News & Blog

It appears the latest 50p coin from the Royal Mint will feature the Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson's scary but delightful monster who first appeared in 1999, and will be available from February 19. We aren't sure whether this will go into circulation like the Beatrix Potter and Paddington coins or...

The Token Team is once again looking forward to attending the Irish International Coin and Medal fair (now called the Irish Collectors Fair) to be held at the Royal Dublin Society, Ballsbridge, Dublin on the weekend of February 23-24. We love it in the city and are thoroughly looking forward to...

Falling in love again HAVING just come back from the York Coin Fair (there is generally a good selection of medals there too—always worth attending, the next one is July 19–20) I was struck by the plethora of new people coming in. These weren’t the traditional coin collectors of old but...

What makes a complete collection? AS we go to press we learn that Britannia is coming back! She will appear again on the 50p but only for a select few: those who visit the Royal Mint Experience in Llantrisant, South Wales and who “strike their own coin”. Rather interestingly the Royal Mint...

Giants of the hobby OK so how did it get to be January 2019 already? What sort of date is that? It’s ludicrous, a science fiction date. How on earth are we already 19 years past the millennium? Are you perhaps finding, as I am, that each year goes by more rapidly than the last? It’s getting kind...

Colouring the past FOR those of you who don’t know the song “Green Fields of France” (originally written by Australian Eric Bogle but made famous by Irish band Davey Arthur and the Fureys), I urge you to listen to it and its lyrics if you can. It is written from the perspective of a traveller...

It’s just a coin… SO after months of speculation the Treasury announced, on Monday, October 29, as part of the Budget report, that there was to be a “Brexit” coin. Apparently a 50p piece will be minted next year to commemorate/celebrate/mourn (depending on your viewpoint) our breaking away from...

We will remember them AS WE go to press we learn that Cambridge University Students’ Union has voted down a proposal to promote this year’s Remembrance Day commemorations, believing that to do so would be to somehow glorify war. Apparently some wonderfully right-on student “activist” instead put...

Jolly good show THIS year saw the 40th Anniversary of the British Numismatic Trade Association’s (BNTA) flagship coin show, Coinex. In recent years the event has been held at the Millennium Hotel, Grosvenor Square, in the heart of Mayfair but this year that hotel is being refurbished and so a...

The medal not the man? IN last month’s “News and Views” we announced that Worcestershire Medal Services had recently won the contract to produce the UK’s medals. What was particularly interesting about that story was the contract includes the production of historical medals too, not just the...

Cashless Society? So what? As we go to press in early September so yet another “story” breaks about how cash is being over taken by credit and debit cards. As is the way of things these days so the story (picked up by a number of media outlets) happily tells us that cash is on its way out, how...

Convention Call HAVING recently returned from Denver and the annual Orders and Medals Society of America (OMSA) Convention, I would like to use this month’s comment as an appeal. To be honest OMSA was not a great success this year. It was wonderful to see so many old friends and the social...

We have been informed of the theft of the medals of a former member of the R.E.M.E. The theft took place in Derby from his home in May 2018, Afghanistan medal medal issued to 30062968 Cpl A. Bloomer R.E.M.E and his UN Cyprus medal and other related items. Any information please contact PC Paul...