The Ken Elks Collection of British Coins

Ken Elks

I bought my first token in the early 1970s; it was issued by John Matthews of Canterbury in 1794 and showed Canterbury Cathedral. Apart from its local connections, my wife’s grandmother was born Ruth Matthews, although we do not claim any kinship with the man who issued this halfpenny token. At first, I only collected the Kent tokens but a couple of years later was offered a beautiful Sussex token with a portrait bust of Queen Elizabeth I. Unable to resist the temptation, I bought that too. It proved to be the first step on the slippery path to forming a more complete collection, mainly devoted to those intended for currency rather than all the myriad pieces issued for other purposes.

Wherever possible I gradually improved on those that I had obtained, and always tried to buy the best that was available. If some of the tokens in the collection appear to be of a lower standard, that is because in fifty years of collecting I was never able to buy a better one (which is of course not to say that better examples do not exist). However, that Canterbury token is still the one bought all those years ago.

My main numismatic interest has always been in Roman coins. In many ways tokens, by celebrating historical events and depicting local achievements, bear many similarities to them. Those offered for sale here are to be used as illustrations for a book on tokens that awaits publication, though some of the information contained in it has already found its way into other studies.

That these tokens are now to be sold is down to an enormous stroke of luck. In 1993 my house was burgled during the night. Among the items taken was my entire coin collection; normally this was stored in a safe, but I had them out to work on and neglected to put them back afterwards. On the way home with their loot, the three culprits were stopped for some traffic offence. An alert policemen spotted the stolen goods and, dissatisfied with their explanation, took them into custody.The theft was discovered when I woke up and immediately reported. At 9am I was contacted by the police holding the suspects and, by 5pm that day, everything was returned and safely locked away. Had I lost everything, I doubt that I would have had the heart to carry on collecting.

Collecting these tokens has given me enormous pleasure over the years. I hope their new owners will enjoy them as much as I have done.
K.J.J.E.

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Although perhaps better known for my interest in Roman coins and, latterly, 78th century tokens, the genesis of this collection of British coins was in the 7 9 70s, when I bought a mixed collection of coins just to get my hands on the Roman material contained in it. Although I had no real interest in British coins at that time, the whole collection did not stand me in for very much money, so they were retained and used for showing mostly young people about our numismatic history. Eventually they were put away in a cupboard and ignored for the best part of 20 years.

In 1996 I acquired access to the internet. One of the facilities offered was my own website so, for want of anything better, I decided to illustrate some of the coins in my collection, among them these British pieces. One thing led to another and I started to collect the coins for their own sake. Many of the better specimens were acquired from the late Patrick Finn, Baldwins and Granta Coins of Cambridge, the latter because I often had cause to visit Cambridge at weekends. Unfortunately my work in colleges from the 7 980s onwards largely precluded me from attending auctions, usually scheduled during term time.

The time has now come to relinquish this collection, partly to free up space in my cabinet and partly to enable me to return to my old love of collecting Roman coins. My website, on which many of the pieces here offered are illustrated, will continue.