The coin shown below is a 9-pence coin issued in Newark by supporters of Charles I during the English civil war. During the war, various walled cities stayed loyal to Charles. Although Newark was besieged by the Parliamentarians for years and attacked several times, it was never conquered. However, when Charles lost the war (and eventually his head), Newark opened its gates again. To provide a medium of exchange within the city, nobles donated their silverware to be made into coins. There was no melting and pouring silver into planchets. Instead, the silver objects were hammered flat, then cut into diamond-shaped planchets. The planchets were placed between dies which were hammered to make coins. On some of the coins, original hallmarks of the silverware can be seen. Four denominations (half-crown, shilling, 9 pence and 6 pence) were issued 1645-6. Not sure why the diamond shape was chosen rather than square or rectangular. Maybe could get more planchets on first cutting from hammered-flat silverware. On one side is a crown, the initials CR (Carolus Rex [Charles the King]), and the denomination (IX). The other side of the present coin has the name of the city as NEWARKE. 1645 was the transition year in how the city name was spelled. In that year, both NEWARK and NEWARKE appeared on coins. In 1646, only NEWARK appears, the spelling used for the city today. Then there is the mysterious “OBS”. It’s an abbreviation for “obsidional”, an obscure English adjective which means “associated with a siege” … very appropriate. This is the only English nine pence coin associated with a specific city. Some other nine pence coins appeared during the civil war, but the city of issue is unknown. The coin below was graded XF40 by PCGS. I acquired the coin in a recent Stack’s Bowers auction. They very nicely included the original flip tag from a Coin Galleries (part of Stack’s) auction in 1986. Pictures are below. There are two prices on the flip. The 400-450 price is the pre-auction estimate of the winning bid range. The 258.50 is the total selling price (235 bid plus 10% premium). As was common back in the day, there was only a paper catalog with few of the coins having a picture (this one didn’t). All of the coins were graded only by the auction house. Bids were by mail … email, websites, cell phones did not exist. Mike
