire and the Commonwealth covered many countries, and many years, and I just couldn't pick one area. I was also continually shocked by the prices of high grade examples so sets complimenting my coins of Australia, Canada, South/East/West Africa, Palestine, Hong Kong, Malaya, India and so on was an impossibility. Unforrtunately the prices obtained at the recent January auctions just emphasised this! My interest in Napoleonic coinage meant that I have also become familiar with the banknotes of some of the other colonial powers e.g. France, Spain and Italy. Although these were typically more affordable than the British issues they still represented a significant challenge given the coins I would prefer to occupy the final slots in some key sets. I expect this is because I tend to be drawn to the more classical designs from the early 20th century rather than more modern issues. @Revenant has made the jump to successfully collecting both coins and banknotes so it must be possible! No doubt a Journal entry. or two, may appear over at PMG at some point as I have found what I think is an interesting area and I have even managed to put together a few banknotes to get started.

They need to go for grading anyway - much more saleable (and protected) that way, particularly for my family should I disappear unexpectedly

You did better than me, i finally found some coins I need to complete some sets and was just packing them up to send for grading next week - never mind

For the first time in years I actually had some time over the break and managed to sort through some coins. As I have mentioned a few times my original collection was British sixpences and, in particular Victorian ones (1864 to 1879) bearing die numbers in addition to the date. In turns out I had nearly 100 such sixpences scattered through various boxes that I had not catalogued properly. Some of these appear to be duplicates, some upgrades, some are die numbers that I was missing, some are unrecorded varieties and a few are even suitable for grading! I just need to deal with these now - the pile of other British and world coins still needs sorting out though. I hope I am not the only one behind with things.

Well spotted to Ali, I spend alot of time proof reading things so I have been there, done that and will no doubt do so again Work now has at least 3 people check things before they go out as an 'a' or and 'e' can make a big difference in a word - both are correct in their own right but the science is very different!

Documenting your journey putting together the Zimbabwe coins (and the Italian) has been fascinating - I think it just highlights the level of commitment and how difficult it is to do this and I have no doubt that world coins from this period will become mainstream for collectors at some point. The Award is very well deserved.

Congratulations to all the winners this year!

Many congratulations, I never realised there were so many coins depicting 'wildmen' or the story behind it. Very well deserved.