Eric Sydney Rice
Eric Sydney Rice, born in Greenwich on the 1st of December 1938, grew up in the unforgiving wake of the Second World War. His father, Walter Sydney Rice, was killed in action on the Atlanta Ocean by a German U-boat in 1942, leaving Eric alone with his 16-year-old mother, German-English Lilian Rose Horney. The young widow took her son to Teignmouth, Cornwall, where he was raised by his aunt Margaret Mallett, alongside her own children in Teignmouth, Cornwall.
It was in Teignmouth, overlooking the sea towards France, that Eric spent his youth. As a child growing up on the Southern arm of Britain during the end of the Second World War, Eric often strolled along the beaches among the beached wreckage. Many of the coins presented in this collection were likely collected during these strolls, as often bodies and their personal items remained in the wrecks to be discovered and explored by playing children.
Immigrating to Canada in his late teens after the war, he lived with his mother in the settler’s city of Toronto. His mother and her new husband, stoic Polish veteran Frank Debek, lived on site and ran a small local motel known as the Continental. Although Eric had been wanting to immigrate to Canada, he was devastated by the relocation. He had already made plans to immigrate with his cousin, Margaret’s second son, Beresford Mallett. Tragically, it was after Eric was forced to emigrate with his family that young Beresford committed suicide in 1955. Although the relationship between Eric and his mother was already strained, Eric never forgave her.
At age 17, Eric traveled through the United States and into Mexico, where he lived for a few years. Returning to Canada by cargo boat, Eric traveled up the Pacific coast to Vancouver where he worked on cargo ships that frequented Alaska.
Eric eventually left the cargo ships and began to work at Grosvenor Hotel in downtown Vancouver. Eric met his first wife, Edinburgh-born Ann Taylor Heath, at a coffee shop on Main and West Broadway. The two married and had one daughter together, Taylor Ann Rice, born in March, 1965.
Although Eric later divorced and remarried in 1988, he never had any more children. He passed away alone in his house in Surrey in February, 1998, at the age of 59. At the time of his passing, he left his mother, his daughter, his granddaughter Devon Ann Dunsford, and an unborn grandson Russell Dixon Dunsford.
Eric Sydney Rice (1938-1998)
The Collection
Throughout his life, Eric Sydney Rice collected a large number of coins from a variety of sources. As a child growing up in Teignmouth during the end of WWII, Eric often strolled along the beaches among the crashed planes. Many of the coins presented in this collection were likely collected during these strolls, as often bodies and their personal items sometimes remained in the wrecks, which were discovered and explored by children.
Other coins in the collection were likely collected through Eric’s travels. He lived for some years in Mexico, collecting a number of Mexican Pesos predominantly dated in the 1950s. The collection also includes an extensive number of both old and relatively new coins from all over Britain, the United States of America, and Canada.
The collection came into my possession in 2018, and I have since made an effort to sort, catalogue, and preserve the coins.