Henry III Gold Penny?

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Can anyone shed some light on this coin for me if they would be so kind I would be very grateful, many thanks and look forward to the replies.

 

To keep the thread alive, I will come back tomorrow with the two paragraphs from my notebook. There are copies of this piece. I was offered one about years ago, but passed on it because I generally avoid copies.

Heritage Auctions sold one most recently. I’ll post pictures you can use to use to compare them with you piece.

 

Can you post up and image of both sides again, but much closer and larger if possible? That way we can see more details without having to manually enlarging these and creating a pixelated picture?

 

Well to start with, visit this web page. It gives a history of the King Henry III (1257-1272) and this coin.
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces121424.html
I find this very interesting, as I have 2 coins from the same era: King Edward I (1272-1307), and King Edward II (1307-1327). But mine are silver not gold.

 

Here are the paragraphs from my notebook:

England’s first gold coin since the Norman Conquest was this Henry III gold penny. It was valued at 20 pence and was issued to facilitate the payment of Henry’s debts that resulted from his foreign wars, specifically Sicily. Following the lead of some Italian states, Henry had his gold minted into pennies. Records show that Henry paid 37,280 gold pennies in 1257 and another 15,200 in 1258. Today only six to eight of these coins are known.

These coins were not popular with London merchants. Average citizens could not use them because they were worth too much. There were fears that their general usage would depress the value of gold, and it was thought that their melt value exceeded their face value. At the time the ratio between silver and gold was only 10 : 1.

I believe I got this photo from the Heritage site.



Here is my only whole Henry III coin, a penny.



And I have this one, which has been turned into a half penny.

 

Good stuff. I appreciate the links.

 

Thanks for all the first class replies and amazing information. I have contacted heritage auctions in Texas and they believe it to be a counterfeit but cannot say for sure so. The jury is still out. I am to take it to a friend to try and have the metal analysed later this week with a powerful metal detector which can differentiate between metals. Once again very kind of you guys to have taken time from your day to reply to me much appreciated.

 

Good luck

 

At that time up until the early 15th century the average daily wage of a worker is conjectured to have been about a penny a day, so a coin valued at 20 pennies was an exorbitant sum. Gold coins were not struck again in England until the reign of Edward III(1327-1377) at which time nobles of 80 pence and halves and quarters of 40 and 20 pence respectively were struck beginning in the 1350s. Gold coin was still quite dear and usually only the wealthiest merchants, the church and the nobility would have seen or used them.

 

Are these silver coins?

 

The coin which was the subject of the opening post is gold. The penny and half penny I posted after that are silver.

 

I have a question that I need answered, I understand this to be either a replica or real Henry III Gold Penny. I posted a few weeks ago and got some great replies. I look forward to hearing from anyone on their thoughts, thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

 

The picture does not look like a gold piece. These pieces were made of “gold - gold” not white gold. To go further I would have to look at the photos I have of the real thing, which are not available to me at the moment.

 

It does appear a silver colour apart from a clipped edge on the outside which looks to be gold so has some degree of corrosion if real, I know gold shouldn't be corroded but it is if real 870 years old so who knows

 

Doesn't look like a 800-900 year old coin to me im going with fake.

 

I don't think it's real myself, it's the wrong colour, I bought for £15 from a shop who didn't really know what it was. However I have peaked the interest of the experts, in the UK and US which has surprised me.