Hi everyone. Well I went and did it again I bought another token. Not any token this one is the Franklin Press. Why do I say that? Simply because it's the only token or coin I have seen classified as Unique. That's right in the Red Book Deluxe on page 138. It is a Conder Token made in England in 1794. Now some made it's way to America but never circulated they went into collections. They went into collections because it was associated with a London shop were Franklin worked.

Hi everyone today I am writing about Mill Lane Gate. Now Mill Lane of course was a street� in Coventry. At the end of the street they built what they called a gate. Now these gates encircled the city for protection. They built about� thirty two of these gates they were nine feet thick and eighteen to twenty feet tall. These gates sometimes had families living in them and at times of possible trouble soldiers. They were built in the fourteenth century some still stand today like Cooks Gate. This gate was taken down in 1849 to relieve some of the traffic on the narrow street and gate. These gates took approximately forty two years to build and were kept in great repair for more than three hundred years. Underneath of the gate if you looked up you saw the city's crest. Some had ramparts on top for protection of the soldiers. Now below you will see two colors. I wanted you to see what some of the tokens look like now and the brighter color for more detail. I want you to experience some� of Kempsons talents. Remember these are 223 years old. Some of them still standing today. They also supported the buildings next to them. Now all of the gates in London could not stop the Germans from bombing Coventry. It seemed it was a popular site for them. But it still stands today. It just shows the resolve of the British people. Now these gates had a basic design some were different you couldn't tell today what it was at the end of the street. Some now stand by themselves surrounded by grass and flowers. These were very important to Coventry. Kempson had an idea what was important to the people of Coventry. That's why he chose this city and London to do his sets. In the future I will be putting up some of his private tokens still raw. Looking through my tokens I found another Kempson proof. That's what gets me. This token was taken such good care of a 223.year old proof is a gift. One of his Coventry tokens in his set is a proof. A copper proof. Not unheard of but this old it is a special token. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it. Take care and enjoy your coins and tokens and medals. Mike.

Hi every one. Well I finally received my tokens back from NGC. There part of the set I'm after. Now I wrote blogs on these two coins so I won't be writing one on each token again. I will tell you the basics about them. These two are part of the Kempson� Coventry set of nineteen.� Now these have a very rare reverse on them. There called the George Fredrick Handel Reverse. These are sought after by collectors. I have checked with the so called experts and they say that Kempson made three hundred reverses of Handel on this set. When� I finally got them i� sent them in to get protected. They came back a month later with the Handel reverse as the Handel obverse. Both of them. One had the wrong label and it was falling off. So off they went back to NGC. Don't worry you will have them back in ten days. I said great. Well then the phone calls started were are my tokens? Well ten days turned into another month and change. NGC turned one label and two encapsulation into over two and a half months I even spoke to the grader. I'm getting tired of this. How long does this take. A label two slabs. I'm sorry but there time for doing something like this should take twenty minutes not two months and change. So NGC had my tokens longer than I did. Don't forget the time from Europe. Well there done now and there home were they belong. No one should have to go through this. It's when we get to it not when you want it. They said ten days. I would advise you to make as many phone calls to any grading company taking an excessive amount of time with YOUR� COINS. Oh I forgot there is no charge for this. Maybe that's why they take so long. So call them. There customer service people are very nice act professionally no yelling after all� there not doing the repairs and can get them moved up some times. There human but this mistake is not called for twice. I still do business with them and you will have these problems with other grading companies. So as upset as I was I knew they would come back. But there is room for improvement. So be calm and your coins and tokens will come back. Thanks for reading this I think it's an important issue.� If your a yn's just joined and middle age these problems will happen. I hope I helped you with it. Keep collecting. Don't get upset. Mike.

� Thanks to a blog written by an ANA member on 10 March, 2018 I was inspired to look for a token from my hometown. Low and behold, I found one while searching a Civil War Token Society seller. It was priced very reasonably, so I closed the deal. Had to wait a while as he was out of town but got it in the mail within a day or two of his return. I happen to be from what used to be a small, sleepy college town in the northern part of CA., Palo Alto. The college is Stanford University and it is anything but small now. Somehow Silicon Valley has swallowed it up.� I couldn't afford to live there if I wanted to. Anyway, we are talking about the 50's and 60's in my case. It was a nice time to grow up if you didn't count the Russian ICBM and nuclear bomb drills. Who would have thought that ducking under your desk while indoors or dropping down alongside a street curb would protect you from the blast and radiation? That's what we were taught! It doesn't sound like they were such a big deal back then. So when my friend Greg and I were not "duck and covering", we often went to the movies. My mom was kind enough to buy us both summer passes for all the kid movies that were shown. I'm sure getting us gone for a few hours had nothing to do with it. The theater we went to was called The Varsity. My mom would generally drive us there and we would spend the day watching everything on the screen. It didn't matter if they showed the same movie a couple of times. In those days there was generally two features shown. So we would sit there and get wired on Pixie Sticks, look it up, and all kinds of candy. We were given a small stipend to stay away. After the shows were over and the Varsity closed we would just walk home. You could do that back then.

Today I have a new token acquisition. As you can see below, it is a 1795 Great Britain Halfpenny. I like to collect tokens and coins with bee hives or Druids on them. This token has both. Nice find if I do say so myself. I’m very new to tokens so all mistakes are mine. The Obverse,?, shows a druid head facing right. Around the edge is written CURRENT IN THE COUNTIES OF. It has the date, 1795, below the Druid. The reverse has a old world style beehive in the center with bees flying around it. The hive is sitting on a stand on some grass. Around the edge is written INDUSTRY HAS IT’S SURE REWARD. There is what looks like a flower in the center edge. Around the outside rim is inscribed: CAMBRIDGE BEDFORD . AND HUNTINGDON . X . X