Coins of British India
Part Three - Circulating Coins of British India, The Presidencies and The India Native States Introduction We have had numerous requests from the happy buyers of coins from parts one and two of the David Fore collection, wanting to know more about the personality who put together a collection of this scope. At the beginging of David’s collecting coin life his wife would comment about how long he would spend in his home office going through catalogues that had come in the day’s mail, looking for the pieces he needed. In the early days there were many coins available and little competition. David was able to buy coins from sources all over the US and England. He would also go through and put in order any coins that he might have received in that day’s mail. Back then there were few catalogues available to help in the search but being a doctor with a very good memory, he was able to ‘scoop up’ some wonderful coins. As his collection grew, the number of coins he needed would decrease and it would become harder to find the pieces he needed in the condition he wanted. But he built up good contacts with Steve Album in the USA, Spinks and Baldwin’s in the UK, with Randy usually acting as an intermediary. He didn’t worry (too much) about price, but wanted coins as choice as possible. Being a very pleasant person to deal with, he really did get offered some of the very best coins available. He focused on India for much of his collecting career because it is an incredibly wide open series with a ‘hundred’ possible ways to collect it. Here in part three of the Fore collection you can see what we are referring to. There are well over a thousand coins, purchased one at a time. We have a virtually complete run of British India and, more important for the student, you can extrapolate from the grades what was available in his years of looking, remembering that he went for the best possible. Uncirculated coins were not always available. Had they been he would have one. Sometimes it was actually a source of amusement for both of us, with the standard references listing all the coins of a series at the same price and then us being able to find an example in very fine as the best grade possible after twenty years of looking. We joked how much we would have to pay for these elusive coins if an uncirculated piece ever became available : twenty times the catalogue prince did not sound unreasonable! The Presidency series is even more impressive as there was so little information available about these coins apart from the Pridmore catalogue Part Four, India, volume 1. There were no prices or rarity ratings in these catalogues. It really was a challenging way to buy coins, but, as you can see from the superb array of beautiful Presidency pieces in this collection, David had wonderful instincts.