Serendipity is part of the charm of working in the Oxfam bookshop. Usually it as about books but yesterday, it was about a remarkable you man, coins and stamps.
Now I don’t often work a Saturday afternoon but I have to say it is always interesting – a different demographic from a weekday, and busier – less time to do the titivating, tidying, sorting stuff that you can do Monday to Friday.
( As ever, a long-read warning but it is a heartening story so you might want to carry on at least for a bit.)
Anyway, there I am at the till with two Duke of Edinburgh Award young people doing their volunteering stints when in walks a young person of say 13 years old. ( I am surrounded by young people and it is making me feel old….)
The DofE young women are doing books, but he is not interested in books, he asks me if we have any pre-decimal coins, foreign coins and/or stamps.
Well, as it happens we did have a load of coins which a lovely volunteer ( at the other end of the age spectrum) had sorted into organza bags.
Last year we had unearthed a stash shoved under a workbench in the shop and which had been there for some years – and we sold them in aforementioned bags.
People bought them to put sixpences or threepences into their Christmas puddings, or bags of old pennies to ‘amaze’ their grandchildren, or foreign banknotes to play Monopoly with. We did well.
In case you need to see what the pences are:
So, she and I had decided to do the same this year and she waded through bags and bags and sorted them into pre-decimal British coins, foreign coins, silver coloured, brass coloured, etc etc. They were in a box upstairs.
‘Well,’ I said to the young man I will call Tom, ‘ We do have some. Do you want to have a look?’
He did and spent more than an hour sitting on our shop sofa, riffling through and telling me – and indeed customers – about when silver sixpences were phased out (1947), what the print runs of Penny Red stamps meant in terms of value, pulling out the incredibly light ( probably made from Aluminium) coins from Romania and much more.
He told me/us that his grandfather was a coin and stamp dealers and left Tom his collection – now stored in a large container – which is now working through.
Some of the stamps are now at Gibbons, he has sold some of his own and his grandfather’s collection and used the first money to buy a dog – but, he admitted, his Mum does most of the dog walking and feeding. Well what a surprise.
Customers came and went and Tom carried on, still telling me stuff in between me taking money from book buyers.
At one point, there was him, me and just one customer who said, ‘ I have a bag of old coins and I have never know what to do with it. Could I bring it here and and if there is anything valuable, I am sure you will identify it and Oxfam can benefit?’
‘Yes,’ said Tom and I together.
So, he eventually left taking some stamps and coins to research, and coins he had bought.
‘Thank you so much for trusting me with these,’ he said.
‘Well, I have your phone number and I do trust you. And thank you for an interesting afternoon,’ I said.
‘I’ll be back,’ he said – and I am sure he will.
Book buyers kept me busy until almost closing time when a young woman came in and said,’ This is a long shot but do you take old and foreign coins?”
‘Yes, we do’ I said and she gave me the last donation of the day.
It was indeed a day of coins.
thereluctanthousewife 