Coins, Tokens and Historical Medals

A Medal to the Father of the mathematician Charles Babbage:

National Edition of Shakespeare’s Works, 1803, a silver Subscriber’s medal by C.H. Küchler for J. and J. Boydell, Shakespeare seated on rock, flanked by figures of Drama and Painting, rev. legend and date in sixteen lines, edge named (Benjamin Babbage Esqr), 48mm (Pollard 28; BHM 553; E 950). Two trifling rim nicks, otherwise extremely fine and toned £200-£300

Provenance: Spink Auction 335 (New York), 19 June 2017, lot 74.

Benjamin Babbage (1753-1827), father of the mathematician and polymath Charles Babbage (1791-1871), considered by many as the ‘father of the computer’. Babbage Sr was a founding partner in the banking firm of Praed & Co, Fleet street, London, in 1801, later moving to Teignmouth, Devon