Medievals: A Tale of Two Gigliati (poll)

Size? Medium. Hand tossed Extravagazza. Substitute roasted red peppers for mushrooms (I like mushrooms, but not the ones most pizza places use.)

Weight? Dunno 'bout the pizza, but it's now part of my own not-inconsiderable weight. Scales fear me.

 

I checked Bid Inside and found one that was bid to €25 but it lacked the eye appeal of either of these and was also clipped.

Turns out I am at least slightly familiar with Dea Moneta after all, but had forgotten about it. Doing a search there, I found this beauty in an Artemide Aste listing ... but it has a €300 pricetag.

 

If the second one (Coin B in the original post) had the same kind of contrasting toning as the first (Coin A), I'd be all over it (when I had the money). But it doesn't.

As has already been demonstrated, I have a weakness for that kind of toning.

 

Wow, it sure is! It's almost like the engraver was trying to shift it to make it fit inside the inner beaded circle!

 

Speaking of great medievals, this one has been on my radar for a while, but at $450, it isnt likely to be taking up residence in my Eclectic Box anytime soon.

 

By the time I got up the funds to pursue Coin B in this poll, I'd be far more likely to pursue this, which is in an auction at the end of this month.



What say ye, @Curtisimo, since we've spoken on the topic?

 

I might forget all about these and go galloping after that Lizzie groat instead. Time will tell.

 

Well, the current medieval portion of my Eclectic Box is more pitiful than it was with the bygone inclusions, all of which got sold for one reason or another (mostly the old 20-coin limit I abandoned a year ago).

That Ragusa grosso was great. @dadams owns it now, and you likely won't get it from him. Besides, if it leaves his collection, it needs to come back to mine!

Re. the stuff here, when it's OP Coin B versus the Elizabeth I groat above, there's no contest. Lizzie wins easily.

This is what I was getting at in the discussion about the inherent dilemma here. At $111-ish, Coin A in the OP stacks up reasonably well against everything else I could buy for that money (except perhaps some small proof gold). But at $223-ish, Coin B is in competition with a lot more potentially interesting things on my radar. (And due to the eclectic nature of my collection, my radar scope has a pretty wide sweep across many different categories at once.)

 

PS- gigliato Coin B does have a "make offer" button in its MA-shops listing, while Coin A does not. But the portrait and toning on that Lizzie groat have now sufficiently distracted me to the point of nearly forgetting about the two gigliati here altogether.

In the perfect scenario, I'd find a dated QE1 sixpence from 1565 (400 years before my birthyear) or 1588 (Spanish Armada, yo!) ... with perfect "CircCam" contrast and a nice portrait and flan. At an affordable price.

As to the 1575 sixpence which @Curtisimo posted (which his bride recently wore in her shoe, per tradition) - that coin totally dominated all the <$100 examples I saw out there. Had it been just the tiniest bit higher grade, it would've qualified for Eclectic Box inclusion and Curtis' bride would've needed a different lucky sixpence for her shoe.

 

You're probably more used to seeing the term "clipped" in the context of clipped planchet errors on more modern coins, but in a medieval coin context, "clipping" refers to the practice of people shaving metal off the edges of precious-metal coins, to save a bit of the silver or gold for illegal gain. It's a practice that sent many a coin clipper to the gallows (or worse) back in the day.

The replacement of the old thin hammered silver coins with milled coins bearing reeded or lettered edges was largely done as a deterrent against this practice. In fact, some early British milled coins bore the Latin inscription DECVS ET TVTAMEN ("an ornament and a safeguard") on their edges, indicating the lettered edge was put on there not just to look nice, but also to make it obvious when someone had clipped a coin.

As to your second question, I have never yet held a Neapolitan gigliato coin in hand, but as the equivalent of a grosso, I would imagine they'd be vaguely near the diameter of a US nickel?