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V4 2001 INDEX       E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 18, April 29, 2001, Article 2 NEW BOOK: COUNTERMARKS IN GREAT BRITAIN Paul Withers of Galata coins provides this book review: "Tokens of the Industrial Revolution Foreign Silver Coins Countermarked for use in Great Britain, c.1787-1828." Harrington E Manville. 327 pages + 55 plates. 20 x 27 cm. Fully illustrated throughout. London. 2001. ISBN 1-902040-41-4 Published jointly by the British Numismatic Society and Spink. British Numismatic Society Special Publication No. 3. Price £40. Mr. Manville is known to be a researcher par excellence. His three volumes in the series Encyclopaedia of British Numismatics give ample evidence of his efforts. If you do not know this series, it is time to get to know it. We find all three volumes wonderfully useful and they have saved us considerable time and effort. However, this new volume eclipses those and the one criticism one could make is the title which is a little misleading as the countermarks mainly occur on spanish colonial dollars that were countermarked for use in Scotland - though it has to be said that countermarks do appear on other pieces, including bits of dollars, other tokens, and for locations other than those in Scotland - and it is difficult to think of a catchy title for the subject. We have done a little research on a similar field - the copper tokens of this period, which took two of us, working hard, for about three years, following in the footsteps of Davis, so we have an idea of the amount of work that has gone into this, the hours that must have been spent in libraries, museums and other institutions. The blurb on the jacket says that the book took about 35 years to write. We can believe such a statement and can only add that the fruit of such long and devoted research is a book that is incredibly detailed and carefully and lovingly written. The series is a difficult one. The coins themselves are rare, often extremely rare and there are forgeries - 'genuine' counterfeits struck at the same time as the genuine countermarks were applied, genuine countermarks on fake coins, fake countermarks on fake coins struck at the same time as the 'official' issues, and of course, fakes made later for collectors at various times from the early 1900s to much more modern pieces, some of which have by now acquired sufficient patination to look interesting and sufficiently decayed so as to be dangerously deceptive to collectors who have not seen them before. These are largely identified with certainty, precision and excellent enlarged photographs illustrate them. However, one minor point of criticism - but then a good reviewer must always find a minor point, even in the most excellent of books, to prove that (a) he has read it, and (b) he knows enough of the subject sufficiently well to make a valid point : in the section on Concoctions and Non-circulating Counterstamps, on page 235, Manville writes 'S. H. Hamer obtained the SUPPOSED (my capitalisation) original punches...' In British Copper Tokens 1811-1820 we illustrate three pairs of punches used to countermark Birmingham pennies, and examination of a token counterstamped in 1906 by Hamer shows that his concoction is in fact made with one of these sets of genuine punches. So, not supposed after all, but the real thing - and now a respectable item associated with one of the better-known collectors of the period and a collector's item in its own right. However, this is but a very minor point, and it does not detract more than an almost imperceptible fraction from this wonderful tome. These coins are so rare that we are unlikely to see any but the most common, and even those in only small numbers, but I would still want this book on my shelves as it is a wonderful example of the researcher's art, and as an inspiration. This is a work that is monumental, ground-breaking and definitive. It is available from Galata, at 70 US dollars including postage. http://www.galata.co.uk/

Wayne Homren, Editor

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