Three letters from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart and three letters from Ian Stewart to Christopher Blunt, two with attachments:
(a) letter from Ian Stewart to Christopher Blunt, manuscript, one folio (recto & verso), dated from Baldwin Crescent, London SE5, on 12 September 1981, thanking CEB for the St Peter photographs saying that he "would be glad to keep the Geashill one and return the fragment for our plate", for which his thinks the die is the same as Cop. [i.e. SCBI Copenhagen?] 600. He suggests amending the text and adding a note as attached (see item (b) below). He asks whether Athelstan in B. 309 "is not a mule between an obv. of Aethelerd and a Regnald rev. He further wonders whether most of the smaller southern mints closed before BC and if CC might have been a sort of recoinage for which additional mints were opened. There is an annotation in pencil in CEB's hand in the left margin that addresses these questions. He notes that "Smyth II is now at the Trackers" and that he will miss the upcoming Sylloge meeting. There is a postscript asking about an idea of MD [i.e. Michael Dolley] on Bury St Edmund.
(b) note entitled "The Church Type of Athelstan", manuscript, single page of lined paper, signed "IS" and dated 30 July 1981, attached to item (a) above, with six numbered points, concerning: (1) the association of Birchall's specimen by Regnald of York with his other Bossall coins; (2) the need to look for a distinctive coinage for the archbishop of York if the St Peter coinage is not [arch-?] episcopal; (3) the unlikelihood of a rare York coinage of early Athelstan struck by several moneyers without other connections with the mint; (4) the fact that Regnald is the only certain York moneyer who puts the name on his dies and the possible implications of this; (5) the identities of a Frotier and Thurstan, who may be [moneyers] Frotger of Shrewsbury and Turstan of Leicester; (6) the greater likelihood of Birchall's coin being from Bossall if the non-Regnald examples of the type were from elsewhere.
(c) letter from Ian Stewart to Christopher Blunt, manuscript, one folio (recto & verso), dated from the Hotel Phoenicia, Floriana Malta, on 28 September 1981, returning the classification section of SCBI with his comments and noting that "the only point of substance is the portrait of NE II", which he feels does not wear a helmet and should be recorded under BC (NE II) as "helmet-like" or with some such description. He promises comments on their tenth-century work "in due course" but says that "the amount of space devoted to [Michael] Dolley's crackpot idea about HR3 ... is out of proportion", effectively giving it too much prominence and status. He asks CEB whether he would consider publishing a note on the matter elsewhere, as he is "for Dyke's equally daft notion about Howell". IS continues the missive from home, dated 2 October 1981, thanking CEB for his letter of the 25th [not among the papers of IS], expressing delight about the new die and agreeing that a piece should be added to Bossall. He refers to a Sylloge question about the incorporation of Celtic that he wishes to discuss.
(d) letter from Ian Stewart to Christopher Blunt, manuscript, one folio (recto & verso), dated from Baldwin Crescent, London SE5, on 18 October 1981, thanking IS for his letter [which is evidently absent from Lord Stewartby's papers] and sending a few brief comments. On HR3, he refers to an enclosure (see item (e) below) but adding that he "would like to remove from CTCE [Coinage in tenth-century England] reference to [Michael] Dolley in connection with Edwig's BC coin", perhaps relegating "the bit about authenticity" to a footnote. He says that he would rather not give Dolley's idea "further currency". On the Celtic matter, he says that he takes CEB's point and briefly offers a somewhat cryptic explanation of his own position. On Athelstan, he says that he asked CSSL [i.e. Stewart Lyon] whether he had made any progress towards a revived two-line late in the reign and encloses his response (see JCPP/Stewartby/1/1/LYON/1981/1). He also notes that he has lost the comments that CEB sent on a Edwig half-penny that the BM acquired from a recent sale and asks him to remind him of the moneyer and type. He concludes with a comment on CEB's note on Peterborough and MONTA ZC, which reminds of a coin published in the Numismatic Chronicle, 1953, pl. VI.28, with the inscription MONITA SCORVM that was found in Northamptonshire. The letter is unsigned but on IS's personal letterhead and clearly in his hand.
(e) note entitled "HR3", manuscript, single page on House of Commons letterhead, unsigned and undated but attached to item (d) above and clearly in IS's hand, commenting on the manner in which English coinage was arriving in Ireland during the tenth century.
(f) letter from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, manuscript (carbon-copy), two pages on two folios (recto only), dated 28 October 1981, thanking IS for his letter of 18 October for passing on Stewart Lyon's interesting comments on Athelstan. He needs more time to finish his consideration of the latter but finds himself inclined to agree with many of CSSL's arguments and observations. He says that concurs with IS about relegating the discussion about the Edwig BC to a footnote. There is further comment on the Celtic question in connection with SCBI and on the business about the helmet (or lack thereof), followed by more detailed discussion of Bossall. CEB relates that he now has photographs of the two Birchall coins they needed and that the Regnald "Church" of Athelstan is from two new dies. Finally, he informs IS that the Edwig half-penny is type HT1 var.
(g) letter from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, typescript (copy?), single page, dated 27 November 1981, returning IS's piece on historical background with a few trivial comments. He refers to his experiments with presenting the table of moneyers by mints and types in tabular form and asks IS for comments on his efforts. In so doing, he noticed that Thetford had not been included, whereas in SCBI they are including Thetford with a question mark and suggests that do the same for the tenth-century volume. He mentions some dangerous forgeries of Anglo-Saxon and Norman coins of which Marion [Archibald] produced some photographs for the last BNS [meeting].
(h) letter from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, typescript, one folio (recto & verso), dated from Ramsbury on 3 December 1981, enclosing a letter from Michael Metcalf in the event that he hadn't sent a copy to IS. He says that the Michaels [i.e. referring also to Michael Dolley], "have landed themselves in a pretty pickle" and asks what they do about the matter. His first thought was to withdraw the paper, but he feels that it ought to be published and that the Numismatic Chronicle is the best outlet, so it would be necessary to know the objections of MD and Smyth. He says that he is "not prepared to indulge in a running squabble with MD", having already been involved in one once before over a paper that he had co-authored with John Brand and describing MD as even more unbalanced. He suggests that a possible way forward would be to write to MM saying that they note his points and will attempt to meet them, that they will attempt to do the say in regard to the points raised by MD and Smyth if they could have them, and that they "are in fact replying to views which [they] consider numismatically unsound put forward in Smyth's Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles and by MD and Moore in BNJ 43, pp. 45-59.
