It’s that time of year again for Hungerford’s famous Christmas lights to be switched on! 

The person doing the honors this year was award winning author, Robert Harris. Hungerford Town Band played and children from Hungerford Primary School provided carols.

It wouldn’t be quite the same without a small technical hitch – the tree remained dark for the first couple of minutes after everything else had been turned on!  Just a minor hiccup!

All in all a great start to the festive season in Hungerford!

I am willing to bet that nobody reading this blog will ever have seen a coin like this one before.  The reason I am so sure is that to my knowledge, there are only 7 others like it in existence.  This is an extremely rare two pence piece struck mistakenly in cupro-nickel (a copper nickel alloy) in 1971.  The most likely scenario for it being struck in the incorrect metal at the royal mint is that a nickel blank was left in the machine when they started to strike the two pence coins.

Why 7 others?  While doing some reading I learned that they strike coins in lots of 8 at the mint so it is unlikely that the wrong blanks were used more than once.  At least 2 of these coins have been found and sold at auction in the past few years and it is incredible to think that a coin which is still legal tender can make upwards of 50000 times its face value! The highest price I have found is over £1300 and sold at auction in England in 2014.

The one I have here is owned by a friend of mine who acquired it while working at a newsagents in 1971.  He was stocking the till with change when he noticed a glint of silver in amongst the copper coins.  He thought it looked interesting enough so he changed it for a normal 2p from his pocket and took it home.  A few years later he sent it off to the Royal Mint to see if they could tell him any more about it.  They replied with a signed letter confirming its authenticity as a genuine 2p coin struck in cupro-nickel.

My friend then allowed the coin to sit safely in a cupboard for more than 40 years, along with the letters from the Mint.  When he heard about the recent discoveries and auctions he thought it was about time to sell the coin, which is exactly what he plans to do.  The coin will be going to auction this year and I think he is guaranteed a profit on the investment he made 46 years ago! 

Winter Exhibition

Sue and daughter Claire Acworth welcome you to come to their exhibition of pastel drawings and handmade jewellery

Little Hidden Farm

Hungerford, Berkshire. RG17 0PN

10am to 6pm
on
10th, 11th & 12th November

Welcome to bring family & friends

Sue Acworth – Pastel drawings

Sue has a life-long interest in the countryside to which many of her pictures are related. She captures the ebb and flow of the seasons with her colourful depictions of woodlands, animals and landscapes. Sue works with pastels on sandpaper and is developing techniques that almost add a third dimension to her pictures.

t: 01488 683253
e: sueacworth@gmail.com

Claire Acworth – Jewellery

Claire is a designer and maker of contemporary jewellery, working in silver and occasionally gold. Her work is organic and sculptural. Textured with hammer marks or imprinted with the delicate veins of a leaf, each piece is unique. She uses semi-precious stones as well as simple found objects such as pebbles or sea glass which are transformed into elegant new forms.

t: 07765 251531
e: claireacworthjewellery@gmail.com

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Hungerford Visual Arts Trail is coming soon to Hungerford and as you can see if you gaze through our front window, you will see that it’s going to be jam packed with amazing local artists exhibiting their work all across town.

Have a look at the incredible window display that Susan Mayes has made to show people exactly what to expect and where they should be going to see as much as possible.  The pictures do not do it justice! We love it!

The Visual Arts Trail is starting on the 21st September and goes through to the 30th so there is plenty of time for you to see everything.  

Last week we welcomed back some old friends of ours.  Saki Junko and her colleague, pictured here with Adrian, run a tea shop in Japan.  

It’s no ordinary tea shop as you can see if you visit their website as they also sell antiques and vintage clothing.

We look forward to their next visit and even more than that, we wish we could visit them at their shop.  It looks amazing!

Thank you for coming back and we’ll see you soon!

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue and a silver sixpence in her shoe.  Did you have a silver sixpence placed in your shoe when you were married?  Maybe it’s not quite as common these days as it used to be, but today, we met someone who is trying to bring it back.  Martin Strong is a Civil Celebrant who conducts weddings, funerals and baby naming ceremonies.  

He came into Hungerford Arcade looking for a silver sixpence for his marriage ceremonies.  Traditionally it is the Father of the bride who places the sixpence in the bride’s shoes on the morning of the wedding as a symbol of him wishing her luck, prosperity and happiness in her marriage.

Martin got more than he bargained for and left with a handful of sixpences (although they weren’t all silver ones) which will hopefully all end up in the shoes of brides across the country, bringing them all the luck in their new lives.

Martin is also a fellow of the Guild of Toastmasters and Town Criers, is trained for banquets and also masonic Ladies Festivals.  If you ened a Civil Celebrant for any of the above events please feel free to get in touch with Martin:

tma.strong@btinternet.com

Adrian and Sarah with one of the purchases

Hungerford Arcade is a hotspot for charities who want to buy old, unusual items for their events.  Sarah Beazley (Sarah Beazley Designs) and her colleague do very special work for alzheimers patients, spending many hours in the Arcade buying items that help trigger memories of the past.

Sarah and her colleague are high ranking business women who give up a lot of their time for this very special cause which is dear to their hearts.  Every item is carefully chosen with much discussion between them before it is purchased.

They buy such things  as old sewing machines, fishing rods, tennis rackets, golf clubs, rugby balls, china ornaments, boxes, gardening tools, utensils, brief cases, model cars and much, much more.

They had two cars filled to the brim to take to London and unload on Wednesday for a full day of activities on Thursday.

Hope everything went well for you and that everyone had a wonderful day.

As regular readers will know, we get quite a few famous faces in the shop.  

Obviously a lot of them are linked to programs which are filmed here such as Bargain Hunt or Antiques Road Trip. But it feels quite good when an antiques personality comes to the shop of his own volition.  

John Sanden works on The Antiques Roadshow and is a world authority on European Porcelain.  

He came to do a bit of antiques hunting in The Arcade on his way to visit friends and found a number of interesting items.  He is a very pleasant and knowledgeable man and it was a pleasure to serve him.    

With over 120 dealers under our roof, members of the public often bring items into the shop to try to tempt somebody into buying them. Other times it is dealers who make a beeline for our shop in the knowledge that there are people here who will buy.

It may seem strange but people sometimes travel quite a long way just to come to Hungerford Arcade to sell their heirlooms or stock.  But we don’t get many dealers who come to sell specifically at Hungerford Arcade from another country!  But that is exactly what a young man called Lucas has done for the past two years.  Once a year he has collected various items and brought them to the Arcade to try his luck with our dealers.

Antiques and collectables from other countries always go down well here because they are generally very different from the things we see on a regular basis.

Being from Belgium, Lucas has access to some amazing relics from from The First World War which are always in high demand in England, such as these artillery rounds he’s holding with Rita.  We really enjoyed his visit and the dealers who purchased from him are looking forward to seeing him again next year!  Come back soon Lucas!