The collection consists of c. 2500 Iron Age coins. It is particularly strong for Britain, thanks to the Arthur Evans and John Talbot collections with their numerous gold coins, and for Gaul, thanks to the largely bronze collection formed by Derek Allen. The Iron Age collection is of significance for the development of the subject. Sir John Evans, some of whose coins are preserved in the collection of his son Arthur, was a pioneering figure in the field of prehistoric numismatics and was the first person to devise a systematic classification of British Iron Age coinage. Derek Allen was likewise a key figure in the study of ‘Celtic’ numismatics. The collection has historically been referred to as ‘Celtic and Iron Age’, defined as the non-Roman coins found in Britain and the Continent at the end of prehistory. Current scholarship argues against the use of the term Celtic to describe the pre-Roman Iron Age peoples of Britain; we retain the use of it solely for historic reasons.
