I have seen a few of these coin's go up for auction, sometimes they are listed as reproduction's at other time's as authentic and sometimes the person listing them is not sure. I have found myself stumped by them, they all have one thing in common and it's this flaw of Three circles that sort of look like three Cherry's from a slot machine. The mark most offten appears on the reverse of the coin and so far I have seen it on Groats and Sixpence's with the sixpence being more common. The possible ideas I have is that it's a die flaw, but I have no idea what would cause that, air hole's from casting or a counter mark. I have not been lucky enough to get one yet, as when I have bid on them I have been going with the idea that it's a very good reproduction and bid according to that assumption, so I have not been able to make a close examination. I'm hoping someone here can give thier thoughts on this as I'm still on a very steep learning curve and have a tendency to second guess myself. Here is a link to one of the most recent ones I have seen go up for auction. Link http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8343090297&rd=1&sspagename=STR\ K%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1 Also here is a picture of another one from awhile ago.
Hi Ray, If you are referring to the mark which has been incused on the reverse next to the french shield, then I would assume it to be a bankers mark testing the coin for good silver. This, as opposed to any official counterstamp. Where said mark was placed, and by whom is another question entirely, and one which I couldn't answer. PS on an entirely different matter, your second guess was wrong. ;-)
Ah....you have that in reverse. Chop marks are an oriental and later form of bankers marks, which have been around since the dawn of coinage in the western world.
Looks real enough to me mate. Pheon mintmark. Sixpences are not uncommon, in fact they're rather ubiquitous as Liz I stuff goes.
Hi Syvester, I do think a lot of Elizabeth I coins are around, the only one's I think are probably a lot more rare are the milled ones. When I see these coins come up though with that marking it does cause me to be somewhat perplexed. Chopmarks I'm not sure about as the time period does not quite make sense and late in the Riegn of Elizabeth there was coinage made for the east india trade, but I guess some of the regular coinage could have made it over. Banking marks I'm unsure of, as I think the Bank Of England was formed in 1803 but my memory might be wrong on that, if the date is right though I doubt an Elizabeth six pence would last in circulation that long. I'm aware that some english hammered from the Tudor's and other House's did survive until the re-coinage under Charles II I believe. In the end it's an interesting puzzle as some friends think it's a pewter reproduction/copy I'm just plain unsure LoL. The one other feature that I'm not sure about beyond the markings beside the coat of arms on the upper left hand side, is that the coin appears thicker than normal, the bulge on the obverse edge makes me think that. Please keep in mind I'm trying to learn here, so I'm playing devils advocate but I have seen about four coins of this type come up over the past year all identified as something different.
Pardon me for butting in on your response to Sylvester. It's just that you seemed to sidestep the response I provided. I'll say the following and then leave you to the thoughts / speculation of others and your own conclusions. The image attached shows an Aeginetan Stater circa 480 BC (that is, around 2,480 or so years ago). It depicts a turtle on the obverse. If you look on the turtles back, you will see a couple of bankers marks incused into it. Hey...there was no `Bank of England' around at that time either. Bankers have been around since the very first coinage. Indeed speculation is high that merchants and bankers were responsible for the development of coinage in the first place. As a pointer to you and your thinking, let me say that they don't have to be `Bank of England' bankers to put a bankers mark on an English coin. Finally, the marks on the image you provided might equally have been some random action that caused trauma to the coins surface, although frankly, I doubt it. It looks deliberate to my eye, but someone else might feel / believe differently (?)
The Bank of England was formed in 1694. Hammered silver was demonetised in 1696. Hammered gold in 1732/3. The silver in coins at that time problably would be tested because before Elizabeth there had been alot of debasement going on. If Henry VIII and Edward VI can issue debased coins hoping no one's going to notice then what's to stop Elizabeth? Some debased Edward VI shillings were re-valued (or rather devalued) by being counterstamped, this was the step to restoring sterling coinage. I guess in the 1560s people were still remembering the bad days of the 1540s.
Thank you for the info I think I latched onto 1804 because of seeing cartwheel pennys and I think the Bank of England produced those. The debasement I can see making merchants wary of the new coinage under Elizabeth, I remeber reading that Elizabeth used some of the houshold silver to kick start the recoinage. At some point I would like to get my hands on one of these coins with the markings, as they do strike me as being interesting, has anyone who happens to collect British coins come across one?
I personally have not but i don't collect British coins of that period. 1804 was the Bank of England Dollars.
I have a question.How did whacking a couple of dings into a coin help them determine the purity?I've never been able to figure that one out.
You will find many ancient coins bearing test cuts and / or bankers marks. These were designed to expose the core of the coin rather than to determine % purities. Most fakes of that time wwere copper core with thin silver plating. Such test cuts / marks did the trick from an authentication perspective.
AHH..the old "biting on the gold nugget" trick you see in Westerns.Good for the wallet,bad for the teeth.
Henry VIII was known as coppernose. He had debased the currency to the point where they were basically copper coins with a silver wash. His nose was the highest part of the obverse relief. So you can guess what happened. Notoriously Henry VIII was the only monarch in England to have endorsed such a program of debasement. All other monarchs had gone down the other road of reducing the size of the coin but retaining the purer silver quality which gave English coinage the edge over most of the continental stuff. Henry's motives were different to most other kings though, rather than it being a reaction to bullion shortage or inflation, Henry did it for greed and war finance. Henry's children and their advisers then had to try and sort out the mess Henry had left them, in more ways than just currency. Henry VIII was one of England's most useless kings.
The ones you have just shown are very obviously cast fakes / reproductions, but the problem with that is that they have been cast with the same marking. That means the host coin that they have been copied from had such a mark on it. N'est ce pas? You just don't get `pits' appearing in the same location coin to coin with casts. When compared to the image shown in your first post, they are definitely `fuzzy' in definition in comparison to it. For a start, the mark on it (the original ) when compared to the rest of its surface is to my mind too well defined to be typical cast `pitting'. Additionally, certain elements of the lettering on it are also far better defined than those of your latest post. My conclusion? you can never be sure about anything from a low definition photo BUT just maybe the one shown in the first post is the `host' coin that the rest have been copied from. Then again, maybe they are all fakes. I'm not so sure about that though. I'm still less than convinced that the image which appears in your first post is that of a fake.
