“The Faces of Captain Cook: A record of the coins and medals of James Cook” by Allan Klenman, was published by him as a private venture in 1983.1
A magnificent book, it gives as much detail as possible for each item (for example date of issue, by whom, design, size, metals, number struck). Most of the 118 medals and 21 coins are illustrated, obverse and reverse sides.
Allan gave every item a number with a prefix of K for medals, and KC for coins. The ones that were not illustrated are numbers K6, K37, K58, K66, K67, K68A-B-C, K70, K89A-B-C, K94, K99, K106, and one unnumbered item.
CCS member Graeme Brown kindly provided illustrations of three of the medals that are missing. Martin Purdy2 provided the last one. Can anyone else help me with any of the others?
K6 was issued in 1823 for Amédée Durand’s series Numismatica Universalis Virorum Illustrium, Paris.
K14 was produced in 1900.
The unnumbered medal was issued in 1979; the designer and producer are unknown.
K37 was struck for presentation by the organisers of the NZ Stamp Exhibition, New Plymouth, in 1969; the design was based on the NZ 50 cent coin.
Ian Boreham
References
- Klenman, Allan. The Faces of Captain Cook: A record of the coins and medals of James Cook. Published privately. 1983.
- MacMaster, Hamish and Martin Purdy. New Zealand commemorative medals: 1941-2014. Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand. 2014. 2nd edition.
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 57, volume 43, number 4 (2020).