Galata Coins was established in 1971 in Wolverhampton. It sold ancient greek, roman and byzantine coins. It eventually incorporated the coin dealing activities of Paul Withers - hammered coins, world coins, tokens, medals, etc.

It is a partnership of Paul and Bente Withers. It all began when I gave up teaching in 1973, since when we have been full-time dealers in coins and numismatic books. We like to think of ourselves as being specialists in being non-specialists. Although we do not claim to be specialists in any particular fields, and apart from thinking that we know a little about coin-weights, 19th century copper tokens, and medieval halfpennies and farthings, we sometimes offer a better selection of some coins than many who do claim to be specialists.

We operate by buying coins that we think are cheap, neglected, or under-rated, and find interesting. Eventually, when these have built up to a reasonable quantity, we get around to offering them for sale. So although we may have something in stock it may not be for immediate sale - or even accessible until it has been listed. By all means ask, but please do not be offended by a refusal. Yes, sure, we can only sell it once, but we will decide when we sell and we will not be hustled. Anyone deemed to be hustling will be ignored.

Besides coins the companies have other activities including the design, typesetting and production of books, catalogues and lists for other dealers, associations and museums; not only for coins, but for commemorative medals and also military medals and awards, and some totally non-numismatic fields, and through our son, even the selling of computers and IT expertise. It is he who has set up our website for us.

In 1993 Galata became two, Galata Print Limited, which carried on the business of printing, publishing and dealing in new and secondhand books; and Galata Coins, which deals in coins, medals, and tokens.

We do not deal in antiquities, bullion gold, or scrap silver.

We do not trade in bulk lots of ancient or modern coins.

Another major activity is writing. We have written :

A Catalogue of the Collection of Coins, Tokens, Dies, etc., in the Assay Office, Birmingham 1985.

British Coin-Weights, A Corpus 1993

Lions, Ships and Angels - Coin-weights found in Britain 1995

A Catalogue of British Copper Tokens 1811-20 1999

Lead Weights -The David Rogers Collection (with N. Biggs). 2000

Kruger Pond Imitations 2003

 

Small Change. A series of six volumes incorporating our researches on round silver halfpennies and farthings and three-farthings. The earlier volumes are written with a new approach, re-examining and correcting earlier classifications. We think that they set the standard for the new millennium.

I The Farthings and Halfpennies of Edward I and II 2001

II The Halfpennies and Farthings of Edward III and Richard II 2002

III The Halfpennies and Farthings of Henry IV, V and VI 2003

IV The Halfpennies and Farthings of Edward IV to Henry VII 2004

V The Small Silver of Henry VIII to the Commonwealth 2004

VI Irish Small Silver John to Edward VI 2004

 

The Galata Guide to the Pennies of Edward I and II and the coins of the mint of Berwick-upon-Tweed. 2006

 

We publish :

The Hammered Silver Coins produced at the Tower Mint during the reign of Elizabeth I by I.D. Brown, C.H. Comber and W. Wilkinson, photographs by P. Withers. 2006

Evasions as listed by James Atkins, 1892, with introduction by Paul Withers 2004

Toy Coins. D J Rogers. 1990. Standard reference work on the subject.

A Thousand Guineas. A Checklist of Imitation Guineas and their Fractions. W Bryce Neilson, with assistance from David Magnay, David Young and J Gavin Scott. 2003.

British Cardboard Coins from 1860. Card Coins and their related Paper Money. David Evans. 2004

Books by E J E PIRIE:

The York Hoard, 1831 A contribution to research on early 9th cent Northumbrian coinage. 1994

Coins of the Kingdom of Northumbria c.700-867 1996.

Thrymsas, Sceattas and Stycas of Northumbria. An Inventory of Finds recorded, to 1997. 2000.

Coins of Northumbria, an Illustrated Guide. 2002

 

We distribute

Designs on Posterity. Drawings for medals. M. Jones (ed.) 1994. Published by the British Art Medal Society.

Books by N Biggs

English Weights : An Illustrated Survey. 1992

Apothecaries Weights. An Outline Catalogue. 1994

Bullion Weights. An Outline Catalogue. 1995

Verification Marks on Weights. The Administrative Background. 1996

Antique Weights : The Nineteenth Century. 1998 >

Some of the above works are now out of print, but there will probably be reprints, or revised editions.

We do not sit still and currently we are researching european coin-weights, so-called ‘brothel tokens’ and several other topics. You will find that there are many other books that we have printed, designed, or for which we have done the photography, or have helped in other ways. To give one example, take a look at the index to the reprint edition of Forrer’s Biographical Dictionary of Medallists.

Our house, a former pub, which can be seen at the head of this page, was built before Colombus set sail. It is stuffed with our ever-growing personal library of around 4500 numismatic books. We moved here, to Llanfyllin, in the wilds of Mid-Wales, in 1991, to semi-retire and get away from urban nastiness.

Llanfyllin is a lovely little town, population around 1400, which is only on the way anywhere if you are going back.

Visitors are generally welcome, but please ring first so that we can find out what you want to see - or let you know whether we have what you are looking for.

If you have made an appointment, please keep to it, or if you cannot, please let us know. Why ? Firstly because it is courteous to do so, and secondly, we will have organised our work schedule for that day around your visit. We may also have arranged to see someone else - or have arranged to go out and have to be somewhere at a particular time. Those who fail to keep an appointment, especially if they do not let us know, may not be welcome again.

Once a year we produce ‘Sacra Moneta’ our printed catalogue of new and secondhand numismatic books and ancient and modern coins and tokens for sale.

I am a fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society and a member of the British Numismatic Society. I am membership secretary of the Oriental Numismatic Society. Bente is a member of the British Art Medal Society.

We are interested in almost the entire spectrum of numismatics from ancient to modern. We collect : coins of India, coin-weights of the world, weights and scales, 19th-century copper tokens, brothel tokens, numismatic books, books on cookery and chemist's glass measures.

Some people feel happier when they know what the people with whom they are dealing look like. Well, here we are, revealed on the web for the first time. Those who know us well know that we can even smile from time to time.

Paul and Bente Withers