Our own coinage

Written by NSI member Edward Colgan this important book brings together many years of research and study which embrace the records of the Houses of the Oireachtas, holdings of the National Museum of Ireland, the Archives of the Central Bank of Ireland, holdings of the Royal Mint, and image libraries of leading auctioneers and other numismatists. Permissions have been granted by them to publish images some of which have never been published previously. 
 

OUR OWN COINAGE traces the story in fourteen chapters of how the coinage of Ireland evolved from the highly acclaimed and now fondly remembered 1928 set of silver, nickel and bronze coins of Saorstát Éireann through the coins of Éire and the Éire Decimal series to the Euro coins of 2002. The early chapters bring insights to the debates in the Houses of the Oireachtas and Seanad, to the work of W B Yeats’ Committee and to the engagement of Percy Metcalfe when designing and modelling the first coins. The middle chapters explain the change to cupro-nickel and a new design. These chapters also explain the change to decimal. The final chapters are concerned with the introduction of the Euro series. The fourteen chapters are fully illustrated with high quality images and explain the background to the coins that are in Irish collectors’ trays. They also tells the story of coins that were planned but never came to production. For some proposals they illustrate plaster models and other designs that were never used. The background to commemorative coins and principal varieties is also mentioned. 
 

It is one hundred years since 1926 when the Irish Government commenced the process of having our own coinage and Edward Colgan’s work is the first time that the story of the coins of Ireland have been published as a comprehensive account in book form. 

OUR OWN COINAGE is the third title in the Numismatic Society of Ireland book series and is a full companion to the first two - IRISH TAVERN TOKENS and GUNMONEY.