BRITISH STANDARD CATALOG PLATE COINS

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V25 2022 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 25, Number 5, January 30, 2022, Article 19

In a January 21, 2002 email to clients, dealer Allan Davisson discussed an interesting group of electrotype copies of British coins and how they were used to create plate images for the Standard Catalog of British Coins. With permission we're republishing it here. Thanks! -Editor

This all began after I pulled a small group of electrotype copies of British coins that I have been holding for decades out of the safe deposit box and began researching their history. Double-thick with clear lines around the edges showing where the two halves were fastened together, the pieces looked like a series of British Museum copies similar to the copies of the Museum's magnificent ancient coins produced in the 19th century.

The images in the two volumes on Anglo-Saxon coins published by the British Museum in 1887 and 1893 were clear matches of the electrotypes. But this did not answer the question of how they were used until I pulled out the first edition of The Standard Catalog of British Coins 1965 edited by Herbert Seaby. The Anglo-Saxon coins shown there were illustrations of the same British Museum coins.

Though Seaby gave this 1965 volume the designation first edition the firm had been publishing general catalogs since 1929. That year saw a paper cover edition priced at 6d. The 1934 edition came with a Stiff paper cover, and the 1936 edition offered both the stiff paper and a boards cover for 3/. The images in all the iterations of the catalog until 1962 1st edition were what Herbert Seaby called line blocks, careful line drawing images of the coins.

In the process of comparing the pieces the picture of the penny of Edward the Martyr (catalog number 662 in that first edition) to the piece in my group offered a strong clue. The darkness in the obverse legend from 3 to 5 o'clock was the same on the photo as on the piece in my hand. Other pieces confirmed this—weakness in the legend at REX on the Cuthred piece (430), a small spot near the edge at 5 on the reverse of the Aethelberht piece (this piece also shows an obverse spot that has come about since the photos were taken) and waviness in the flan, and a small die void on the obverse of the Alfred the Great piece (594). Most of the other pieces have subtle characteristics showing that these were used for the photos in the catalog.

These images were used continuously through the change from a small 5 by 7 1/2 inch format to the now standard 5 1/2 by 8 3/4 inch format in 1978. The name changed from Seaby to the Spink Standard Catalog in 2000. In 2007 the Preface announced a complete revolution in the production of the catalog having made the decision to print in full colour… and the use of these images ended.

The 1997 Preface goes on to thank institutions and individuals who have allowed us…to photograph [their] coins. Since then, important collections handled by Spink have provided updated images of many pieces and the notation that a particular coin is a Standard Catalog plate coin both adds to the general appeal of the piece as well as attracting some collectors who specifically pursue such pieces.

The Standard Catalog of British Coins published as the First Edition 1962 began a series that has become the essential standard for anyone interested in British coins. In the years since, the catalog has grown from a small format 224 page book to a 600+ page volume with details added to many sections, and beginning in 2011 several pages of advertising placed by dealers of British coins.

"The Aethelheard piece (second from the bottom) is shown here exactly as it was in the Standard Catalog all those years. However, the reverse is upside down—a mistake that no one caught in all the time the reference was published."