Coins, Tokens and Historical Medals

ALS from Montagu Browne at Corporation Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, 16 January 1901, to J.W. Spurway, concerning a medal for the Capture of Portobello, 1739, 4pp. Fine £10-£20

The main text reads: “My dear Sir, I have worked out the medal, which I now return. There were a great number struck some of which are rare. Of your particular type there seem to have been three varieties none of which are rare...I am, dear Sir, Yours very truly, Montagu Browne, Curator.”

Montagu Browne, FZS (1837-1923), the first curator of Leicester Museum to be salaried in 1880 (prior to that the post was honorary), was also a noted naturalist and taxidermist. Part of the coin collection formed by John William Spurway (1853-1931), a Leicester coin collector whose Anglo-Saxon and other coins were inherited, and added to, by his son Noel Burton Spurway (b. 1887), was sold by Glendining on 9 April 1984