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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Dafydd, post: 26368952, member: 86815&quot;]Yes, a good looking coin and as [USER=40017]@PaddyB[/USER] said, eye appeal is as important as grade with English hammered coins. It is amazing that this one survived in such great shape for 460 years. I will share some of my Mary Groat&#039;s later, one of which is a detecting find and bent but nevertheless good eye appeal. The barometer of grade on Mary Groat&#039;s is the visibility of the pearls around her neck and you can count the ones on your friends coin. Tell him not to clean it any more. I agree with you, it is VF. Here is some trivia to share with your friend. It has a Pomegranate mint mark on both sides which was a rare and exotic fruit at that time and was a subliminal message that Mary was a Catholic.</p><p>The pomegranate&#039;s prominence in the Tudor court was almost entirely due to its association with royalty, specifically with Catherine of Aragon, Mary I&#039;s mother.</p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Catherine of Aragon&#039;s Emblem:</b> The pomegranate was the heraldic emblem of the House of Aragon in Spain. When Catherine married Henry VIII, the pomegranate was combined with the Tudor Rose to symbolise the union of England and Spain. This imagery was everywhere—on clothing, jewellery, tapestries, and in architectural details.</p><p><b>Symbolism of Fertility and Abundance:</b> The fruit, with its many seeds, had a long-standing association with fertility and abundance. This was particularly poignant for Catherine of Aragon, who struggled to produce a male heir for Henry VIII, a struggle that ultimately led to their divorce.</p><p><b>Mary I&#039;s Connection:</b> As Catherine&#039;s daughter, Mary I continued to use the pomegranate as a symbol of her lineage and her Catholic faith. This is why she used a pomegranate as a mintmark on some of her coins, such as the silver groat, minted between 1553 and 1554. The mintmark was a deliberate and public statement of her heritage and her connection to her mother.</p><p><br /></p><p>Her mother was Henry VII&#039;s first wife and and one of the &quot;survivors&quot; although she died naturally of cancer. </p><p>The Pomegranate could not be grown in England and was a complete luxury and exotic fruit so very few people would have seen one never mind taste one.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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