Charles II Silver Crowns

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I like those big ol' Charles II crowns of yours, jamesicus. Over the years I've accumulated a few and the 1662 with rose does seem to be the one that comes up the most - they must've minted a lot of them. I've also heard the north of England/Wales source of silver (indicated by the rose). I seem to recall reading that a lot of the silver for these crowns came from melted down French ecus obtained from some payment or another - apologies for the English Civil War perhaps?

A while back I got this very humble example from 1673 - I rather like engraved/jewelry pieces - and they are usually bargains:

 

Thank you for that informative post @Marsyas Mike - and for the pic!

 

Here is link to a widely acclaimed reference for Charles II coinage:

https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital BNJ/pdfs/1919_BNJ_15_9.pdf

 

I got curious, and found an online mention of those French ecus. According to Sovereign Rarities Ltd, the ecus were paid by France to England for purchase of Dunkirk. I'm not sure this applies to the 1662 issue, since the money got there quite late in the year:

"It seems there was good reason for the issue of the silver Crowns first as in the year 1662 King Charles II sold the town of Dunkirk back to the French for five million French Livres, the town having been captured by the Parliamentarian forces in 1658. This created a massive influx of silver into the Mint to convert to British silver, reportedly 1,500,000 silver Ecus transported in 300 chests from December 1662 until mid-1663 at a total weight of 108,636 pounds. Naturally the biggest denomination in silver would be the most efficient way to work through the supply, hence the Crown being the coin of choice. There are two distinct varieties of silver Crown dated 1662 as well as a number of more minor variations, the main one being whether the coin carries a rose under the bust or not. It has often been conjectured that the rose indicates silver supplied from the west country of England, so perhaps the non-rose variety would mean silver from the Dunkirk sale, however, research is ongoing to find documentary evidence, as the West Country theory seems to be more of an assumption and extrapolation of when the rose mint mark was used for the Truro and Exeter area for provincial silver coins in the reign of Charles I some 20 years earlier. This sentiment was echoed by Alan Broad in his article "1662 Rose below" who also remarked that the old Commonwealth hammered cross and harp money was also being recoined so that was more likely a source for the rose below mark."

https://www.sovr.co.uk/charles-ii-1662-fine-work-crown-bm02628.html

 

Great post @Marsyas Mike! Information like this serves to emphasize once again what a valuable educational resource CT is! And thanks for including that educational link - I have read similar accounts, but that one provides additional information I had not encountered previously.

 

Your post is making me nostalgic, jamesicus. To add an ancient dimension to the UK crowns, I decided to photograph two of the first coins I ever bought when I became semi-serious about coin collecting. One is a denarius of Septimius Severus with MARS PATER reverse (RIC 46). The other is a rather scruffy Great Britain crown of 1896, Queen Victoria veiled portrait and St. George & the dragon reverse.

Both of these coins flipped some neuro-chemical switch in my head that I think most collectors have. I couldn't believe how beautiful they were, and how old (I use "old" loosely - in 1987 when I bought them, the crown wasn't even a centenarian yet!). I also couldn't believe how massive that crown was. For 30+ years these two coins have been the start of my obsession with old coins. For years I'd work on ancients, then back to World crowns and minors.

Looking back on it, I wish I'd devoted more time and money to the ancients - there is more to them historically and artistically and they tend to compel me to read more books. As you mention, CT has been a real spur to expand my horizons as well as my collection (and meet some nice folks to boot).

With world crowns I used to tend to accumulate rather than collect - teetering piles of dinged-up crowns - a bit sterile as a collection, I think. But some world coins, including this crown, are really spectacular too.

Anyway, here they are, 1987 purchases, pre eBay. The Septimius Severus denarius cost me about $35 as I recall - it appears to be one of SS's scarcer reverse types, at least I haven't encountered many of them over the past 2 years or so. The crown was $12.00 from a coin shop in Columbus, Ohio. Not sure that they've appreciated enough to call them "investments" but they still bring me pleasure.

 

I have very similar sentiments @Marsyas Mike. My first, and overriding, collecting and researching interest is Roman Imperial coinage - particularly Julio-Claudian coins - but I do appreciate and admire other Ancient coins - and, as you can see, particularly Charles II Silver crowns!

 

Here is a link to a very useful reference:

http://www.castlecoins.com/html/english_crowns.html

……… the automatic slide show (which can be paused) contains all of the accompanying edge inscriptions (I really like those).

 

Chuckie II Crowns are cool, I do not collect any milled coins, but they are still cool.