English Hammered Coins

That will be a short lesson. Point, use English and German, and nod your head. Lesson over.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Kein problem!

 

Wow HC this some excellent charting you did. Very impressive. I am glad you found us here on this board in desperate need of your area of expertise. You are really making me want to go out and get more Edwardian pennies. I have just that one you commented on as "an example of the type." I can see someone putting forth a good portion of there life to understand these pieces. You should put all this in a small pamphlet and publish your work.

 

Thanks for the kind words Noob. It is, for me at least, an extremely challenging and fascinating area of numismatics to focus upon. For some, it can be a bit too daunting, especially if they have other areas that they would wish to focus their efforts. I tend to find something very specific and niche, and learn absolutely everything I can about the subject.

I am really happy finding you guys/gals and this forum. Amazing the amount of collective knowledge we all have and the willingness of each of us to help one another in whatever way we can. I love sharing what I know and I love learning about the numerous other numismatic specialties others share.

As far as publishing, unfortunately, I can not claim that really any of what I know (or proclaim to know) is of my own doing. Much has been written about Edwardian pennies, and while there are certain areas in which new work can be researched and published, I still have a long way to go in order to be able to identify a gap in which I could research and add some insight.

I do create some unique visual aides and spreadsheets, but this is really to help me visualize and understand the coins better and is simply an easily digestible synthesis of others hard work.

 

This could be more valuable than buying the book in many cases. Don't short change your self....ugh...don't clip your own penny...maybe..

 

LOL....duly noted. Do you have a particular area that you collect?

 

Curiously I own a penny, not imaged, that was struck early during the reign of HIII that was struck by "Ion on Lincol" ie Ion in Lincoln, the obverse was struck just once, but the reverse was struck twice - suggesting that the coin stuck to the obverse die when it was struck and was placed down and struck again, then must have been pealed off the obverse die. It is my oldest double struck Lincoln penny!

 

That's really neat! Can not say I have seen that. Pretty sloppy piece of workmanship, but hey, when you are pounding out thousands a day, a lot of oversights occur.

You should see some of the errors in the Edward I dies. Not just a penny, but the actual dies have missing letters, letters backwards and even missing hair! Now that is a major oversight!

 

Here is a Treaty Era Noble of EIII, struck ca. 1363-4:




I believe this is my only English hammered gold, I collect primarily Scottish - but the reign of David II produced gold coins but there are only four of them known, and I have never seen one - so had to settle for a very nice English coin from the same era. These coins are notoriously clipped into the legends and I didn't want a clipped example so it took a very long time ie about 15 years to find one that I liked enough to buy.

 

Is that the coin you actually own? I haven't yet embarked on my Noble collection, as I am using my funds to build up my penny collection. However, I absolutely adore the look of the Edward III Nobles. Not a cheap purchase but will certainly be a sought after coin for time immemorial! Congrats on the fantastic purchase!

Henry III and Edward I both tried to introduce a gold coin into circulation and both failed miserably. Any surviving examples of these coins are some of the rarest of the hammered coins of the late medieval period in England.

The reason why the failed I find really interesting. Both Henry III and his son (Edward I) introduced the gold coins, however, they fundamentally mis-priced the face value of these coins relative to the raw gold bullion market. Thus, any of the coins originally produced were hoarded and melted down and sold off to continental Europe for a tidy profit. This was realized in short order and the crown stopped the production of the coins.

Also, because of the efforts of both Henry III and Edward I to re-coin the flawed silver currency that was currently in circulation (Henry III from voided short cross to voided long cross and Edward I to the new long cross in 1279) spurred massive demand in silver bullion imported from continental Europe and thus was needed to be paid for in gold bullion.

 

Yes, I purchased it at auction back in 2009. It is ex-Tallent collection and has a bit of a pedigree.

Up until probably 15 years ago I did collect English hammered, I still have some of the hoard coins and accumulations for study purposes. But as I started venturing into Scottish, and needing funds I sold off significant parts of the collection but kept some of the early transitional coins, and many of the EI pennies because of the sheer variety and some fit in with the Scottish since they were minted in Berwick.

As you note the gold coins of EI-EIII are difficult, the reason it took so long for me to find one I liked - ie full flan with full legends. Most were exported to the continent and clipped down. The Noble was an extreme sum of cash back then, only the 1% would have ever even heard of such a thing.

 

Holy Shilling!!! Thats phat!!!

 

*word*

 

Everything the light touches...

 

... *word*

 

Wow, Manitoba looks pretty darn cold. Early winter?

 

Deep Noob....deep

 

Very cool. Well that baby was well worth the wait! Phenomenal specimen.

 

Wow... my mandible has disconnected from my skull and scurried across the room... I don't think I've actually ever seen an actual noble much less touched one. I have seen plenty of photos and videos. But I can't imagine owning one. That must be a fun disc of gold to take out and just gaze at until your retinas turn golden.

For the rest of you with rancid luck like my own, an actual gold noble appears in this rather interesting video, apart from other rather scintillating hammered discs.



As to the man performing the actual hammering, his name is Dave Greenhalgh and he supposedly makes a living off of demonstrating medieval hammering techniques. A hammering enthusiast in my area accused him (apparently in an e-mail) of "cheating" by using a collar. This local hammerer has recreated medieval dies without the collar seen in the video, and he claims that there is no historical evidence for their use. Greenhalgh apparently disagreed, but the details became sketchy and I'm not sure where the whole debate ended up. I did have the excessive pleasure of witnessing a hammering re-enactment, along with reproductions of often seen hammering errors and variations. The local hammerer knew how to reproduce them. And he made awesome little reproductions that resembled helmet deniers from Antioch. I still have a few. A fine memory if there ever was one.

 

I want to make a living being a medieval-style coin hammerer who hammers out coins and feuds with another medieval coin hammerer over the authenticity of hammering! Sure beats the daily grind!

I doubt a collar was used in England until the later middle ages, if at all. Certainly not in Anglo-Saxon or Norman or Plantagenet times (so many off center coins).