James Dodsley Cuff (1780 – September 28, 1853) was an English

numismatist A numismatist is a specialist, researcher, and/or well-informed collector of numismatics, numismatics/coins ("of coins"; from Late Latin , genitive of ). Numismatists can include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholar-researchers who use coi ...

and

coin collector Coin collecting is the collecting of coins or other forms of minted legal tender. Coins of interest to collectors include beautiful, rare, and historically significant pieces. Collectors may be interested, for example, in complete sets of a ...

. Cuff was born in

Corsley Corsley is a hamlet and Civil parishes in England, civil parish west of Warminster in Wiltshire, England. The parish is on the county border with Somerset; the Somerset town of Frome is about to the northwest. The largest settlement in the pari ...

and worked for the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...

for 48 years. His position in the Bullion Office enabled him to obtain specimens of rare coins, including five examples of the Dorrien and Magens shilling. He was a founding member of the

Royal Numismatic Society The Royal Numismatic Society (RNS) is a learned society and charity based in London, United Kingdom which promotes research into all branches of numismatics. Its patron was Queen Elizabeth II. Membership Foremost collectors and researchers, bo ...

and a Fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London The Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) is a learned society of historians and archaeologists in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1707, received its royal charter in 1751 and is a Charitable organization, registered charity. It is based ...

. Cuff sold part of his collection of British coins to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

in 1839, while the remainder was sold at auction by

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

after his death. The auction took 18 days and brought more than £7000. Through what

Henry Noel Humphreys Henry Noel Humphreys (1810–1879), Humphreys, Henry Noel, in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 28. was a British illustrator, naturalist, entomologist, and numismatist. Humphreys was born on 4 January 1810 in Birmingham, the ...

calls his "sagacious ingenuity", Cuff was able to determine that coins bearing the mark of

Thomas Rotherham Thomas Rotherham (24 August 1423 – 29 May 1500), also known as Thomas (Scot) de Rotherham, was an English cleric and statesman. He served as bishop of several dioceses, most notably as Archbishop of York and, on two occasions as Lord Ch ...

Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers the ...

, belonged to the reign of Henry VII rather than Henry VI.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuff, James Dodsley 1780 births 1853 deaths English numismatists People associated with the Bank of England People from Wiltshire Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London