Item 1995/1 - Seven letters from Jeffrey Mass, incompletely dated

7 items, paper

Seven letters from Jeffrey Mass, all incompletely dated:
(a) manuscript, single page, dated from Islip, Oxfordshire, on 22 May, enclosing photographs of his three short-cross imitation, two complete and one cut half. The photographs are no longer associated with letter. JPM notes that all three are available for exchange.
(b) manuscript, single page, dated from Hertford College, Oxford, on 14 June, congratulating him on his Aimer – Fil Aimer hypothesis, which he describes as "a seductive solution to the conundrum". The rest of the letter is turned over to negotiations towards an exchange of coins with IS from their respective collections.
(c) typescript, single page, dated 24 August, accepting IS's offer of four coins for three of his plus three [cut] fractions, which are listed.
(d) typescript, single page, dated from Hertford College on 4 September, noting that his departure for the US on the 20th is fast approaching and acknowledging that any meeting will therefore need to wait until the following summer. JMP refers to an enclosure, no longer attached to the letter, of a paper that he has already submitted to the BNJ. He notes that he has had a very successful season on the coin front, "leaving aside Wainfleet", and he lists some of his salient acquisitions.
(e) typescript, single page, dated from Stanford University on 12 December, sharing news that he has been negotiating with Bill Conte for "another big chunk of the JJN [i.e. Jeffrey North] collection", including 170 new short-cross coins, ninety-five of which are class VII, and five imitations, which brings his total number of imitations to twenty-four. JPM described the acquisition as his most satisfying apart from when he obtained the Wainfleet coins in September 1995. There is a manuscript PS in which he states that he is informing Mark Blackburn about the class VII coins.
(f) typescript, single page, dated from Stanford University on 13 December, thanking IS for his letter and careful reading of his paper, and responding to some of the points that IS raised in his letter. He discusses news that IS acquired a class Ia1/Ia2 short-cross coin of the moneyer Aimer and notes that one of the coins that he obtained from the Wainfleet hoard is even nicer. He also mentions his reluctance to give details about the size of his collection and its whereabouts, a question relating the proximity of Winchester and Wilton, Martin Allen's preference for the phrase "double-crescent E" over "fouble half-moon E", and his own recent acquisition of a short-cross imitation, promising that he'll try to get a polaroid to IS.
(g) typescript, single page, dated from Stanford University on 29 December, sharing news of a recent acquisition in which he obtained a class IVc short-cross coin of RANDVL.ON.NO and promising to turn over the imitation that owes IS upon his return.

The letters are incompletely dated, giving only the day of the month and month, though three of them refer to the Wainfleet (Croft Bank) hoard from Lincolnshire, found in 1990, and two of these refer to JPM's acquisitions from the hoard, and one of these dates his acquisitions from the hoard to September 1993. The two letters referring to his acquisitions from the hoard therefore must postdate September 1993.