YeOldeCollector

It would be an expensive snack, to say the least...

It's not overly rare but it's hardly the most common of coins. I mean, there are a fair few examples knocking about but no where near as many as most of the silvers. I imagine we're talking quantity still in the hundreds. Also, all of the coins here are for my personal collection.

Indeed we are! Edward III Treaty Period Quarter Noble of London mint, dating to circa 1364. Exceptionally sharp detail which isn't captured entirely by the photograph.

Henry III Voided Longcross penny. Lvcas on Gloucester, Class IIIb, less common mint.

I hope someone steps in with a 1600 soon as I won't be able to step back in until we reach the 1500s

"(while not exactly a pretty thing.....although beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder)" - Many of my coins support that... Good to hear that it is deemed rare, I'm not a big fan of it, it just sits amongst the English stuff looking sorry for itself and out of place.

BUT... Elizabeth I Penny of Ireland. Copper issue, m.m. star dated 1601. I understand this to be a very rare issue too.

Makes my 1603 redundant now...

Why? It was Medieval England where the languages were barbaric Latin, Old English and elements of French and various other regional dialects. If you look at the letters of the Old English alphabet you will see that it is nothing like the Romanesque lettering you see nowadays. The instruments have been lost to antiquity but there were punches created, designed especially for creating such letters.

There is a lot of diversity within weightings for hammered coins whether due to debasement, clipping, forgeries and so on. However, I would argue that most conform to the 'expected' weight, but there are a fair few anomalies but that is to be expected in such a time when even the moneyers were corrupt.

The designs were created using graving tools, so it was carved into the die whereas the legends you see here were imprinted using punches into the die. So you would have had sharp engraving tools to literally carve the design into the die and then you would have had little punch tools, (like a blunt screwdriver), which would have been hammered into the die to create a series of wedges and lines which would result in the weird letters which you see. Why? You ask me. Well, it was much quicker to create a die if you just punched a series of wedges into it. They took colossal amounts of time to make using this technique, imagine how much longer it would take if you had to hand carve every single detail. You could use the same wedge for an I, an R, an H, an M etcetera. You can see this on the reverse of the Henry III above where the same wedge shape has been used for multiple letters.

Aethelred II Crvx penny. Aelfric on Sudbury. Henry III Class Vc penny. Ricard on Durham. Edward the Confessor Pyramids penny. Earncil on York. One of the best portraits I've seen on this issue, must be in-hand to be truly appreciated.

Wow, a very nice cabinet Richard!!

Absolutely wonderful! Thanks for sharing.

Very nice, weighty looking coins Vern!

Yeah, it is a good portrait for the issue. The first photo works quite well, even if it is a tad artistic

This just arrived by courier: I look forward to dipping into it soon.

Henry VIII Groat. Very scarce in this condition as it has a remarkable portrait. The photographs really do not do it justice.

These three certainly do not have eye appeal but they are interesting nonetheless. This has been doublestruck... twice! So, quadruplestruck? Both sides features both dies which is most unusual. It is a penny of Henry III the moneyer is Renaud and the mint is London although the legends are completely mixed up. This, although off-struck, is a superb example of a King Stephen penny. This is a rare example as it appears to be of Winchester mint although the mint name begins with a W which is interesting as the mint usually begins with a P for Winchester. A very shiny coin that is difficult to photograph. This Stephen penny dates to around 1139. This coin is still in one piece but it doesn't look like it will stay that way for long... This is an extremely rare penny of King Offa, not in the usual condition I would go after but I could not say no at the price I got it for. It is well struck and dates to around 790, Offa was King of Mercia. These are very scarce coins and without the cracks this coin would be worth much, much more.

More information now up here: http://historiccoinage.com/blog.php

Cheers Art, here's two more. Aethelred II Longcross penny, Leofwold on Winchester. Cnut Quatrefoil penny, Leofsige on Cambridge.

The usual splattering of hammered for me this week but my favourite is this one. King Eadgar Circumscription Cross penny. Very rare and thought to be only the second known example of the moneyer. Martin/Marin on Pintonia which is Winchester. It dates to about 963 A.D.

They are indeed very interesting books. I also received an off-print entitled "The Nottingham Find, 1880: A Stephen Hoard Re-examined" recently which is exceedingly interesting.

My signed copy of this just arrived from Virginia. A friend also sent me a new copy of this. Good time for books but no coins as of late, although that should change soon...