Item 1987/1 - Six letters and one card from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart

7 items, paper

Six letters and one card from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart:
(a) letter from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, manuscript, three pages on two folios, dated from Ramsbury on 4 January 1987, promising to get "a set of the Ash/Hunt plates" for IS if he can but noting that OUP has not done a good job with them so far. He asks for advice from IS over a disagreement he is having with James Graham-Campbell in regard to the Cuerdale hoard. While his reading of the numismatic evidence suggests that the hoard came from the south, James Graham-Campbell's is interpreting the evidence from the jewellery and ingots to suggest that the hoard "came from Ireland and was on its way to – where I don't know, perhaps York". CEB thought that the hoard began to take shape in France and gathered material as it went north to Lancashire. He asks IS what he thinks and wonders whether he can contribute a piece about the Cuerdale coins to JGC's volumes on Cuerdale when their views on the treasure differ.
(b) letter from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, manuscript, single page, dated from Ramsbury on 20 January 1987, thanking IS for his letter about Wilfrid [Jasper Walter Blunt, CEB's brother, who died in early January 1987]. He notes that Stewart [Lyon] doesn't rule out the possibility that Cuerdale came to Lancashire via Ireland and promises to write in detail. CEB also says that he understands Marion [Archibald] "has put forward some new ideas on Alfred's dating of the London monogram type".
(c) letter from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, typescript, single page, dated from Ramsbury on 5 February 1987, thanking IS "for all the thought you have given to the questions of which way the Cuerdale hoard was travelling and how it was made up". He says that he has sent copies to both CSSL [i.e. Stewart Lyon] and James Graham-Campbell. He notes that numismatists are in general agreement on the origins of the two continental elements in the hoard, the Kufic element and the Northumbrian Viking group, but there remains disagreement on the Anglo-Saxon element and the St Edmund Memorial coins. He says that he has invited JGC to Ramsbury to discuss the question of origin but he hopes "to get him off his idea that because he believes the ornaments to be Irish [...] the hoard must be coming direct as a whole from Ireland".
(d) postcard from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, manuscript, dated Tuesday 10 February [1987] and postmarked from Swindon, Wiltshire, 11 February [19]87, saying that he expects the first set of proofs for CTCE [= Coinage in Tenth-Century England] at the week-end of 21 February.
(e) letter from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, manuscript, three pages on two folios, dated from Ramsbury on 25 February 1987, saying that it was good to talk with IS and Stewart [Lyon] the previous day. He states that he "looked up the Coenwulf", of which he had a note from a reference in SNC [i.e. Spink's Numismatic Circular], November 1986, p. 247. He notes that the coin was bought by [Derek] Chick, who he says "must by now have an impressive lot of of early Mercian coins". He notes that he looked in at Spink's to see the coin, which he says was "the ordinary tribrach type". He says that he has also looked at the Armitáge fragment at the BM, of which Marion [Archibald] "kindly provided a couple of enlarged polaroids", which he encloses one for IS to keep. He likes the idea of IS to list the Cuerdale coins in columns as they did for Bossall, but notes that it will not be possible to include a column for the Ashmolean.
(f) letter from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, manuscript, one folio (recto & verso), dated from Ramsbury on 4 March 1987, mentioning a problem that has arisen about which he suggests they speak by telephone. He says that he failed to send the typescript of hoards and single finds in its final form to Mark [Blackburn], who has now returned his copy with a large number of corrections, virtually all of them of punctuation. He encloses Mark's letter. If it were up to him, CEB says that he would leave things as they are, but acknowledges that that they should defer to him as editor. Apart from the editorial corrections, "the proofs are in good shape". There is a postscript in which CEB asks IS whether he will be attending the Oxford Symposium on Northumbria in the 9th century on 10-12 April, as the dates partially overlap with their planned meeting at Ramsbury on 9-10.
(g) letter from Christopher Blunt to Ian Stewart, manuscript, one folio (recto & verso), dated from Ramsbury on 15 May 1987, thanking IS for his notes on two chapters of CTCE [= Coinage in Tenth-Century England] and "for putting that curious [...] piece of Burgred" his way. He says that he "had a 'field day' at Spink's", purchasing not only the Burgred but also "a base striking of Edward the Confessor".