Numismatic Books from the Library of the late Gary Oddie

Gary Oddie

“It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

It is with particular pleasure, tinged with not a little sadness, that Noonans Mayfair have been chosen to auction the extremely important collection of shillings formed over 46 years by Dr Gary Oddie. Although English silver shillings were his prime collecting passion, his interest in the denomination soon spread across the sea to Ireland, to overseas territories, to silver and other local tokens, even to paper money and postal orders – anywhere that the shilling had been a recognised form of monetary exchange.

Gary was born in Clitheroe, Lancashire, on 23 January 1965, the eldest child of John Thomas Oddie and his wife, Patricia. He was joined a year later by his brother Ian, and three years later by his sister Dawn. Educated at St James primary school and Clitheroe Royal Grammar School, he then studied physics at the University of York from 1983 to 1986. A spell of teacher training at Keele University in 1986 presaged the completion of his DPhil studies at Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, in ‘The characterisation of two component (liquid) flows using scattered ultrasound’ between 1987 and 1991.

He spent his adult life working within the area of scientific research, and in particular fluid dynamics and flow. Several post-doctoral years at Cranfield presaged a move to Schlumberger (present-day SLB) in Cambridge in December 1996. Gary was employed at Schlumberger for over 23 years in various scientific roles, providing technology, integrated services and digital solutions for the company’s global oil and gas industry clients, before retiring in 2020 at the age of 55. His passion and unique drive to solve problems came across throughout his career, and he was very highly thought of by all those who worked with him in the field of fluid mechanics, multiphase flow and flow metering.

Gary’s great passion in life started as a child around the age of eight, when he was introduced to coins, although the survival of a letter to the family from Robert Sharman at Seaby’s, dated 14 March 1969, which related to a modern penny that had been acid-washed, demonstrates an earlier family interest in numismatics. Frequently visiting Jim Bridgeman’s coin shop in Blackburn Road, Accrington, to spend his pocket money, one day in 1978 Jim showed him a 1736 George II shilling in nice condition – and Gary never looked back. Exchanging his entire schoolboy collection for it, the 1736 shilling (Lot 218 in this sale) started a passion for collecting shillings which never left him. Over the years that passion helped him to develop a serious interest in all aspects of coinage, and his keen eye for varieties and technical detail helped to bring order to many series that had hitherto confused specialists. As his sister Dawn relates, and many of his friends will confirm, you could always tell from his voice the excitement when he came across something in an auction or had bought something new, and his common phrase, ‘It’s a bit special’ would attract admiration from his listeners.


An active member and contributor to many different coin forums, writing and presenting at multiple conferences over the years, he became an internationally-recognised expert and advisor on many topics. His enthusiasm for numismatics was boundless and infectious, and nothing was too much trouble. If you had an issue or a query, he was immediately on a mission to research it, and did not give up until it was resolved. This was often then swiftly followed by an article or a blog, to share with everyone.

Away from coins, he enjoyed playing Scrabble and quizzing, even though most who played against him knew in advance to expect to come out on the losing side. His wicked sense of humour was well known to those of us he counted as family, work colleagues, fellow hobbyists or friends, and he prioritised certain annual events, including trips to Blencathra in the Lake District and the Token Congress. His home was always welcoming and many a numismatist made a pilgrimage to St Neots to see him, talk coins or tokens, examine items from his wonderful collection, consult volumes from his vast numismatic library – and enjoy the hospitality provided six days a week by the fish and chip shop directly across the road from his house. Though a scientist by training, Gary was no staid academic wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches; indeed, he was usually seen sporting a shirt from his ‘black’ wardrobe featuring his beloved heavy metal rock band AC/DC, with wild, unkempt hair sticking out at all angles.

I first met Gary in the late 1980s, when he started coming to London to ‘do the rounds’ of the main dealers in search of shillings for his collection. We hit it off with our mutual interest in tokens, which Gary was then just getting into, having joined the Bedford Numismatic Society and being mentored by my old friend John Gaunt (1938-2010). John’s enthusiasm for Bedfordshire 17th century tokens rubbed off on Gary, to such an extent that John’s long-planned book on the subject turned into the much-expanded Bedfordshire Seventeenth Century Tokens (Galata, 2011), which set the modern standard for such specialist county revisions. Not content with one standard work, Gary catalogued the engraved pieces in Sarah Lloyd and Timothy Millett’s Tokens of Love, Loss and Disrespect 1700-1850 (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2022) and then proceeded to follow with two more books under his own name: Bedfordshire Tokens, Tickets, Checks and Passes (St Neots Press, 2023) and arguably his magnum opus, Cambridgeshire Seventeenth Century Tokens (St Neots Press, 2024). He was actively gathering material for two further titles, one on Huntingdonshire 17th century tokens and one on Boy Bishop tokens, at the time of his death, which occurred on 5 February 2025.

But those titles represented only a small part of his published research. Between 2018 and 2024 he compiled no less than 165 articles for the British Numismatic Society blog which, for those of us of a certain vintage who recall Michael Dolley’s literary efforts in numismatic and other publications in the 1960s and 1970s, was in all likelihood the only time anyone had approached, let alone bettered, such a prodigious output. Many of Gary’s blogs featured complex die studies, the result of co-operative work with other specialist collectors of shillings. Apart from writing, Gary was a noted numismatic activist, organising or co-organising no less than four Token Congresses (Northampton in 1996, 2005 and 2012, and Llandrindod Wells in 2011), mostly with help from his friend Peter Waddell, and editing the Token Corresponding Society Bulletin. For several years I had badgered him to join the Council of the British Numismatic Society and he eventually relented in 2018, only retiring from it in late 2024, latterly as our publicity officer. It gave me very great pleasure to present him with one of the Society’s coveted North Medals for Outstanding Services to British Numismatics at the 2024 Token Congress, which transpired to be his last, and at which he was greeted with a standing ovation.

This catalogue, the first of several to feature pieces from Gary’s vast collection, includes his English regal shillings – 602 pieces spanning the reigns from Henry VII to Charles III. Displaying them in Lindner trays – Gary’s favoured method of numismatic storage – permitted easy examination and access, both for research and for pleasure. Accompanying tickets and paperwork were filed away in large plastic boxes. Gary shared my dislike for coins in slabs, “you can’t examine them properly and the holders are often scratched” and carefully freed such acquisitions from their plastic tombs, saving the third-party grading company labels “except when they were plainly wrong, then I threw them away.” The only exception he made was for two 2008-dated platinum five pence (Lots 422 and 424 here) which, he said with some justification, if they were ‘cracked out’ would be easily mistaken for regular base metal coins.
Here you will find the whole range of five centuries of coinage, as major rarities share the stage with more humble acquisitions. Among the former is what was Gary’s pride and joy, the Duke of Devonshire’s specimen of David Ramage’s 1651 pattern (Lot 132), a Tanner 1658-dated pattern (Lot 144), a 1798 ‘Dorrien and Magens’ (Lot 245), and Herbert Lingford’s Carlisle siege issue (Lot 126). I could mention many more, but it is easier to let the coins speak for themselves. All the significant pieces are illustrated within the following pages, and everything may be viewed online (www.noonans.co.uk).

Gary leaves a numismatic legacy that will be hard to surpass. Our lives are so much richer for having known him.

P.J.P-M.