Edmonton Numismatic Society

2022 ENS Coin Show ~ Hammered Tokens “A Show Success” The 2022 Coin Show token(s) styled after a “King Richard II Groat” were struck in a late mediaeval style, using engraved dies and a sledgehammer. The metal for the planchet blanks were made available in Copper, Aluminium or Brass and subsequently struck by the show […]

A Good Decade for Cent Varieties By: Joe Kennedy The first decade of the 21st Century has been very eventful for collecting Canadian cent varieties. Just by searching through pocket change, we can find about two dozen different major design varieties! It all starts with the issue of Test Token sets in 1999. In this […]

CHORT, Jean-Claude. Le monnayage et les monnaies fautées 1780-2009, 1st ed. Monaco: Éditions Victor Gadoury, 2009. By: Serge Pelletier [French language, fully illustrated in colour, 15 x 21 cm, 432 pages, hardbound €39] (ISBN 2-906602-37-X) Chort’s Le monnayage et les monnaies fautées 1780-2009 (The coining process and error coins 1780-2009) is quite simply an outstanding […]

Pierre Napoléon Breton By: Mitch Goudreau Many of you have probably admired or shown some interest in Canadian tokens at some point or other, while perhaps not actively collecting them. This article’s intent is to give you some background on Pierre Napoléon Breton, a renowned early Canadian numismatist and Montreal coin dealer, who has left […]

A Hansa Thaler By: Marc Bink This month marks the final installment of a series of articles on medieval German Thalers. So in honour of that, I’ve decided to cover a Thaler from my home town of Luebeck, a place which most readers probably have never even heard of. I’ve been collecting coins from Luebeck […]

A Two-Taled Coin By Chris Boyer FRCNA # 19007; MCC of C # 3377 This article will tell the tales of one coin—to be precise, its two tales. Even to those familiar with Canadian silver dollars countermarked with the initials “J.O.P.” there is much more here than initially meets the eye. The second tale has […]

L’AIGLON IS BORN By: Pierre Driessen It had been the worst of nights and the best of nights. The most powerful man in Europe, victor of numerous campaigns, had never felt this powerless. He could do nothing but stand by helplessly, waiting to let fate decide the outcome. The realization of his most longed for […]

From Thalers to Dollars By: Marc Bink In a previous article, I wrote about an early Saxon Thaler that I found at one of our semi-annual Money Shows. We rarely see these huge, expensive silver coins here, and I have always wanted to build a collection of them. At the last RCNA Convention that was […]

1895 Society of Colonial Wars Relic Medal By: M. Goudreau As those of you who know me can attest, I collect numismatic items from across a wide spectrum of fields, I am however always looking for items with Canadian connections. One item that sparked my interest, although issued in the United States in 1895 by […]

A Penny’s Worth By: Marc Bink Since my compatriot Pierre is writing about English coins and the laws surrounding counterfeiting and forgery, I thought I’d throw my “Penny’s Worth” into the fray and describe a story about a little man who wound up convincing a powerful Queen how great he and his newfangled technology were, […]

Show Me a Coin Used for Paying Tax By: Graham Sproule Although the utility of a coin has decreased in the modern age of electronic banking, the image of a coin remains a potent one. For this reason alone, there is no reason to believe that the age of the ‘coin-less of ce’ will ever […]

Digging for Dollars, German style By: Marc Bink Shift work is hard. It’s the classic “hurry up and wait” scenario that only people in the military can understand; hours of sheer drudgery interspersed with a few moments of terror. The other night I was hard at work and had a couple of hours to kill. […]

Defacing Coins as a Form of Political Action: Royal Canadian Mint Sues Dogwood Initiative over ‘Loony Idea’ By: Graham Sproule. “No person shall, except in accordance with a licence granted by the Minister, melt down, break up or use otherwise than as currency any coin that is current and legal tender in Canada.” – Article […]

French Experiments with Paper Money – Part 3 “Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” By: Pierre Driessen The Revolutionary government, having assumed the debts of the previous regime, found itself in dire financial straits. In addition to this fiscal burden, domestically it faced a deteriorating economy, shortages of food […]

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society (NBS)   The Numismatic Bibliomania Society (NBS) is an educational association founded in 1979 to support and promote the use and collecting of numismatic literature. Numismatic literature includes books, periodicals, catalogs and other written or printed material relating to coins, medals, tokens, or paper money, ancient or modern, U.S. or worldwide. […]

French Experiments with Paper Money – Part 2 By: Pierre Driessen Following the collapse of John Law’s “System”, the French government’s finances became desperate. Royal debt had tripled between 1715 and 1722, credit was drying up, interest rates were soaring and the crown’s credibility had been severely tarnished. Over time however, through governmental and administrative […]

French Experiments with Paper Money – Part 1 By: Pierre Driessen This article was sparked by a conversation with a dealer at a recent coin show. As I was admiring the nice mandat he had for sale, the dealer surprised me with his questions. He was wondering exactly what it was, who issued it and […]

Tetradrachm of Mithradates II By: Terrance Cheesman The Parthian Kingdom occupied the region of modern day Iraq and Iran. Starting in north eastern Iran, the Parthians conquered Iran by 230 B.C. and Iraq by 170 B.C. They were a constant menace to the Greek kingdoms in Syria and Turkey, and later to the Romans when […]

The U.S. Standing Liberty Quarter, (1916-1930) By: Marc Bink Imagine if you will; a protest of thousands of people taking place in front of the Parliament buildings; – over a lousy quarter! This sort of thing did happen once, but not in Canada, it happened in the United States in 1917. All it took was […]

The IMPERIAL EAGLE of FRANCE By: Jean Pierre Driessen Napoleon Bonaparte had a problem. Following his proclamation as Emperor of the French on 28 Floréal, AN XII (18 May 1804), what would be the symbols of his regime and dynasty? Symbols which would personify the new political order and his subjects could identify with and […]