Super group of British Halfcrowns and others

Forgive me if this is gloating, but I simply have to share some of the coins I picked up over the weekend! I don't need help with identification, value or grade - I just need to share my joy at acquiring all these (and much more) in one great deal. Feel free to berate me for wasting your time!

 

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Yeah, you're wasting our precious time. But I love it when it's wasted this way. The Roman digits that are written "horizontally", do those refer to the year of reign? Pardon my ignorance ...

Christian

 

Hi Christian,

I am glad you enjoy!

The Roman Digits are the denomination of the coin in pennies, so you have a sixpence and a fourpence identified that way.

The 1562 sixpence is particularly interesting - one of the earliest Milled coins produced in the UK, nearly 100 years before this became the norm.

 

They are an attractive and varied group. If there is anything to criticize it would be skipping the opportunity to use the coins to educate those of us who could benefit from hearing details about each of the coins (like the denomination question). I suspect each of these has something interesting that is not obvious to those of us who do not specialize in the period. I wonder how many viewers know all about these types (I certainly don't) and how many would find value, for example, in mention of the two hammered pieces (correct?) or the four XXX designs on the reverse of the William and Mary half crown? We barely overlap in the periods of our interest (below is my newest UK coin) but it is nice to see the group.


Charles I hammered half crown (considerably clipped)
Looking at this and the milled ones that followed so soon after, one has to wonder how much hatred of the French played in adopting the technology after the long delay following the Elizabeth 6d test coin. Do you know anything about the cost/difficulty of producing coins in the two methods or was this just a case of it being hard to get people to adopt new ways?

Thanks for the post.

 

I agree with Doug. You could easily waste my time by describing the coins in more detail.

 

Wow:yes:Where from? How much? and how come I wasn't offered them.?

 

I would love to spend more time telling everyone much more about these coins, and I hope to add to this thread with just this info as I can. Unfortunately I am actually supposed to be working today, and my conscience wont allow me to spend too long away from it!

Time for one I think - the William & Mary Halfcrown, which has always been one of my favourite designs.The XXX design that Doug asked about is actually W and M overlaid and was the cypher used by the joint monarchs in many places. (When I was young there was a wall in the village with this cypher picked out continuously in black bricks to record the period of its construction.) This is also the only coin I know of where the date appeared in the 3 quadrants on the reverse. I think it proved confusing to everyone - even the die makers constantly got digits upside down, and the example shown has a blundered 3 as a result. They only kept this design for a few years, and when Mary died, the new coinage reverted to more traditional date locations.

Also there have only been two periods in British history when we have had two monarchs on the coinage - this William and Mary period, and the much less well known Philip and Mary period 1554 to 1558. Mary was Queen of England as eldest daughter of Henry VIII, and Philip was King of Spain, and as such exercised his rights to be on the coinage. It was a very unhappy period, and neither monarch was popular, with the result that most of their coins were recycled soon after Elizabeth came to the throne.

I will try to discuss the others another time.

 

I don't think I want to answer any of those questions!

:angelic2:

 

What amazes me is XXX is also the value of the coin in pence.

 

Yes - but that is a coincidence. You get the same cypher on the Crown - which is 60 pennies. Here is my 1692 Crown with the same cypher - and yet again the problems with getting the digits the right way up!

 

The serifs make it obvious the intent was WM but it is a cute coincidence. Is the crown an overdate?

 

Sort of - described in the books as "2 over inverted 2" and no more or less common than the straight version.

 

An interesting question! To be honest I do not know if Britain's traditional distrust of the French played a part - maybe someone else can contribute? It is likely that other factors also played a part - conservatism, vested interests, and probably bribery and corruption.

Interestingly, Milled coins were produced under Oliver Cromwell bearing his portrait and using English made dies, but French owned machines in the Netherlands. When Charles II was restored as King, we reverted to hammered coinage for a while, but adopted Milled coinage shortly thereafter. Thomas Simon, who had designed Cromwell's coins, petitioned the crown to have his coins adopted as standard using the famous "Petition Crown", which is now one of the most valuable Silver British coins in existence. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petition_Crown for more on this.

 

Nice Paddy, Find that hoard buried somewhere?

 

They came from a contact I made through the Bridge club. It has taken me months of negotiating to agree terms as they belonged to his deceased father. There are many more in the whole package, including several virtually uncirculated Victorian threepences and Groats, Pennies, halfpennies - so much and so exciting to sort through at last!

 

Eloye Mestrelle, a Frenchman, produced the test coins under Elizabeth and was not well appreciated by others at the mint. After hanging him for counterfeiting, it might seem proper for the Crown to wait a bit before adopting his technique. This was an interesting time in history.

 

A few minutes to spare, so a bit more info on another one of this lot - the Fourpence in the bottom right corner. So called "undated" fourpence produced between about 1662 and 1669 as part of the small coinage one penny up to fourpence all in silver. Listed in many places as Maundy money, it was actually for general circulation at this time. From 1670 onwards the design changed completely, with 4 interlocking Cs on the reverse and a date in Arabic numerals.

I particularly like the fourpence shown here because of the huge die crack showing on the reverse. Clearly they were still getting used to these new-fangled machines!

 

great coins paddy, i love the earlier ones especially................

 

Consider yourself "berated" and please give more opportunities to "berate" you!!!

 

Awesome find! We don't get those opportunities over here.