 The Festival of Coins is brought to you in partnership with the Numismatic Guarantee Corporation and the Royal Mint Museum. Okay, so welcome to our Festival of Coins talk for this afternoon, another in conversation with, and we're very lucky to be joined by Jonathan Callaway this afternoon. Jonathan is a retired banker who has researched, studied and collected paper money for over 30 years. He's the co-author of many banknote catalogs and histories of the money issues of Ireland and Scotland. He's a director of the International Banknote Society and he's also a contributor to CoinCollector magazine, regular contributor with the banknote article we have in each issue of the magazine. So Jonathan, thanks so much for joining us today. How are you? Very well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you. Excellent, okay. So I thought we'd start with your kind of background and your interesting banknotes. How did that develop? How did you become a collector? Well, I think I was probably a collector from a very early age. So I had an uncle who started to give me old stamps when I was probably six or seven years old. So I started off with stamps and then we had an ex-door neighbor who worked for the trustee savings bank and in 1961, ancient history, the trustee, the TSB had a competition. Get a penny for every year from 1860 to 1960 and you can get every one. You get a prize and so I started collecting old pennies and then I moved on to hastenies and farthings and then silver throttling bits, etc, etc. So I collected coins from then for probably about 10 years and then somebody showed me an old banknote and I was in Scotland with my parents and we noticed that the money was different up there because the Scots have their own banknote. So I thought, well, this is something different to collect and that's really how it started. Of course, when I first started, I had no money. So it was quite a lot to put a 10-shilling note or a pound note on one side but gradually I built up from that and started with English and Scottish notes and then moved on to Irish and other ones. So it's all, I mean, I basically, the world belongs, the world is either people who collect or don't collect and I'm one of the world's collectors. So that's how it all started. Excellent. Okay. And how do you think it compares with collecting coins because you started collecting coins and then went on to banknotes? I mean, do you still collect coins as well? No, not really. No, I mean, I still got my old coin collection, which is basically silver from 1816 and copper or bronze from 1860 and that was what I collected. It was all stuff I got out of my change before decimalization. But I mean, I think the reason I got more interested in banknotes is really because banknotes are obviously a much larger piece of paper. It's obviously in size and much bigger than a coin and it gives the artist far more scope to make the item interesting. And I think that's probably why I got more attracted to them than the coins. I mean, for a lot of coin collectors, they're looking at a much earlier era, because paper money obviously came much later, at least the bulk of it did, than paper money and then banknotes. So you're looking at a different era for a lot of coin collectors. So, but I got into the paper money and the earliest note I've got dates back to 1723. And certainly in Europe, you don't see notes much earlier than that. Whereas obviously with coins, they would go back hundreds of thousands of years before that. But I found that the artistic scope and variety of banknotes, something I was increasingly interested in. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So how do you think, you know, that you've got that larger canvas, I suppose, with a banknote? How do you think paper money tells us about a country's history and its culture? Well, I think it tells us quite a lot. I mean, obviously, there is a huge amount. And if you think of the old English white fibres, they don't tell you very much at all, because there's one tiny little picture of Britannia in the top corner. You know, there's no colour. There's nothing on the back of it. So it doesn't really tell you much about England or British history. But the notes from many other countries, particularly the Scottish notes and some of the Irish notes, you've got symbols of nationalism, you've got, you know, scenes of from the country concerned, you've got, you know, images of historic figures from the country concerned, you know, because all countries do take pride in their history. So you do get quite an insight, you know, and as you go around the world, you'll see all these different cultural influences getting onto their notes. So if you look at the notes of an Islamic country, for example, there'll be lots of patterns, but very rarely do you see the images of individuals, because that is not something that is preferred in most Islamic countries. So you'll get lots of pictures of ancient ruins and mosques and, you know, historic sites, but rather less of people themselves. But it does vary, obviously. Some countries are quite happy to put, you know, early monarchs or other, you know, historic figures on their notes. But some of them, some Islamic countries prefer not to have any human images on their notes. So it does vary from country to country. But all of the, I think, almost without exception, a country will want to say something about its history and its culture on the notes. And of course, as you say, there are, you know, there is a canvas there to work from. And, you know, a lot of countries take full advantage of that. Yeah. So in your own collection, do you, obviously, you kind of started out with the United Kingdom, Scotland and England, do you now collect any banknote around the world? No. I think there's way too much scope. And I think you have to, you know, if you're going to have a serious collection, I think you've got to, you know, you've got to have some focus to it. Yeah. Yeah, I've got notes from various countries, but most of my stuff is Scottish or Irish or English. I mean, I've, you know, I've got notes from the Isle of Man and Jersey and Guernsey, but for the rest of Europe and for other parts of the world, they're just notes that I pick up along the way that I find particularly interesting or particularly attractive. Yeah. But I haven't made a collection out of those. Okay. So, I mean, the reason I asked that was, was whether to see whether you have any particular favourites around the world? Well, I certainly do. I have to say, I'm sort of coming across new favourites every day, you know, with the articles I'm writing for, for coin collector, you know, going from one country to the next. Yeah. Once you start to really look at an individual country's notes, you think, you know, I could collect these, you know, the French notes, for example, absolutely wonderful. Yeah, that's it. There you go. I mean, they're absolutely beautiful. You know, they, and they did genuinely recruit established French artists to design the notes. And it shows, you know, when you compare that with a, you know, the Bank of England equivalents of the time, that, you know, the French notes are absolutely splendid. I've never collected them, but maybe I will. Okay. Yeah. But you need to have that focus, don't you? Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So what tips would you give to people wanting to start a collection? Obviously, we already covered the, you need some kind of focus. And what other tips would you give to someone? Well, I think, I think start with, probably start with the country that you're from. So, you know, if you live in this country in the UK, you know, particularly if you live in England, you would start with Bank of England notes, because they're generally quite cheap. You know, you can get old pound notes for just a couple of pounds, possibly even less than that, if they're, you know, a bit sort of worn. But you can start to build up a collection quite easily. You know, once you've started a collection, you then get a feel for what you'd like to have to add to it. And if you've, let's say you just stick with, you know, 10 Bob notes and pound notes, you could have quite a collection of Bank of England notes, you know, the Scottish, all the different Scottish banks, different Irish banks, et cetera. And before you know where you are, you've got, you know, you've got quite a right wide range of really attractive notes. And, you know, as they're relatively modern, and if they're low denomination, they won't be expensive. And yet there'll be a lot of interests there. You know, they're all very colourful, apart from the Bank of England. And, you know, they're all, and they've all got their own interests. So that's where I would start. Start close to home. I mean, if you've got, you know, if you visit another country regularly, you'll probably have seen their notes just from, you know, having been there. And, you know, that's another thing you could do. I mean, I was, I had a very lucky to have a trip to Bhutan a couple of years ago, which is, you know, very remote and up in the Himalayas. And I got a set of notes when I was there. And they're beautiful. And it's such an interesting country. And the notes tell you quite a story about the monarchs and the history of the monarchy, and, you know, all the different castles they've got, they've built up in the mountains. So, you know, I started that as a sort of sideline in a way. But, you know, I think that, you know, if people do travel a lot, they'll come across notes of different countries and, you know, something will trigger their interests. And they just, you know, I think you just follow your interests. You know, don't have to be too organised about it. Certainly not in the early days. You know, and I think people's, you know, if you want to develop a specialism, and that will probably come in time when you find an area that particularly interests you. Okay. And would you, would you say you can collect by theme as well? Is that something you can do with notes? Or is that quite tricky? No, it's not tricky. You need to get a good world catalogue. And, you know, the last printed world catalogs are now becoming difficult to find because they're no longer being produced. I mean, everything's online now. But yeah, I mean, if you want to collect, I don't know, people do it with all sorts of themes, you know, aircraft, you know, lots of early banknotes or more recent banknotes, aircraft on them, or wildlife scenes, you know, different, you know, lions, tigers, you know, other creatures. And, you know, you can build up quite a good thematic collection. And some countries have absolutely beautiful notes, just focus on the wildlife, you know, Costa Rica, for example, which has fantastic wildlife. That's got onto their notes, you know, having birds and butterflies and, you know, all that sort of thing. So, you know, other people collect notes with musical instruments on or with actual musical notation on them. Yeah, it's quite a common way to collect. I mean, I guess that's also true in the stamp world as well, is thematic collecting. But it does happen in banknotes. And, you know, again, there's incredible scope. I think you just need to have a, you know, a catalogue to give you an overview of what's out there. Okay. And then where would you go, you know, if you've decided on a theme or a particular country, what's your first kind of port of call to get that first item? Where would you recommend? In the modern world, if you can't get a big paper catalogue, then I can show you one of these things. I mean, it's huge. It's sort of A4 size. It's about three or four inches thick. Yeah. And, you know, it's crammed with illustrations. But, you know, it's out of print now, basically. But, you know, that type of world catalogue, and there are others available. But I guess in today's world, you just go online and Google it all. Yeah. You know, if you Google, I don't know, banknotes of India, just for example, and you click on the tab that says images, you'll get millions of images of India banknotes. And you can soon see whether there's anything there that would really interest you. You'll also be able to pick out anything for the theme that you're following, whether it's wildlife or whatever. So, you know, a lot of this sort of thing can be done online now to get the information you need. It's a shame that there's no longer an easily available world catalogue. But, you know, that's the way of the world. It was the company that printed these things, went out of business. Somebody bought a copyright, but somebody else has bought the production facilities. So, it's two different companies owning different segments. So, it's unlikely, in the short term anyway, that a new printed catalogue of world banknotes is going to appear. I mean, they're huge. They really are. I'm going to show you one. Okay, great. All right. Okay. There you go. This is one of three volumes, by the way. It's called World Paper Money, as you can see. But all the illustrations in this thing are black and white. So, you only get a kind of snapshot, really. You know, you don't get the real feel to how, you know, how colorful a lot of them are. But, yeah, that sort of thing. But it's not being printed anymore. Yeah. That's the problem. Okay. And then just purchasing the notes, presumably, you know, eBay will be the first port of call for a lot of people. Requiring them, yeah, probably eBay. Yeah. I mean, there are, you know, I think the Stelkampi is another one. I think there's several of these sort of auction sites. And lots of dealers. And again, Google can help. But, you know, there's lots of dealers who deal online, you know, away from eBay. And you'll soon be able to find their websites and then see what there is available. Yeah. So, it's, you know, it's a different way of collecting. It's not the way I started. I didn't have the internet then. No. Okay. But you still had the dealers there. And I guess they were, they're such a wealth of knowledge, aren't they? Yeah, they are. You know, most of the dealers that I know are very reputable. They're delighted when somebody comes along and wants to learn something and ask lots of questions. Yeah. You know, they'll have stuff in their stock that is at the cheap end of the scale. And, you know, you can work from there. But they're always delighted to get a new customer, basically. Yeah, absolutely. But they do like sharing their knowledge, most of them. And they're very good about it. And they're also very honest. Say, look, don't buy that one. You know, it's been washed, it's been damaged or whatever, you know, and they'll try and guide people to spot the, you know, the traps that you can fall into. Yeah. Yeah. That's brilliant. So as well as traders, are there any kind of groups or societies that would help? Yes. If you want to research or just get started? Well, you mentioned at the beginning that I'm a director of the International Banknote Society. And that's the obvious place to start. I mean, they have a journal. And in fact, the new issue of the journal has just come out. That conveyor, you can see that. It comes out four times a year. It's in full colour. There's always all sorts of articles. And also, they have a section on new notes. So anything new that's been issued around the world, you've got details of it in here. And, you know, that's a great way to keep up to speed with what's going on. But also, you can just see, you know, the variety of stuff that's coming out. Of course, a lot of paper money now is actually becoming polymer rather than paper. Yes. Over 30 countries, I think now that have moved from paper to polymer and more are almost definitely going to follow. Yeah, certainly. So that's a good start. The IB&S, the International Banknote Society. I mean, we've got a branch in London. It's actually technically an American organisation, but it's got local branches or chapters in, I don't know, 30 countries around the world. So, you know, there's great range. There are also separate societies for specialists as the Banknote Society of Scotland, which occasionally meets. It's not obviously met during the COVID crisis, but they would normally meet in Edinburgh three or four times a year. They've got an online magazine, which is, you know, really, really very good. And, you know, most of the members, they've got about 100 members, you know, they contribute it and send in little articles and so on. You know, and it's not all about Scottish notes. It's other things too. But, you know, so there are quite a few of these societies around, you know, and generally numismatic societies will focus on coins, but a lot of them will have people who collect banknotes either as a sideline or as their sort of main interest. You know, I mean, in Ireland, I mean, I know the people in the numismatic society of Ireland, which is based in Dublin and Belfast. It's a sort of cross border society. You know, they produce papers from time to time and they have currently online meetings. And thus, you know, these are all ways to, you know, to learn more and get to meet people. Physically, one of these days, I hope we'll all have physical meetings again. Certainly, you know, meeting online is the next best thing. Yeah. So there's quite a few of those around and, you know, I don't know whether you list them in the magazine, but maybe it's a good idea to have a list of societies and we could we could build one up for the banknotes as well as the coins. So, you know, that would be my suggestion. Okay. And just thinking about banknotes, you know, the history of them is relatively short compared to coins. I'm just wondering, do you think there's there's a lot of scope for further research about banknotes? Do you think it's kind of all being covered and written about, or there's there's a lot for us to still to explore? Well, I showed you the catalogue, one of the three catalogues. So, you know, most banknotes have been catalogued. But that's, you know, that that's just a list in most cases, you know, with pictures. It doesn't tell you anything about the background, you know, why it is that this bank was issuing notes in a certain period, why things changed from this to, you know, this style to that style, you know, etc, etc. So, on a country by country basis, local numismatic societies will sometimes have done some of that research. And in case, you know, in some cases, there are specialist catalogues available or particular countries, paper money, you know, obviously, I've done the one for Ireland and the one for Scotland. But, you know, there's a lawful lot of countries where there isn't anything like that. And the research is just sitting there waiting for someone to do it. You know, the research, which I do more, I do more research than I do collecting nowadays, because my collections, you know, the gaps to fill the gaps in the collection is now an expensive undertaking. But, you know, the research is for those who do it, I think, extremely enjoyable, because you never quite know what you're going to discover. I mean, only today, I had an exchange of emails with somebody in the Bank of England Museum, and they have discovered that they've got a ledger there, full of old Irish banknotes, and they've been sending me pictures of these things and stuff there that I've never seen before. So, you know, it's only a casual question to them, by the way, do you have any Irish notes? Because they did say in the past, they didn't have any. Well, they were always there, they just didn't know it, you know, in some sort of anonymous ledger at the back of the cupboard. So, you know, there's new discoveries all the time, there's a huge amount of research still to be done. I mean, the second edition of my Irish catalogue is now in the works, it's going to be probably twice as big as the first edition, because of what we've learned in the last 10 years. And that's just one small country. So, yeah, there's a huge amount of research to be done. And, you know, whatever area it is, you'll probably find one or two experts who really know it, but you'll also find there is so much information that's just never been pulled together and nobody has the full story and that sort of thing. So, yeah, that's, you know, it's not like philaterally, I mean, philaterally, you know, there's been so much academic work done and certainly early coins, the numismatic research, you know, because a lot of academics have involved themselves, far less so with paper money. It's not a virgin area, but it's never had the same rigorous academic attention in a lot of cases. I mean, one of the interesting things I find about banknotes is that it's tied up with banking history, obviously, economic history, you know, social history as well. You know, if I look at, take the Irish notes just as an example, the early Irish notes, if you go back to the earliest ones, which was also in the 1732, it's the earliest one I'd come across, you know, in those days, there were all small private local partnerships. There was no kind of national bank, no, you know, equivalent to the Bank of England until much later. And, you know, these are, you know, a lot of the information that you get actually comes out of family histories, or it comes out of some local historical research, who says, you know, we've researched this or that family, and yes, they own this country house and so on, and they had a little bank as well. You know, so there's a lot of stuff like that you can, you know, uncover and then pull together. And that's true equally, it's not just Ireland, I mean, that's certainly true in England, Scotland, and probably, you know, right across Europe, you know, in the beginning, there were no national banks. It was all just little private local enterprises. Yeah. And there were no regulations that they wanted to set a bank up and start issuing bank notes. The only thing that stopped them was if people wouldn't take the notes. Yeah, of course. You know, there was no, you know, no regulation about it. And if people took the notes, it's because they knew who was signing it. And oh, yeah, I know him, he's a local squire or whatever, you know, yeah, we can trust him. And of course, you know, he might have taken advantage of that and issued far more notes than he could ever actually honor. You know, a lot of the early banks went bust because they weren't, you know, professionally managed. But again, that's part of the history. Yeah, absolutely. So really, you know, as a collector, you can delve into a particular topic as much as you want, can't you? You can, you know, just collect the bank notes, have a nice collection where you can really research and even come up with something that maybe hasn't been discovered before. Yeah, it's quite possible. I mean, you know, if you look at the early English notes, you've got you always had the Bank of England there, at least from 1694, you had the Bank of England. But there were always these small private banks around. And nearly any town of any size right across England would have had its own little bank at some point in its history. And, you know, and that's, they become quite a core part of local history. Yeah. You know, as one, I mean, I went to school in Macclesfield in Cheshire, and there were three or four little banks there. And one of them was owned by a local industrialist and, you know, the Macclesfield used to be known for its silk factories. And, you know, they ran the local silk factories and they ran a bank on the side. Right. You know, so the two histories sort of combined. Yeah. And, you know, that makes it, you know, it's really quite interesting. And of course, there's local archives that you can dig into and you find more about the family and you find more about the bank notes they issued and, you know, and all the rest of it. And it's, it's, you know, there's an endless amount of research like that that can be done. Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. So I've got one more question for you, Jonathan. Yes. Probably quite a difficult one. But can you pick one favourite banknote from your own collection? Well, if you had to save one from a fire. I gave a talk once, which I called my 10 favourite banknotes. And there were 55 illustrations. So you can see how difficult it is. But if I was going to pick one out, I would say it's going to be one of the so-called story notes. So in other words, there's some particular story around that note. Yeah. And I've just written an article on a Portuguese banknote from, it was issued in 1922 for a few years. And some forgers, they thought, you know, they wanted a forged note, but they didn't forge the note. What they did was they forged instructions to the printers of the note and had hundreds of thousands more of the notes printed and delivered to them. Wow. The notes were printed in London. It was an English waterlose who also printed stamps, by the way. And they were completely taken in by this scam. And they followed instructions. Yes, we'll print the notes. And it looked as if it was the Bank of Portugal giving the instructions, because it wasn't. And yes, yes, of course, we'll deliver them in a trunk to Liverpool Street station, you know, to the, you know, the sort of left luggage area. And they did always, you know, and these guys just whisked the trunks off to Portugal, put these notes into circulation. And it was an incredible scandal at the time. And, you know, I've got one of these notes. And the big mystery is how do you tell the difference between the notes that were printed for the bank officially and the notes that were printed for the fraudsters? Because they asked, and they convinced the printers to print notes with the same numbers on as the ones they'd already done. So there were two of every number. The idea being that they would never, you know, it would be a very distant coincidence, given there were hundreds of thousands of these things, if somebody picked two notes up and they had the same numbers on, but that's how they did it. And eventually, the Bank of Portugal saw, hang on a minute, these two got the same numbers. And then they started to gather them all in and realized that they had a huge problem. But they got away with it for a time. And they made a lot of money before they were caught and arrested. The note itself, it's a beautiful note, but boy, is that a great story. So I have to say at the moment, that's my favorite note. But there may be a different one next week. Yeah, that's brilliant. Okay. Well, thanks so much for your time, Jonathan. It's been really interesting. And as I mentioned at the start, you write the article in each issue of Coin Collector. So we're going around the world, aren't we? And looking at the different notes from different countries. So do you have a look at that if you can get the magazine? Yeah. France. Last one was Germany. Next one. Can I say what the next one will be? Yeah, please. Okay. The next one is H, which is Hong Kong. Fantastic. And then I, I will be India. Yeah. And then, yeah, we'll carry on through the alphabet. Yeah. Fantastic. So no, I'm working on those at the moment. Brilliant. Okay. So if anyone's interested in, in that, just come to the website at allaboutcoins.co.uk and you can buy the issue there or subscribe to the magazine as well. So Jonathan, thanks again so much for your time. And we'll speak soon. Okay. That was a pleasure. Thanks very much. Thanks, Jonathan. Bye. Bye for now. Bye. Don't miss the festival showcase for more supporters of the festival