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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Marsyas Mike, post: 3269659, member: 85693&quot;]I got curious, and found an online mention of those French ecus.&nbsp; According to Sovereign Rarities Ltd, the ecus were paid by France to England for purchase of Dunkirk.&nbsp; I&#039;m not sure this applies to the 1662 issue, since the money got there quite late in the year:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;It seems there was good reason for the issue of the silver Crowns first as in the year 1662 King Charles II sold the town of Dunkirk back to the French for five million French Livres, the town having been captured by the Parliamentarian forces in 1658. This created a massive influx of silver into the Mint to convert to British silver, reportedly 1,500,000 silver Ecus transported in 300 chests from December 1662 until mid-1663 at a total weight of 108,636 pounds. Naturally the biggest denomination in silver would be the most efficient way to work through the supply, hence the Crown being the coin of choice. There are two distinct varieties of silver Crown dated 1662 as well as a number of more minor variations, the main one being whether the coin carries a rose under the bust or not. It has often been conjectured that the rose indicates silver supplied from the west country of England, so perhaps the non-rose variety would mean silver from the Dunkirk sale, however, research is ongoing to find documentary evidence, as the West Country theory seems to be more of an assumption and extrapolation of when the rose mint mark was used for the Truro and Exeter area for provincial silver coins in the reign of Charles I some 20 years earlier. This sentiment was echoed by Alan Broad in his article &quot;1662 Rose below&quot; who also remarked that the old Commonwealth hammered cross and harp money was also being recoined so that was more likely a source for the rose below mark.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.sovr.co.uk/charles-ii-1662-fine-work-crown-bm02628.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.sovr.co.uk/charles-ii-1662-fine-work-crown-bm02628.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.sovr.co.uk/charles-ii-1662-fine-work-crown-bm02628.html</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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