The BANS Autumn Weekend 2007.

A total of 35 delegates from all over the British Isles, including four from Ireland, enjoyed a warm welcome from the local organising team of Keith Sugden and Phyllis Stoddart, both of whom also contrived to find the time to contribute papers to the event. A variety of numismatic topics and some excellent catering by the Dalton-Ellis team combined for a relaxed and convivial weekend that was enjoyed by all.

The subject of medals topped and tailed the programme. Mrs Stoddart opened proceedings with a detailed look at some of the designs employed on 19th century British campaign medals, with numerous references to contemporary documentation, while Peter Crummett exposed the temperance movement and the medals associated with it - even featuring some accompanying music! Joe Bispham introduced the audience to a ‘new' Edward VI gold half-sovereign struck at the Durham House mint and expertly demonstrated how the coin fits into the chronology of the issues of that mint as we know them. Staying with the hammered theme, Bob Lyall put the siege coinages of Charles I from Carlisle, Scarborough, Newark and Pontefract in their historical contexts while Donal Bateson, curator of the coin cabinet at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, presented a masterly overview of the whole of the coinage of Scotland in under an hour.

This year's Royal Mint lecturer, introduced by BANS Vice-President Kevin Clancy, was Stephen Raw, a Mancunian-domiciled designer whose particular expertise is lettering and typography; indeed, as a member of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee he specifically advises on the importance of lettering in numismatic design. The other speakers were Mike Robinson who, in exposing the different eras by which coins are dated and looking at contemporary evidence, showed that some of the standard catalogues of world coins, particularly Krause-Mishler, contain incorrect and misleading information; and Keith Sugden, who gave an overview of the numismatic collections at Manchester Museum and showed a small but representative selection of their 80,000-strong holdings.