After looking at Spink and Wren, I think my penny of John is class 5A1 or Spink 1350A. There are 2 markers as to why I think this is the case. First there is a cross pattee on the reverse. Second, the curls on the obverse portrait do not contain pellets. Now this coin does not have a reverse 's', but according to Spink some pennies in this class have it and some do not. Please check your references and let me know what you think. I would love a second opinion on this. I think the attribution is as follows John silver penny, Short Cross Issue, Class 5a1, Spink 1350A, regular 'S', circular curls containing no pellets, cross pattee initial mark on the reverse, reverse reads:- +Raulf on lund London Mint, moneyer Raulf,
Nice catch! These short cross pennies are hard to get this clear. Let me just start with saying that I am not an expert on this series. But I think it might not be a 5a1, but a 7b instead, which would put it in the reign of Henry III. First, The ‘squished’ bust (Spink calls this a ‘small compact face’, but I prefer squished). This would be rather atypical for a class 5. They usually have somewhat long necks, with the king’s chin line and corresponding beard visible, the hair not coming down as far as his chin. On your coin, the bust just fits inside the beaded circle. The busts degrades once again during these later classes and the pellets disappear from the curls again, but the number of curls, 3, staying the same. Some 7b’s from the web to compare to: (HistoricCoinage.com, also Raulf on London) (Harford coins) (Note the incredibly similar bust on this last example) An additional indicator might be the shape of the letter X: in class 7, it has a very distinct, short, roundish shape. The characteristic shape of the ‘H’ in ‘Henricus’ also matches. Sadly, one of the main defining characteristics of class 7b, the top of the letter A, was struck off flan :/. Lastly, the reveres seems to lack any interpunction (right?). This is a great identifier for a class 7 penny, Class 5 pennies usually have single dots (although there are exceptions). Both classes have a cross pattee as the initial mark on the reverse, and Raulf was active in London during the striking of both classes. But again, I am not an expert in this series and I very well could be wrong. It remains a tricky series. What do you think?
I have had a lot of fun trying to track this down. I still think it is class 5, but I appreciate your research on this. I am going to double check Wren to see if I missed something. I did start off thinking it was class 7 when I started the research. However after re reading the references I started to lean towards class 5. Thanks very much for your time.
The "A" on my coin is not correct for class 7b. The "A" on the reverse is definitely angled and not squared off.
That is some fine work by @AnYangMan and I agree with him that it is a class 7 penny. Another very recognizable feature of class 5 pennies of John is the hair. Class 5 hair is almost always composed of a pair of curls enclossing a pellet on each side of the head. A rarer variety has 3 pairs instead of 2. Here are a couple of examples. The top coin is Class 5b and the bottom is Class 5a. You can also get a sense of the obverse h from class 5a and the presence of pellet stops flanking the ON on both reverses. One of the most significant features oh the massive class 7 is the absence of reverse stops. Also notice the more ellongated face of class 5 as compared to the photos of class 7 above. As AnYangMan noted, class 7 looks compacted and fills up much more of the inner circle.
Thanks @TheRed for your input. Class 7b does have curls with no pellets but also has a squared off A. The A on my reverse is angled. The coin must be class 7a According to Wren RAVLF (spelled this way and not RAVF) was moneyer only from class 5c-7b. It therefore cannot be class 5a. I assume this means it is not John at all but is instead Henry III. In that case the coin will be returned as I was trying to buy a penny of John. Thanks again for the help
That is a valid point. In my initial post I mentioned that it was struck off-flan, but I agree that it rises too sharply to have a squared-off top. Class 7c, is off the table, since Raulf did not mint this subclass (or it has not been discovered yet). I should have thought of this in my initial post, but 7a is also a possibility. It shares all characteristics of 7b (Same degraded, squished bust, lack of reverse interpunction same font), minus the squared topped A: Some of the curls are still pelleted in the primary phase of this class, but they phase out towards the end. EDIT: Ah, I see you came to the same conclusion. Nice detective work, everyone. And it is still a nice penny!
