NOONANS: ERIC HODGE BRITISH MERCHANT COINS

Thanks for your weekly blog. Mondays would not be the same without it. Also congratulations on reaching retirement. It seems you are already looking back and wondering how you had time to go to work.

Over the years I have communicated with your readers through your site whenever I needed advice, ideas or help with any research project. Generally the responses have been so positive and helpful that I thought some readers may be interested to know that now I have reached my 80th year I have decided to sell my collection. I wanted to be involved in the sale so now seems the right time. I wanted the catalogue to be more an historical document with provenance and other references. The sale is with Noonans of Mayfair, London on the 29th September 2026 and I belief they have met my brief.

My research will continue and your blog will remain one of the highlights of the week."

More than 100 British Merchants Coins - foreign silver coins that had been countermarked for use in Great Britain, mainly in Scotland (87 lots), plus a few banknotes will be offered at Noonans in an auction on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. The collection has been amassed by Eric Hodge, who lives in Lancashire.

As Mr Hodge says: "I built up a reasonable collection of silver crowns from 1551 to the present. This collection was sold privately in 2002. It was whilst forming this collection that I became aware of the paucity of circulating crowns during the long reign of George III (1760–1820). Though there were very few circulating crowns I knew there were a large number of patterns and proofs. I decided to investigate this period to discover the reasons for this lack of crowns. It was during this research that I discovered the UK merchant countermarked dollar series which was to become my passion for the future. It was my good fortune that it coincided with Harrington (Harry) Manville completing his opus on merchant countermarked dollars, finally entitled ‘Tokens of the Industrial Revolution – Foreign Silver Coins Countermarked for use in Great Britain, c. 1787–1828'." He continued: "This research journey has now lasted over 25 years and is ongoing. Though I am now passing my collection onto the next generation, my research is still keeping me active using my little grey cells. In April 2024 I published, privately, a two-part catalogue of my research records."

As Jim Brown, Coin Specialist at Noonans explains: "From copper mines in Anglesey to cotton mills in Scotland, from tin mines in Cornwall to iron foundries in Warwickshire, it was businesses at the forefront of the industrial revolution that began issuing copper tokens. Whilst the private provision of copper tokens aided in the conduct of low value, local exchange, it failed to address the pressing issue brought about by a general lack of silver coinage In Great Britain. When insufficient domestic silver specie is produced by a government, the gap tends to be filled by the import and use of foreign silver."

He continued: "Unlike copper, which almost always was used as a token coinage, silver coins were normally traded at or close to their intrinsic value and in this lies the problem that their weight and fineness differed from the accepted local coins. Their face value had to be continually assessed and agreed for every individual transaction with all the resultant opportunities for confusion, disagreement and error that that entailed. To avoid this, various merchants and manufacturers decided to stamp the coins with a value in local currency, normally pitched just above the intrinsic value of the metal. This system, begun in the 1780s and 1790s in the newly built mills in Cark-in-Cartmel, East Retford, Lanark and Rothesay amongst others, was even briefly (and unsuccessfully) adopted by the government. In March 1797, the Treasury authorised the Bank of England to utilise the large quantities of Spanish Dollars it was holding in its vaults to provide an emergency coinage. These coins were to be hallmarked with the largest of the current hallmark stamps used by the Goldsmiths Hall."

Highlights of the collection include from Blantyre in Lanarkshire, Scotland, a countermarked 8 Reales coin from the reign of Ferdinand VII of Mexico, dating from 1814 that was used at the Blantyre Works which is estimated at £4,000-£5,000. Only six of these coins are known to exist.

Erected by David Dale and James Monteith in 1785, ownership passed to Monteith in 1792 and to Monteith's brother Henry in 1802. The mill was run as Henry Monteith & Co., from then until at least 1840. Its most illustrious employee was the future explorer David Livingstone who entered the mills at the age of 10 as a piecer and became a spinner when he was 19. It is recorded of him that "he contrived to read in the factory by placing his book on the spinning jenny, so that he could catch sentences as he passed at his work." [lot 6007].

While also from Lanarkshire, a very rare example using an 8 reale coin from the reign of Charles IIII of Mexico, dating 1795 for Ballindalloch Cotton Works in Balfron is estimated at £3,000-4,000. Ballindalloch was acquired in 1800 by James Finlay & Co,, Glasgow merchants, who also operated mills at Catrine and Deanston, and the tokens were probably issued between about 1800 and 1810. 11 examples are known with five in institutions [lot 6002].

Also, from Ballindalloch Cotton Works is a very rare 5 Shilling check dated 24 March 1830, that is estimated at £300-400 and is one of eight specimens noted by the vendor [lot 6004].

Several half coins are among the collection. These include from Rothsay Mills on the Isle of Bute a very rare cut half-segment of a Spanish-American 8 Reales, with date and moneyer uncertain which is estimated at £1,500-£2,000. Only 10 of these are known with five in institutions. This was originally bought on Ebay from a seller in New Zealand [lot 6081].

Lot 6057

My collection may no longer be tangible but there will always be the memories of putting it together. If I had to pick just three memories then the first would be my lot 6057 a Lanark Mills 5/. This was my first purchase of a merchant countermarked dollar, in April 1994, from a dealer at a coin fair in Harrogate, England. It came with the Willis provenance of 1991. Willis had a wonderful collection of British Crowns, sold in two sales, hammered and milled. I remember bidding on a few crowns at the sale and failing miserably. It, therefore, seemed to me that countermarked dollars were a good series to collect instead and not too expensive with the added bonus of a discount of £50 on the price advertised. What was not to like? I then bought a book to educate myself.

These prices did not last because it was in 2001 that the late great Harrington (Harry) Manville of Washington DC published his book Tokens of the Industrial Revolution which took this series out of obscurity and placed it into the mainstream of British numismatics.

Lot 6012

My second memory is for my lot 6012. It relates to the upset at the ANS when the Hispanic Society of America decided to retrieve their collection and put it up for sale. The history and background to Archer Milton Huntington (1870-1955), who was made Honorary President of the American Numismatic Society in 1910, seemed quite fascinating.

Archer first visited Spain in 1892 and developed a passion for the Hispanic world. He founded the Hispanic Society of America in 1904 and then placed his collection with the ANS in 1946 for study and publication. The pieces represented the most spectacular collection of coins relating to the entirety of Spanish history that was housed outside Spain. The collection, completed in 1905, provided a comprehensive review of world history – from the 5th century B.C. to the 20 th century – with Spain as the primary focal point. I knew that there was only one UK merchant countermarked dollar in this collection and was lucky enough to trace its sale to Switzerland in 2012 and was the eventual purchaser. What a history! What a coin!

Lot 6065

My third memory would be my lot 6065 a Lanark Mills 4/6. There are two types for Lanark Mills 4/6, the first with a star stop in the name, the second with a lozenge stop in the name. My purchase was the first type. There are now seven examples known with six of them being held in museums or institutions. So mine is the only one available to commerce. What is interesting to me is that the coin was sold at a small auctioneer in southern Germany that dealt mainly in art, certainly not coins. It went under the radar and I seemed to be the only bidder. It arrived in the post towards the end of March 2020 about a week after the first UK Covid lockdown. The first two to three months of lockdown just flew by as I studied my new coin. What a purchase just at the right time.

There may not be any future purchases but there is still plenty of research left to do.