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Coin Diary Cl
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Whist
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coins draw one back to the hand and movement of real people history in the hand history hand to hand When I started Coin I asked my father for some old coins. He went to the back drawer of a mahogany chest of drawers and brought out a crumbling cardboard box full of envelopes containing some of my grandmother’s collection. For six months I would take one out every day, like a lucky dip, and write about it.
a handful of old coins I reach down into a nearly empty box, drop the coin and for a moment it is truly lost. One stained like oil and old, proclaiming warrior and wealth. A man holds forth on a large well-kept coin seen only when I shift it into light, catch an outline. One visible, the other shadow, I hold history in my fingers and exchange time. What was this one worth in the time of flappers, Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Picasso? Never thought of them touching coins that I might too. If it is a penny, it is as heavy as a house. Is this the oldest, the longest un-held? Collector, historian, who wants to hold the hand of someone three hundred years ago? A special sort of time travel. I remember walking to our village shop to use the first ‘new money’, a young Elizabeth looking out. Even a new coin can tell a story:
Colonisation, golden sands, palm trees. I was there when I was five, white man’s guilt mists me. Still this coin is family brought home from home abroad. Antiquity with a goddess on it, ah, again the scales: justice unlearnt as money holds the unjust. How much does one need on a coin dated 1929? This craftsman is interested in the flowering – heads could be a boat, tails a lively dancer as if there was a way to call us back a reminder that money is a token, not all encompassing. Here is a man you would want to meet. This clearly has been handled, carted around, year after year, hand after hand, pocket after pocket, purse after purse, rained on, watered, soaked and left to weather. Thin as a piece of thick paper, one penny in its time. Could it buy a bun, hot drink or sweet, does it have to join with others to do anything? An owl standing on an urn, a belled flower, wisdom to be buried with the sound of bells. It says ‘pulpit’ underneath, I wonder if it is the nameless artist’s name.
Ruined, ragged, hooked and quartered, slumped into jags, it was a coin, now a misshapen memory of one from far away. Shields on the back and the date in Roman numerals, I clasp it as if I were an urchin in the dark streets of debtors’ London. What would it be like to have one’s own coin, how would its worth be measured? I hold nearly a hundred years in the palm of my hand, wonder at all the other palms, from child to elder, from till to bag, or was it untouched in my grandmother’s drawer since 1919? Carry the silver sliver in my wallet all day jostling with regular coins, wondering what this must have felt like circulating in 1855, who would have tossed this in the year of its minting. This one immaculately preserved, so no journeys or use. Five centimes, an almost worthless coin, survives better than any human of that age. How to know it is a coin, encrusted dirt, faceless, homeless, a life of travel, nomad roaming the world, three dots and an empty circle: is it language?
Coin Diary I look into my bowl of coins its a lovely way to look at days
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March 22, Second day of spring a worn coin, still round and very coppery on this side all I can see is an inner ring of laurel or leaves and inside that some alphabet I don’t even recognise, Arabic, Russian? I love not knowing and seeing that writing can be so different, I forget and think and read with english only. If I see anything its a J and G but I think that’s upside down. Oh, there is a real flower on the leaves, it has a fringed centre stamen, a poppy, the figures below could be smaller buds, if I didn’t know they must mean something! flip a wondrous, humorous mythic animal, first thought a lion but it has a bull, a dog and a rocking horse about it, well that base could be a boat. There are some symbols but so worn, what a live dancer on this ‘tails’ lovely incomprehensible coin!
weightiest coin of them all 1791 and possibly a george it would pull a pocket out of shape flip not english, not george vertical line like a candle a surround of leaves a large smooth mystery
1854 huge crown and laurels flip Victoria indecipherable claimed territory colonial
1734 strange curling Britannia coats this dull pewter she is holding a bird, a sceptre and has a strange billowy chest the legs dance her hair is in a pointed bun flip lady or man george 11 exchanged coin still in my hand longevity beauty
dull and worn Hibernia 1725 so old this britannia has a hand that faces back to her forehead no staff but a length of material her middle has gone like a black smudge flip george 1 a double chin not a weak one long hair, curls at the top how does it feel to have your face on coins be manhandled by all and sundry one cent US two feathers 1935 in God We Trust, Lincoln simple flip hardly changed but it follows into disappearance soon too small a denomination a george I think just from the profile did not flip it
old roma pastry edges man with a corkscrew beard garlanded hair a few letters flip it is roman to join the george’s hundreds of years earlier two cents, maybe not wrong 1898 flip and a crown copper green lump flip roman one cent American Indian flip 1902 tiny coin with a spear carrying skeletons flip Roman man with a ribbon round his head
a sliver of a coin shiny nothing to tell flip the tracing of a letter only as thick as skin lump one standing god or goddess dark and dull flip a blind eyed tale a running skeleton outstretched ribbon trailing behind flip a face unreadable stamped letters no date one thin small grubby ridged unreadable flip ah two standing skeletons with spears large greek writing crown and shield flip its from way back in 1837 Aertas
1906 Us of A American Indian probably the time their culture went underground flip strange salve to exoticness roaring lion with axe topped with a threatening crown flip two ore 1876 a land rich in iron ore with lions imperialistic hard coin no rubbings off a fed old greek philosopher with too large a neck flip completely wrong 1827 languid britannia and a rex two cents faith la force nice lion with curly tail holding a ruined tombstone flip leopold 111 flower ribbons and crowns colonial ruin
centred hole, ridged edge bright silver shine flip 1903 whirly curls crowned with jewels and two stars a pock marked slice ruined letters standing figure flip stalking lion with axe power and brutality 1857 a sheaf of leaves a coppery shine flip impossibly small dulled writing like a face with a veil over reveals many faces uncountried show off whirls 1887 flip three small crowns like 24 blackbirds in a pie
middle eastern small as a daisy covered with hieroglyphs like ploughed landscape flip overflowing language spelling out worth and honour unknown to me large crowns, smooth flip achingly smooth languorous fish slides along one side a dolphin while up the other a specific flower large pod upward petals if this is not Roman what is it black with gold leavings pomaded and bearded with plaits a helmet sunken eyes and large nose flip a few letters like gold thread in my left hand I clasp roman history and all its treasuring since then one belgium cent prance lion with upright sword and treaties stealing land flip wrong netherlands 1902
10 cents 1802 wreathed in leaves flip unveiled modest girl like a secret princess 1874 worn in the centre, dipped a sheaf of corn flip axe murdering lion one so tiny a replica of the Chichester mosaics or real kept for hundreds of years flip extraordinary king stern sharp profile pointed beard fairytale crown shooting out in all directions another Roman with a forehead that elongates into a nose they seem like portraits of real people, detailed and individual how were they able to sculpt so delicately how were they so advanced
a last Roman bulbous nose, deep eyes, tight tiny mouth laurel leaves like donkey ears flip two small skeleton men as if holding torches 1888 four pence a clear britannia flip a victoria pulled back hair and pearls ready to lead an empire a last Roman a soldier helmet younger gentler nose, mouth and curls I think thats who I see flip I cannot tell their age where they are from half cent small lion 1901 too light to be remembered hopefully enough for a sweet
Lost I drop it a Roman Emperor hits the ground it is easy to fall it is easy to fall from grace it is easy to fall from grace and favour it is easy to fall from grace and favour and be forgotten forged back into the formless
G IF TS SEV E N
Clare Whistler Š May 2014