 The Festival of Coins is brought to you in partnership with the Numismatic Guarantee Corporation and the Royal Mint Museum. Hello everyone and welcome to your chance to ask the experts where we have asked you to send in your questions that you would like answered from myself, Chris Barker at the Royal Mint Museum and my colleague David Mason. David is the man who is primarily responsible for dealing with questions from the public. So David if you'd like to kick off with what we've had so far and we can run through them line by line. Absolutely, yeah. The first question we've had in from members of the public is if you could take one coin home from the museum's collection to keep which one would you take? It's a very tricky question and obviously let's start by saying we wouldn't take any of them obviously because they're part of the collection but it's a very tricky question because the museum has got such a fantastic wealth of coins particularly great rarities and having sort of given this some thought for a little while probably something maybe like Thomas Simon's Petition Crown which has got a fantastic design. You've got this wonderful depiction of Charles II on there by very gifted engraver Thomas Simon from the restoration after Charles II comes back to the throne and he's in sort of competition with another engraver called Rotier and he produces a Simon that has produced this magnificent portrait of Charles II. It's just a real showcase of the artistry of coin design and the really impressive thing about the Petition Crown has also been horrifically rare and to come across and never get one is the edge inscription. It's this dual edge inscription where he's put his petition to Charles II saying you know look how good an engraver and designer I am please pay attention to me and basically choose me as the mince engraver it's a sort of abbreviated version of what it is but that's what it boils down to. I think this year's skill and artistry and also the technical skill involved in getting that double edge inscription on there is something that always stands out for me and is a real highlight personally of some of the extremely rare material that we have but there's just so many rarities in there for example you know Vigo five guineas yet again another great story even down to coins with a life story in and of themselves yet again touch on the reign of Charles II when the Roman starts making copper hapenis and farthings for the first time we've got no experience of making copper coin at the mint so we buy copper blanks in and we buy them in from Sweden and they're shipped across from Sweden to England and on the way across one of these ships sinks just off the coast of Hall and in our collection we actually have these very sort of worn badly degraded copper blanks which just look nothing particularly special but those were the copper blanks that were coming across from Sweden in the 17th century that sank on that ship and then were found in the 1980s and several centuries later found their way to the Roman somewhat late but they've got a it's an amazing story just this copper blank which sits in in the museum's collection I don't know about you David but I don't know of any things that jump to mind for yourself whether there's anything that's getting just not been here too long but in the short time that you have been here whether there's anything that has really caught your eye I think you've hit the nail on the head there that there are so many wonderfully rare and beautiful pieces in the museum collection and certainly the first of those you were speaking about there really highlights not only the beauty of some of the engraving work and some of the actual coin designs but some of the stories that go into that kind of engraving work and then some of the historical knowledge that is unlocked from these pieces and I think from my perspective that's what I've been finding really fascinating here so it's perhaps a little bit of an obvious answer and perhaps one that other people might go for as well that any of the the specimens that the museum holds of the sort of the proposed coinage of of Edward VIII I think would be absolutely fantastic for the stories that they tell and the way that they directly engage with British history and the history of the British monarchy anything like that that really that really taps into the historical stories I think I find fascinating here and that's that throws here certainly for myself anyway it's it's the stories that behind the pieces that really excite me it's not so much the the shiny gold coins obviously we do have a lot of shiny gold coins but it's not so much that that that really interests me it's that story behind the piece and also what that can tell you about the period or the history of the time we've got some a good collection of pieces from from Cromwell's time in charge it's basically a military dictator and I and I love them because they can see on there you've got Cromwell on the coinage like a almost Roman Emperor-esque looking very much like a monarch and it tells you that elements of history where Cromwell although he's protector he's king in orbit name and you really do see that by looking at the coinage from the time and so what you can get from coins and the stories you can get from them are the things that really interest me and keep me engaged in the subject matter really absolutely they've they've always seemed to me to be artifact of social history the the way that a coin passes from person to person the way that a coin is produced it can act as a political symbol the way that it functions internationally and it's traded hand to hand country to country I think just leads on an individual piece levels and really fascinating stories but also evidently at a production level as well yeah well I think we've given a plethora of answers there I'm not sure we have to answer this question directly but so we've got we've got a few to go at um what what what else have we had him ah wow we've had uh we've had a really interesting one here about collectors as well uh how non-collectors react to learning about money and coins obviously we we run some VIP tours of the museum we have people here to see the collection occasionally don't we yeah that's correct and um I always see it as a challenge when people come in and say they're not particularly interested in in the coins or coins or the roman for example because one of the things that I think about when people come into the museum is that even if they are saying that to me if I can't find a way to connect to them then I failed and I say that not because I think the coinage is the be all in the end all it's because of what we do here at the minute touches on so many aspects of history also manufacturing the engineering side of things art and design basically there is a way in for anybody with an interest in anything whether that's like I say from engineering engineering rather art and design or from science or from coinage um there's there's so many angles in and even if somebody walks through the door thinking that there'll be nothing in here for them just because you know they see us as a place where coins are made and that's all that's done here then then they are wrong because there's there's so many more aspects to it and that's the thing that really sort of blew my mind initially when I started it was just the sheer depth of what goes on at the Royal Mint it's very rare these days you come across a manufacturing site where pretty much everything is done on site which is certainly the case still at the Royal Mint absolutely there's so much of our collection I think that touches on the places and the people involved in the history of the Royal Mint and even the administration of it as well so much more than just the output and the production so one of the most interesting things that certainly I find is looking up family history inquiries for those relatives of former employees of the Mint those people who necessarily don't have a personal interest in coins or collecting but who have an interest in genealogy or in finding out more about their family tree or just generally living a little bit more about historical manufacture or that sort of thing yeah and that's it and there is a way in for pretty much anybody with and that and we can tailor it to suit what their interests are and I think that's certainly something for people watching this is for them to bear that in mind is that even though you might think that there's might not be something there for you there actually is and that's that is certainly something to take away I think that actually brings us very neatly on to another question we've had which is how can collectors use the museum to find out about coins in their own collection that's a very good question because one of the problems that we have as a museum is that we're based on the raw mint site and the raw mint is obviously a very secure site we do these days have the raw mint experience which is allow public to see some of the collection but by and large this vastly still shut behind two layers of barbed wire fences and that touches in what we've been trying to do over the past few years here in the museum which is to make that collection more accessible and people should look out for what is coming up on the raw mint museum's website because we're certainly starting to digitize an awful lot more of our collection and in the coming months we'll be putting up the raw mint museums the raw mints rather annual reports from 1870 right through until 1976 which are fascinating documents and really give you an in-depth view of what the mint was doing at that time and that is the start of a more broader program of digitalization and putting material out there to the public added to that we've got the collection online where we're starting to go through all of the museum's coin collection and put that online in a way that is accessible to people to look up and see what we've got in the collection and obviously the obvious one in some ways is people can come and ask us you know get in touch through the museum's web form or if you're down in south wales come into the raw mint experience where we try to be as accessible as we can we try to answer questions so if people do have questions and queries then get in touch with us and we'll do what we can we can't always necessarily you know find a way to answer all the questions but we'll do whatever we can to to deal with those that crop up absolutely like you said by the the nature of where we are and who we are we are closed doors but we are trying our best to be as open as possible and day to day certainly you and I are spending a large amount of our time popping down into our library into our archives researching things that people have asked looking up as I've said before family histories examining production records going through all of the different information we have available in order to we assist with research projects don't we and international museum collaboration projects as well recently which has been brilliant yeah and we've got quite a wide wide range of questions that are asked to us so if people do have anything that they want to know about then then get in touch I think that's the that's the message for people to take away when they're listening to this is do get in touch with us and we'll do what we can absolutely and that's right there on the Royal Mint Museum website we have a web form which will allow you to get directly in touch we have well as you've said we get questions of all sorts and we'll we'll gladly do what we can to assist collectors and non collectors alike the one thing we would say however is if you are getting in touch with us do make sure you send us good quality pictures of whatever you want us to know about that is that is one of our little bug bears is that we sometimes get pictures in from people as we're looking at these blurry images and thinking how on earth are we meant to say what that is because we can't even see what it is on the screen let alone you know from the quality of the picture so that's a slight bug bear of mine it's when it comes to some of the inquiries that we do get in absolutely yeah but I mean the pictures can we can often tell a reasonable amount from the pictures can't we if they are reasonable quality if we get pictures of a coin and we can often give at least an initial assessment yeah exactly um so that's that is certainly one thing we would say is good quality photography does help uh what else have we got David we have had another question through asking more generally about the museum here is the Royal Mint Museum only concerned with British coins and the answer to that is definitely no because of what the Royal Mint has done over its past and the Royal Mint has been concerned with international manufacturing for for for many centuries to be honest um and as a result of that we in the museum have got a vast collection of overseas coins because the Mint has made them and we will be in a position to offer advice and expertise on anything that the Royal Mint has made um you know provider that we have made it whether it's British or whatever that might be we will try and do our best to offer a definitive opinion or an expert opinion on any of those questions um you know the sheer breadth that the Royal Mint Museum's international collection is huge and that's not just from a coinage perspective that comes from medals and tooling artwork as well downstairs that we have in the library there's a whole host of material uh that touches on what the Mint has done over the past and that we have in our uh library and in our collection yeah I think you've absolutely hit the nail on the head there we we have a vast collection um a large amount of which is international coins at the Royal Mint has produced previously and we do hold a huge amount of information on that as well be that in our library in reference volumes or in terms of production records as well so exactly the same sort of thing here do get in touch if we can be of assistance about that sort of thing if the Royal Mint has made it then absolutely excellent and um I believe that is all the questions that we've had in isn't it David we've got so far um I believe so yes but the good news is of course if you do have further questions about the Royal Mint Museum or the Royal Mint we as I've said we do have the enquiries web page on our website you can get in touch relatively easily that's it yeah do get in touch that's the that's the takeaway from everyone get in touch with us if you wanted to know any more and if you are in south wales um do come down to the Royal Mint experience because we'll be able to speak to you face to face now that we're reopened thankfully with the COVID restrictions have been eased um although we may be mask to mask most most more to speak but we would be very happy to see you all down there in south wales and do bring anything along if you've got any questions about it as well absolutely well thank you very much chris that was delightfully informative and hopefully we will hear from lots of people soon with uh yet more questions about the museum and the mint well we'll look forward to it thank you everyone thanks very much bye bye