Month: November 2025
Why ‘As Found’ is the Gold Standard
Tucked inside an old leather wallet, two Bank of England ten shilling notes have resurfaced after roughly sixty years in hiding. Folded away in the stamp compartment, they were almost certainly someone’s long-forgotten emergency stash – the sort of quiet time capsule every collector secretly hopes to stumble across.
Collectors tend to agree on one thing: resist the urge to press, iron, or otherwise “improve” banknotes. More harm is caused by over-enthusiastic restoration attempts than by decades of natural ageing. Heavy folds and creases will often relax on their own when a note is stored in a proper archival sleeve. The raised elements of the design are surprisingly fragile and can be flattened beyond repair by heat or heavy pressure.
Plenty of homemade remedies have been tried over the years. Leaving notes in a book can tame the worst curls, while the old “steam-in-a-towel” method may initially make a note look crisper. But under scrutiny, the loss of embossing, softening of detail, and subtle colour changes are easy to spot. In the long term, such treatments can do more harm than good, especially to collectors who value originality over attempts to recover their original state.
For genuinely valuable notes, professional conservation is the only safe route, much like with stamps or important folded coins. But for discoveries like these – lightly handled, honestly aged, and appealing in their untouched state – “as found” remains the gold standard.
‘Nick the Stick’
Few monarchs left quite such a curious legacy on British pockets as Henry VIII. In his later reign he introduced silver plated copper coinage and, as will be mentioned in next week’s post, he quickly earned the nickname Old Coppernose.
Fast forward a few centuries and we find a rather sturdier piece of copper in the hand. This large 5 kopeck coin of 1833 was struck under Nicholas I of Russia, a ruler whose reputation for uncompromising discipline earned him the less flattering nickname Nick the Stick. The coin itself clocks in at around 22 grams and measures roughly 3.7 centimetres across, giving it the unmistakable heft of early nineteenth century Russian bronze.
The obverse shows the familiar double headed eagle of the Romanovs, while the reverse carries the simple denomination КОПѢЕКЪ above the E M mintmark. These coins circulated widely and took a fair amount of punishment. Soft copper and hard winters were never a gentle combination. As a result, genuinely crisp examples are scarce. A decent mid grade piece like this would typically sit below the fifty pound mark, while anything heavily worn tends to fetch only a few pounds.
Coins like this 5 kopeck sit at an appealing intersection between history and metal. They are solid, honest artefacts from an era when empires jostled for influence, treaties were inked with nervous glances, and even a humble copper coin carried the weight of a continent behind it.
Réis of Sunshine from 1937
Tucked inside a small homemade envelope from 1937 sits a lovely snapshot of collecting history. The pencilled note on the front tells you everything you need to know about its maker: careful, organised, and quietly proud of their find. Inside are five Brazilian 1000 Réis stamps, each overprinted “1899”, each neatly used, and each marked as a duplicate. Even duplicates were treasured enough to file away.
The envelope itself is almost as interesting as the stamps. In tidy handwriting, the original collector recorded the perforation gauge, the issue, and even the going rate at the time. At 2 shillings and sixpence each, these would have felt like something rather special in pre war London. For context, £100 in 1937 has the same purchasing power as roughly £8,700 today. It gives a sense of how dear a few shillings could feel in a hobbyist’s pocket.
Fast forward nearly a century and the picture looks very different. Collecting tastes shift, supply opens up, and what was once a prized duplicate can now be found for just a few pounds. That contrast is part of the charm. It reminds us that the real value of older collections often lies not just in catalogue numbers but in the care someone took to preserve a moment in time. A simple envelope and five brown stamps telling a story across generations.
The Wilfredian League of Gugnuncs
Yes. You read that title right…
Few comic strip characters of the 1920s inspired quite the same affection as Pip, Squeak and Wilfred. The trio lived in the pages of the Daily Mirror, where Pip the dog, Squeak the penguin and Wilfred the bunny-eared youngster shared gentle adventures that appealed to both children and adults. Their popularity soon spilled into annuals, merchandise and, most memorably, a fan club with a very curious name: the Wilfredian League of Gugnuncs.
Membership of the WLOG came with badges and pendants like the ones shown here, enamel in bright blue with Wilfred’s unmistakable long ears. The word Gugnunc came from Wilfred’s own babyish speech, and children proudly described themselves as one. The club ran competitions, socials and charity events, all in the spirit of friendliness and fun. A Christmas party scene from 1919 shows the gang in full celebratory mood, with familiar characters gathered round the table raising “Three cheers for Uncle Dick”.
Decades later, the trio would find an unexpected afterlife in military slang. The 1914 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal are still known informally as Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, often awarded together to those who served in the First World War. A comic strip, a fan club, enamel badges and a medal group: a cultural legacy in three small characters.
