Good Morning All, I was wondering if you could all take a look at these photos and let me know if what i have here is what I think. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Sherry
I can't vouch for the square thing, though I expect it to be a coin weight. The rest are mostly fake. The top two are intended to be gold angels, but are obviously not in gold. The Mary appears to be struck in a press: all coins of this era were struck by hand, hammered. The Elizabeth shilling and sixpences on the bottom right are cast replicas. The holed Elizabeth sixpence dated 1581 may be real, however. Can you provide a better scan of that piece?
They are all replicas created for tourists, the square piece is a replica of a reckoning jetton from Germany, the others are replicas of Henry VII(1485-1509) angels, replica of Scotland Queen Mary £6 coin from ca. 1557, and of course the Queen Elizabeth of England shilling and sixpence. The dull finish on the metal, combined with the soft features of the lettering are the giveaways that these are replicas.
I'm no expert in them but they seem to be cheap copies??? I can be very wrong. Welcome to cointalk by the way.
Thanks for the welcome but this news saddens me. I am still interested in the history of the original coins. I am doing a research paper on the coins of the 16th century for the Society for Creative Anachronisms. I am entering in an Art/Sci competition in a couple months and i need back up for the coins. If anyone can help me, please do
Do you need to have the coins in your possession or can you use coins we have and give you permission to use the pics? Ribbit Ps: Welcome to CoinTalk! :hail:
No pictures would be fine. I would like to know about the replicas i have though. since they are something that the judges can pick up and actually feel in their hands make them a good tool in my presentation. I also need to bibliograph everything that i put into my presentation. These competitions are fierce. Everything is documented to the "T". The competition is the second week of January and i thought if i start now i have plenty of time to sift through all the information and write my final disertation. I picked the coins of the 16th Century because i have not seen a presentation ever done on this at an Art/Sci before and i ran across these coins. It's something i have always had an interest in though. Any help from the general populace fo the forum would be wonderful. Thanks, Sherry
Not sure of the angels being Henry VII they both say Richard on them. How can i tell if a coin is cast or if it is hammered? And if you could please point out what exactly gives away that these are replicas to your eye, i would appreciate it. Sherry
The Angels and the £6 coin should be made of real gold. These are some base metal, probably an alloy of some tin, perhaps a small amount of lead, zinc etc. Here is a Noble from Edward III(1327-1377) as an example of what was the earlier primary coin in England: The Angels shouldn't say Richard, but more likely Ricard which is closer to Latin. Otherwise they would have Henricus or Edward as the monarch. The Scottish £6 is a remarkably rare coin that was minted with the date of 1557 only. Scottish sterling quickly depreciated and the coins were melted as the gold was worth more than the value of the coin. There are exponentially more replicas sold than coins were ever minted. SCA events are prime territory for purchasing these. I know when I did SCA events in TX there was someone there with a mint stamping out "pennies" etc. that mimicked medieval coinage. In the last 10 years or so, I have seen exactly one £6 coin that was authentic. Many of these replicas are in fact hammered as the originals were, but not in the original metal of course which would have been silver or gold. Here is an enigmatic piece that likely originated in an SCA type venue in Texas: This piece is actually silver, but otherwise it is some very skilled diesinkers artwork and not an authentic coin.
I'm pretty sure you are thinking of Renaissance Faires, That's not what i do. I am doing a piece on renaissance coins for a Society for Creative Anachronism Competition. I've been to the faires and i know what you are talking about. Again what i asked was how can i as a layman tell a coin is milled and not hammered? and besides the softness of the lettering what else gives these away as replicas?
Howdy Sherry - Welcome to the Forum !! There is no way that a layman would ever recognize those coins as being fakes. There is also no way that we could tell you how to recognize the fakes. It would like you asking us to tell you how to do brain surgery. It comes with experience, study, research, holding genuine examples in your hand. In a nutshell, it is the "look" of the coins that gives them away to a knoweldgeable person. I looked at them for all of 2 seconds and knew they were fakes. Yes I could give you a detailed analysis but it would take quite a bit of time and a whole lot of typing. Entire books have been written trying to describe what you are asking for. Now, if you want something you can actually use about genuine coins, I'd be glad to help out. I am the author of this article for example - The Ducat - I can also provide you with pictures of dozens of examples of ducats from the earliest to the newest. And there is this article - The Real d'or - and I have other pics of that coin as well. There is literally a ton of information and pictures that myself and other members of this forum can help you with - all you have to do is ask.
I'm asking I'm asking LOL ok the coins that i have in the pictures, if you can pick one out and tell me alittle about it, in general terms. The year (if it were real) it was minted, what the metals would of been and how they were made (i know they were hammered but otherwise, was the metal poured into sheet or was it molded before being made, etc.). These are things i am looking for and how they came about, I am doing the research on the places they were minted but i have to find out what years coins like these would be minted before i can do that. I would like to use the coins to show example in my research. I need some reference points to start from. DGJMSP, do you have any articles on English coins of the 16th Century? I am basing my paper on them. And, if you do, may i quote you?
Sorry Sherry, I have never written about English coins. But if you click - HERE - you can find a great deal of information about the coins of many countries. Now, as to your questions - "The year (if it were real) it was minted" - as a general rule if a coin is undated the best you can do to determine year of mintage is to use the reign of the monarch as a range like Richard II 1377-99. But with that coin you have with Richard on it for example - Richard II never minted any gold angels (that's what the coin is supposed to be). So there is no way to answer your questions about it. Do you begin to see the problem ? I can tell you a genuine gold angel was minted in pure gold, that they basically hammered out thin sheets of the metal, then cut planchets and then struck the coins by hand using two dies. As I told you before, all this information would require many speciallized books. Now I have some of those books but no where near all of them. And to help you I would vitually have to write everything for you. So about the best I can do is point you in the direction to go and let you do your own research. I am not an expert on English coinage. I have only a basic knowledge of them. Every time someone ask a question about English coinage I have to do all of the research myself just to answer their questions. People have spent their entire lives studying British coinage just to find out the answers to what you think are simple questions. If you have specific questions, I'll be happy to answer them. But I am not going to write an entire book for you here on the forum. To start off, you would be best served to deal with specific genuine coins which is what I was trying to suggest before. Use the link I provided above. It will lead you to a lot of information.
Thank You GDJMSP, i guess i phrased my last post wrong, i'm not asking for a book lol, i was asking for a reference point to start my research, I received a private message from another user on a great book for referencing these coins. The Spink's Catalogue 2002. I'm going to look for one on amazon. I have not had time to go to the link you posted but i will post after i do. I also have posted better pictures of the coins on my "world coins thread,". Thanks, Sherry
