Two pictures of coins caught my eye in the paper last week.
One is the Maple Leaf coin described as the largest gold coin in the world which will be auctioned on June 25.
The other is a new £5 coin issued by the Royal Mint to mark the 2012 Olympics & the 70th anniversary of the start of Winston Churchill’s career as prime minister.
2012 will also mark the Diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II & I found myself idly wondering whether, with such a long reign, the number of coins bearing her portrait which have been minted constitutes some kind of historical record. Queen Victoria reigned just as long of course, so it is interesting to speculate whether the number of coins produced during her reign would have been greater – because not so much use was made of paper money & there were no plastic cards. On the other hand, because of economic growth & inflation, the amount of money in circulation must be very much greater during the reign of ER II. And in making an estimate we would also need to take account of the effects of Empire, Commonwealth & Independence.
By coincidence History of the World in 100 Objects on Monday looked at the Vale of York hoard and considered among other things what the coins could tell us about the links which existed, over a millennium ago, between England, Scandinavia & places as far away as Samarkand.
One of those things I should like to pop back for in a few hundred years time – to see what interpretations the historians & archaeologists of the future are drawing from finds of the coins bearing the head of Elizabeth II.
