Are British coins fun to collect?

You are right to some extent. Very early hammered coins have no means of dating accurately, although some indication can be got from the particular variants. In Edward III's reign (1327-1377) they started introducing mintmarks - symbols embedded in the legends that give some idea of the date.
These became more precise as time went by and by Charles I time (1625-1649) they gave you exactly a year (although the minting year overlapped the date year so, for example a plume would indicate 1630-1).
In parallel, from Edward VI's reign (1547-1553) onward modern dates started to appear on some coins, but this did not become universal until Charles II's milled coinage about 1660.
The Gothic coins (florins and rare Crowns) in Victoria's reign were the only time Roman numerals were used.

I hope that helps!

 

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In fact, this was is exceedingly informative; a precise yet succinct explanation of the early English coin dating practices. Many thanks.

 

Add my thanks for the date info.

 

So, around 1660. How about adding a denomination? I know not really needed since the people could tell from the minting substance and size, but from those not familiar with the coinage, a denomination might help.

BTW, the first coin to have a date in modern numerals...1234 (easy to remember)

 

Ah yes - denominations are much more complicated! Over the centuries we have had dozens of different sizes of coins, many of them short lived and most of them unmarked.

In part this was people "knew" what each coin was at the time, but also because the way of trading was different in the past: in any big transaction you didn't trust to anything written on the coin, you weighed them - usually in bulk - and gave value accordingly. This was because many European coins were in common circulation, and in any case nominal value coins may have been clipped to "harvest" the silver (or gold).

A few simple guides:
I don't believe British Gold coins have ever had a marked denomination.
For many years there was only one silver coin - the penny. Change was given by breaking it into half or quarters along the cross lines.
By Elizabeth I's time there were lots of different denominations from a Crown (60 pennies) down to a farthing (1/4 penny).
Small silver coins began to bear marks around 1603 - usually in Roman numerals on the obverse, before or after the bust, in numbers of pennies.
In Charles II's reign the smaller coins indicated their value by the number of interlocking "C"s on the reverse. James II used Capital "I"s.
In the 18th century the smaller coins had a number on the reverse for the number of pennies - bigger coins (sixpence and above), you were still expected to know.
In the 19th century the sixpence began to be marked as such, as was the new Florin (= 2 shillings or 24 pennies) but the rest remained unmarked. The half-crown (30 pennies) and the shilling (12 pennies) followed in 1893.
Thereafter most silver (and later cupro-nickel) has been marked except the Crown.
... and I will leave bronze to another time!

 

Excellent, thank you. I can see that within a specific country with a limited number of denominations, there would be no need to specify the denomination. I guess it would come into play when international trading starts to play a role.

 

Yes - but until the 20th century International trading was not usually done on the basis of foreign exchange but on bullion value, so marked denominations were irrelevant. The joys of the "Gold Standard"!

 

.. and just to clarify, from around 1662 all milled (machine made) coins were dated, but there are many dated coins before that in Britain. I think the first were under Edward VI - 1551 was the first year in Arabic numerals, though I see from my book a few had Roman numerals for 1549 (MDXLIX) and 1550 (MDL). I stand to be corrected...

 

This, by the way, is my oldest actually British coin (as opposed to Romano-British):

Athelwulf penny - he reigned in Wessex from 839 to 858 AD. This is listed in Spinks as S1051 from c.855 to 859 Phase IV and was minted by Hunred in Canterbury.

 

The very thought of what life in Britain must have been like when that coin was minted simply boggles the mind. I would say that verges on being a national treasure.

 

I focus on Condor tokens, 1787-1804, Private issue tokens 1811-1817 and Evasion Tokens. Thousands of privately issued tokens in copper, silver and gold. Other George III issues are also of interest to me, including counterstamped pieces of 8.

British coinage has a long and diverse history, including early bi-metallic coins, silver pennies, gun money, milled coins, coins that celebrate the unification of England and Scotland, a naval victory over the Spanish and so many more.

 

For you then @Cheshire Cat

 

What a boundlessly rich variety of options and possibilities coin-and-token-wise; simply outstanding!

 

Another one for @Cheshire Cat - A Pidcock Exhibition token from the 1790s. Both this and the Cornish one are currently on Ebay.

 

Pidcocks Exhibition is a interesting subject all on it's own. This is a farthing value admission ticket. The exhibition was a "zoo" in a multi story building at Exeter Exchange. A large quantity of different tokens in farthing and half penny size where struck, featuring different animals in the zoo.

 

Fascinating bit of history, and a wonderful complementary illumination to the picturing of the token.

 

One of the things I like about British coin collecting is that there is more than enough scope without having to get into endless minute variations and errors. One of the few older coins where variations are listed is the below: 1799 George III halfpenny. The variations come in the number and style of the gunports on the ship in the background! My scanner is not good enough to pick up the detail but I can tell you that this one is the "9 Relief gunports" version. (Not that any of them are substantially more or less rare than each other!)

 

Naturally I couldn't resist and of course kept enlarging my page magnification until I realized that even at 250% I still couldn't make out the ship's gunports, much less was I able to count them. So I will take your word for it that this is indeed the "9 gunports" iteration, though for the life of me I can't understand why someone would have varied that count in the first place unless this was actually someone's 18th Century version of an "in" joke.

 

I am currently re-checking my own collection - updating grades and lists to make sure I know which ones I still need. I came across this rather nice 1819 Crown that I don't think I have posted before, so herewith for entertainment:

 

Still doing my sorting and came across these two that neatly illustrated some of the points I was pontificating about before:

This one is the Charles II fourpence - made at the start of the mainstream milled coinage but undated. Usually believed to be between 1662 and 1669. Note the IIII behind the bust indicates a fourpence. Also has one of the biggest die cracks I have ever seen.



1670 Charles II Fourpence. First of the new dated design although the blundered "0" could also be a "9". Value is indicated by the four interlocked "C"s on the reverse.