News & Blog

Queen of Coins

Posted on Tue, 22 December 2015 by Alyson Thomas - Coin News

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New Year, New Start

BACK in November I announced that after 17 Years in ”Orchard House” in Honiton, Token Publishing was on the move to Exeter. After a somewhat fraught two weeks where nearly two decades of books and auction catalogues stubbornly refused to fit into our new premises, our telephone company delivered too few handsets and the phone lines that were meant to be installed didn’t materialise—you know, the usual hassles—we are finally in, up and running (more or less). The reasons behind the move are myriad but the main one was that we just wanted a change. After so long in one place, doing the same thing, we just felt it was time to shake things up a little—so we did!

Already we know that the move was absolutely the right thing to do and feel very much at home in our new offices, but it isn’t just our location we are changing as some of you will notice this month. The main change within the pages of the magazine is, at this stage, the “Market Scene” feature as, after more than 30 years of covering the London auctions for us, John Andrew has decided to retire from the task. We will, of course, miss his analysis each month and would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his tireless efforts over the years, however, his knowledge of the market is second to none and replacing him would be an almost impossible task—so we aren’t going to, at least not in the accepted sense. “Market Scene” has always been a central part of the editorial side of COIN NEWS and we don’t want that to disappear, although we have decided we might want to change things around a little. This month we have steered away from the “narrative” style and instead have opted for a simpler approach, but as I said in November, nothing is set in stone and if it isn’t what you, the readers, want then we can change again. Do you, perhaps, not want any commentary at all preferring instead just a list of the highlights from each sale? Maybe highlights with a little commentary (as in “A View from the Bay”)? Do you want us to continue concentrating on the big London Houses or would you rather see us covering some of the more local auctions too? What happens to “Market Scene” is very much up to you—we may put the magazine together each month but without our readers’ feedback we wouldn’t know whether we were getting it right or not. So please do tell us what you want to see.

The new year is always a good time for a new start. We have a new home and we will be experimenting with new ideas within these pages, but as I said in November: if they don’t work, if you don’t like them, we can always change back!

So here’s to 2016 and a new start at our new address which is:

40 Southernhay East, Exeter, EX1 1PE

The email addresses stay the same and, thanks to the miracles of modern technology (when it finally arrives) we have taken our telephone numbers with us so we can still be reached on
01404 46972

...and here’s to a Happy and Prosperous New Year to everyone.