St. Martin's Day St. Martin's Day Saint Martin's day, also known as the Feast of Saint Martin, Martinstag or Martinmas, as well as Old Halloween and Old Hallowmas Eve, is the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours (Martin le Miséricordieux) and is celebrated on November 11 each year. This is the time when autumn wheat seeding was completed, and the annual slaughter of fattened cattle produced "Martinmas beef". Historically, hiring fairs were held where farm laborers would seek new posts. Saint Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier who was baptised as an adult and became a bishop in a French town.
Key date Key date In coin collecting, a key date refers to a date (or date and mint mark combination) of a given coin series or set that is harder to obtain than other dates in the series. The next level of difficult to obtain coins in series are often referred to as semi-key dates or simply semi-keys. For example, the 1909-S VDB is the key date in the Lincoln cent series. The 1914-D and 1931-S are considered semi-keys. In the United Kingdom £1 coins from 1988 are considered key date coins. What makes a coin a "key" is somewhat more complicated