The Bob Blake Collection of Irish Banknotes

Bob Blake
Born in Winchester in July 1943, Bob lived in that fascinating city until relocating to Jersey in 1965, where he continues to live. As a young man he studied botany and horticulture, spending his first five years in Jersey growing orchids. Engineering, however, was a passion and took over his life in the 1970s; indeed, from 1975 to 1985 he spent most of his time overseas, installing tyre retreading equipment and training users in a number of countries all over the world. In 1985 he started his own engineering business which he continues to manage. Bob has always been interested in sport, both as a participant and an organiser. In the 1960s and 1970s motor racing was his great passion and he competed on the circuits and hillclimbs in a wide variety of machinery, from a Ford Lotus Cortina saloon through a succession of single-seaters, even a fearsome Formula 5000 Crossle built in Northern Ireland. All this, however, had to be put on one side when overseas work took up most of his time. When he started his own business in 1985, he found that he had some spare time and consequently took up shooting. While Bob shot with rifle, pistol and shotgun, his main interest evolved in the pistol disciplines and he went on to represent Jersey all over the world; he also represented Great Britain on a number of occasions. He continues to participate and organise events.
Collecting is in Bob's blood. As a child he collected cigarette cards, coins and comics. His interest in paper money began in the early 1970s, when work took him overseas and he would come home with a variety of different notes he had picked up on his travels. He then started to look for rare or unusual pieces and widen his knowledge by researching their history. His serious interest started with South East Asia and he still has a superb collection of Philippine notes, primarily collected in those early days when travelling extensively in the Philippines. In the mid-1970s he shifted his interest to British notes, firstly specialising in Bank of England white notes and later British provincials and, of course, Channel Islands.
It was in 1986 that he started to seriously specialise in Ireland, both north and south. Intrigued that there was no serious body of research material to draw upon, he began to put a definitive manuscript together, running parallel with a note collection that included all aspects of the different issues, including prefixes and dates. That project is close to completion and, with the assistance and collaboration of fellow researcher Jonathan Callaway, should see publication early in 2009.
Bob also has a general World collection and one of the largest collections of Travel money, encompassing the whole spectrum from travellers' cheques to letters of credit, circular notes, bills of exchange, etc. Bob also has an extensive collection of banknote printing plates and other banknote-related items. He has several thousand books which, added to his research material, make for quite a house full.
Like any serious collector, Bob's interests also extend to other fields, in particular antique tools, model ships, original cartoon art, corkscrews and antique firearms.
Collection Information
This collection was sold in 8 parts:
Other Collections Sold in 2012
- The Collection of Medals to the Wiltshire Regiment formed by the late Michael Hayward
- The John Chidzey Collection
- Militaria and Medals relating to Jamaica and the West Indies
- The Collection of Napoleonic War Medals formed by the late R.W. Gould, M.B.E.
- Awards to the Medical Services from the Collection of the late Tony Sabell
- The Collection of Medals formed by the late Tim Ash
- The Collection of Second World War and Modern Gallantry Awards formed by the late William Oakley
- Awards to the Indian Army from the Collection of AM Shaw
- The Collection of Medals formed by the late Arnold Jackson
- Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte
- The Late Jim Sazama Collection of Medieval Coins
- A Collection of Awards to the Royal Flying Corps, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force
- A Collection of Medals to the Hampshire Regiment
- British Medals from the Collection of James Spencer
- Tokens from the Late David Griffiths Collection
- The Late Robinson S. Brown Jr Collection
- The Bob Blake Collection of Irish Banknotes
- The Peter Stanton Collection of Paper Money of Guernsey
- Roman Coins from the John Quinn Collection
- A fine Collection of Life Saving Awards
- A Collection of British Orders and Decorations, the Property of Gentleman
- A fine Collection of Medals to Members of the Royal Household
- An outstanding Collection of Awards relating to the Order of St John
- The Collection of 19th Century Tokens formed by Frank Gorsler
- The David Greenhalgh Collection of Medieval Halfgroats
- The ‘Bellamy’ Collection of English Halfcrowns
- Coins from the Corringham (Essex) Hoard, 2009
- British Coins from the Collection of Dave Elliott
- Anglo-Gallic Coins from the Collection of Arthur M Fitts III
- A Collection of British Hammered Coins
- The Collection of Shillings formed by the late Gerald Sommerville
- Australian Tokens from the Duncan Pennock Collection
- A Good Group of Tokens of German South-West Africa
- A Group of Coins from an 18th-Century American Toll-House
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