Thames Tunnel Medals

A few years ago I picked up a series of 4 medals by the 19^th century medallist William Joseph Taylor commemorating the construction of the Thames Tunnel which was completed in 1843. The tunnel was made possible by an innovative construction technique developed by Isambart Marc Brunel and took 22 years to complete. An interesting side note, the entryway to the tunnel is currently being developed as a new underground arts auditorium and performance space.

William Joseph Taylor opened his shop as a die sinker, medallist, and engraver in London in 1829. He created the dies (and provided the press and coining shop) for some of the early Australian issues as well as coins an patterns for Haiti and Liberia. He struck a good number of medals, among which we find the commemorative medals for the Thames Tunnel.

The obverse of each of these medals shows the bust of Sir Isambart Marc Brunel, with the reverse on 3 of the medals showing the entrance to the tunnels, the final medal has a text reverse listing the amount of funds expended by the initial proprietors of the tunnel, and the additional money supplied by a grant from Parliament. The medals range from 44mm to 24mm in diameter.

Been gone so long, I've been gone so long.

Hey folks, still hanging in there dropping the occasional coin on the table. A lot of water under the bridge since I last posted. I've been more and less active in collecting and selling the odd coin to support my collecting habit. Then a few years ago I opened a shop up with a friend. Mostly to buy scrap gold when prices were climbing out of sight. Did OK for a while until the market tumbled.

A side effect of buying gold is buying coins. If you read my older posts you know I'm mostly a collector of ancient coins. Well now I've had to learn about US and foreign coins and a bit about currency as well. I started taking the excess to a local club's bourse (that is, coin show) to sell them. After a bit a friend from a local coin club started joining me and selling coins and supplies too.

Things just spiraled up for a bit from there. The shop closed when prices fell and I moved into some inexpensive office space. I ramped up the shows until we were doing 3-4 a month. Not really sustainable while working full time. I've cut back to only 1 and sometimes 2 a month now. That leaves me enough time for some of my other hobbies (more on that later) while still allowing me to indulge my coiny side.

Here is a pic of one of the other things I'm doing now. Again, more on this later.