Last week, a seller from whom I regularly buy coins emailed me about two sceatta's that were 'nothing special'. This of course triggered me, and as the price was low, and I just sold a few surplus coins, I snapped this sceatta: ANGLO-SAXON, Anonymous. Denomination: AR Sceatta (Series E), minted: Mint in Frisia; 720-740 AD Obv: Porcupine-like figure, with spines ending in pellets. Straight thin spine, ending in steep curve. Four "I"'s below the spine, one attached to spine. Before two pellets. Below a triangle. Before the 'beak' five pellets. Rev: Square standard of line with dots, inside annulet, horizontal lines above and below ending in dots on each side. Weight: 1g; Ø:14mm. Provenance: Ex. Jan van Bergen; acq.: 09-2020 Plated fourree, seems to be cut from a sheet and partly folded around one sharp edge. iregular, oval-shaped flan (14x12mm). Pleasing oily-grey patina, sharp mint. It's unusual to find a fourree sceatta. I've seen a couple for sale, and these are usually silver washed. This specimen seems plated, as can be seen at 12 o'clock: it looks like two thin sheets of silver with a sheet of bronze in between was sharply struck and then cut. The shape is therefore quite irregular, which is uncommon for sceatta's. I really like this coin: it's sharply struck, it's a relatively scarce contemporary forgery, but judging by how well the dies were cut, it might very well be a forgery from an experienced die-cutter, who made some extra money by minting these. Also, the toning is superb. I bought another sceatta from the same seller as well, but it was less preserved and need some restoration. I will post it later. In the meantime, please post your latest fourrees.
These types just check a ton of the boxes. Excellent coin! Funny enough, this coin came from the same group that I received my latest sceatta in! Claudius (which, ironically, only has one "A") fouree, pronounced four-ay
Based on the description of thin sheets of folded silver foil, the fourrée sceatta was probably produced by the cliché method. The style is good because the copy is pressed from a genuine coin. This Wikipedia article is flawed but conveys the general idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliché_forgery
My latest and greatest fourrees have been shown on Coin Talk too often over the last ten years but I am not sure I have ever shown this British AR12 of the Iceni (1st century BC or AD?). When I see a fourree of a series not usually found plated and when the style seems 'right' (hard to tell in this case!), my mind wants to consider the possibility that the coin was overstruck on an earlier coin. My coin shows core exposure on the edges that would allow it to have been made from a Roman denarius trimmed down to the desired weight standard. Workers following orders to convert a bucket full of Roman coins might be forgiven not noticing or caring if one of the coins was fourree.
A short update. The second sceatta has been partly cleaned: Still not completely happy with the results, though it's nice(r) in hand. I used a combination of chemical (sodium thiosulphate, followed by a mild acidic treatment) and mechanical cleaning (especially between the spines - this part turned out nice). Photo's are taken using the same settings, allowing comparison.
