THE ROYAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
The Royal Numismatic Society has removed from 22 Albemarle Street to 22 Russell Square, W.C.1, where meetings will be held and the library is housed. On October 16th, Sir Henry Howorth, Vice-President, in the Chair, Mr. Lawrence read a note on some of the difficulties of distinguishing halfpence from farthings during the period between 1465 and 1523. Parliament in the latter year directed some alteration of type of the farthings, as it was shown that halfpennies and farthings were with difficulty distinguishable owing to both denominations having been struck from the same "coin." A discussion was also raised on the profile half-groats of Henry VII. bearing the mint-marks martlet and rose. Some of these have keys below the shield on the reverse and others are without the keys. The question raised was whether these later coins were to be considered as having been struck at York in consequence of the martlet mint-mark, previously only known at York, or whether the absence of the keys denoted their issue at London. Mr. Brooke and Col. Morrieson urged that these coins were sede vacante issues of York.
Mr. H. Mattingly read a paper entitled "A. Vitellius Imp. Germanicus," in which he attempted to determine the reasons for the variations in Vitellius's obverse legends, between the forms Imp. Germ. and Germ. Imp. After distinguishing clearly the class of coins on which these titles appear, he brought evidence to show that the title Imp. Germanicus is characteristic of the non-Roman coins of Vitellius and of the early period of the reign before the victory over Otho. It implied a definite challenge thrown out by the German armies to the rest of the Empire, and in consequence when Vitellius became constitutional Emperor at Rome the title was deftly deprived of offence by inversion to Germanicus Imp., a normal form of title already borne by Claudius and Nero.