Lee Toone

Lee is a career civil servant who has spent much of his spare time focussed on numismatics. He first became interested in coins at the time of decimalisation in the late sixties and early seventies. Along with many people, he was “checking his change” for rare dates and mintmarks.

 In the early 1980s he became interested in Roman coinage after he discovered three in a box of coins. Borrowing Mattingly and Reece from his local library he managed to identify them and by coincidence he “discovered” Alistair Mackay who was selling Roman coins out of an antique shop in Kettering at the time. He was hooked!

In 2006 he began studying and collecting coins of the Roman mint of London. He soon saw the need for something to update RIC for London as there were too many gaps and the rarity values were often misleading. He used his fascination of hoard reports, analytical skills and the internet to fill these gaps. His first “preliminary list” was published in Spink’s Numismatic Circular in 2008 and several articles and lists have followed.

Also in 2006, he was approached by Brent Upchurch of Boston, USA to help organise the Coins of Constantine Symposium that was held in York on the anniversary of Constantine’s accession in York back in 306 AD. This has led to him organising this Romano-British coin conference, in York again, in 2011.

Publications:

The London Mint 313-318 AD – A Preliminary Listing: Numismatic Circular, October 2008, pp.244-252.

Nether Compton Hoard (Dorset): Coin Hoards from Roman Britain Vol. XII, Wetteren, 2009, pp. 396.

A New London Mintmark for Constantine the Great? : Numismatic Circular, July 2009, pp.106.

Obituary: Dr J S “Stoffel” Vogelaar: Numismatic Circular, March 2010, pp.19.

The Vogelaar Romano-British Collection: The Celator, May 2010, pp.6-18.

The London Mint AD 319-325 – A Preliminary Listing: Numismatic Circular, September 2010, pp.174-182.