In 1279 A.D., Edward I initiated a major recoinage in England. Not only did he redesign the penny, he also introduced new denominations: the groat, which has a value of four pence, the halfpenny, and the farthing. The voided long cross of Henry III’s coins was discontinued in favor of a solid long cross. The long cross served as a kind of security device to show if a coin had been clipped. Clipping was the practice of shaving off pieces of a silver coin, thus reducing its weight. The long cross helped to ensure that a coin had not been clipped and was still the official weight. Other changes to the coins included a new bust of Edward, a new obverse legend, and the discontinuation of putting the moneyer’s name on the reverse of a coin. With the exception of a few years at Bury St. Edmunds, the moneyer’s name does not appear on Edward’s coins. Edward had 4 main mints: London, Canterbury, Durham, and Bury St. Edmunds, and 8 part-time mints: Bristol, Exeter, Chester, Lincoln, York, Kingston-Upon-Hull, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, and Berwick-Upon-Tweed. During the initial recoinage from 1279 to 1281, around 125,000,000 coins were minted. By the end of Edward’s reign, over 350,000,000 coins were minted. Coins minted between 1279 and 1301 are easiest to identify by a trifoliate crown. Starting in 1301, a bifoliate crown was used. Small changes to the drapery on the king’s bust, changes to the king’s face, hair, and crown, and changes to the letters of the obverse and reverse legend lead to the different classifications of Edward’s coins. With the exception of a few provincial and ecclesiastical dies used in Durham, York, Bury St. Edmunds, and Berwick-Upon-Tweed, the dies were centrally produced in London and transported to the other mints. In 1279, several different legends were initially used. By the end of 1279, the engravers seemed to have agreed on the legend EDW R ANGL DNS HYB. That legend was used until 1301, when new varieties began to appear. The legend translates to, “Edward, King of England, Lord of Ireland.” The changes in 1301 stayed the standard on coins until Henry VIII’s recoinage in 1509.
:thumb: Great post. Very educational. Have you written anything on later British coinage (especially 1700s)? Thank you, again. guy
Good info, thanks for posting. I think I may have one or two of these pennies around somewhere. I do have a couple Edward I Anglo-Gallic issues, but haven't found much info on them yet.
Thanks for the post! Interesting read. I picked up one of the Longshanks pennies about 10 years ago when working on my 'most interesting leaders' by century collection. Not much to look at, but for $25, I was pleased. Looks like this one was from London.
you mean in reality you want to entomb a valuable piece of history in a sterile plastic coffin, thus removing it's charm??
From a dealer, Tony Fein. I'm not sure where he got the information, but what he gave me was, and I quote him, "In 1279, some 107,684 pounds were struck into groats, pence, and farthings, an estimated 26,000,000 coins. For the years 1279-1281, the first recoinage, an estimated 500,000 pounds of tower bullion was struck into about 125,000,000 coins, a huge sum by medieval standards. Throughout the entire reign over 350,000,000 coins were struck; however, some of the later mint activity involved recoining some of the coins struck before 1300."
I am not sure where Tony got his numbers from. While I agree there was a massive issuance of this coin, to pin down even these rough numbers seems like a stretch. I am awaiting the arrival of a few rare papers and publications specific to Edward I pennies, and maybe they contain estimates. However, after several years of research, I have yet to find an estimate like the one made above.
I think I have found where he got his numbers, though his might be exaggerated. http://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital BNJ/pdfs/1910_BNJ_7_5.pdf
