Coinery

I know the mint was closed for relocation and reworking of the dies to improve quality in 1650, but there were coins minted for other denominations…were there definitely no shillings? I’m 99% certain this is a 6 that’s drifted off flan, but thought I’d ask, just in case someone had heard of a random die that may have been used as part of a trial?

I think this is standard for the hobby, Rob

Makes my wobble at a 7hr round trip to Heaton Norris pale into insignificance

Nice find, Clive…in our own archive t’boot! 🙌🙏

You could very well be right, I’m open to any suggestions on this one…I really don’t know, truth be told! 🙂

It’s meant to represent a groat, by the way.

Contemporary with the times, I’d say, as in intended to be spent. I’m basing the above solely on the fact my own example looks like it has been in the ground for some years. However, that’s not to say someone didn’t beat my piece up to make it look like an old coin? This has been known, but I suspect it would not have been worth it to beat any modern copy up this much, in the hope of making a few quid? Value? I wouldn’t have expected to get more than a tenner for my coin when it sold, so I likely didn’t even get that much. People do collect genuine (😊) counterfeits, so you may get lucky on eBay, but don’t expect too much.

I felt like I recognised it from something I had around 20 years ago, so been digging around my images. Here’s one I used to have, which was pewter (or not silver at least). They are identical and, given the similarity of ‘strike,’ and the fact mine looks like a genuine field-find, I’d say they were both contemporary cast counterfeits (cast, rather than hammered from dies).

That’s a super-crude counterfeit, surely? Would a Scottish coin have English titles on it, I can’t say that I’d know?

Good evening, and welcome to the forum. Of course you can use the images in any way you wish, no credit necessary. As I’m sure you’re already aware, this is currently understood to be a single die, though many examples exist of it, courtesy of the Colchester hoard. Only one single specimen was known before the find, so there are likely not too many detector examples remaining out there? Good luck with all your research, please share it with us when it’s completed. Very best regards, Stuart

That’s really kind of you, Rob, such a generous invite. I can’t for a minute imagine I’d be able to make it, but when is your next meeting?

Hi Rob, I’m not sure that I’ve moved any further forward with this Newcastle conundrum, hopefully time will provide more evidence and some experiential statistics? However, in the meantime, some great learning has come from stumbling across Denis’ article on the class 6 coins, which I raised a query about on here a while back. I’ve got some new information, I think, on the 6a2 he wrote about, and a new obverse example hiding in plain sight. I look forward to adding it here during the upcoming 2 weeks I have off after tonight. I think he’ll/you’ll find it interesting 🙂

Thanks so much, Rob, really generous of you, I’ll digest that later, I’m currently in between nights. It’s interesting because I was reading a few of Denis’ articles on the BNS blog last night, that’s a rabbit hole of info. in itself.

I was just re-reading this old post, and I still can’t get my head around the scale of these numbers!