A selection of some of the better / more interesting coins SOLD through

HistoryInCoins.com

in 2026

WJC-9247: 1645 Charles 1st NEWARKE BESIEGED Hammered Silver Shilling. Emergency coinage whilst supporters and troops of Charles 1st were besieged in Newark between 1645 and 1646. The rarer crude, fat-topped crown variety; S.R.3142. 1645 was within the third siege of Newark during the Civil War. It was the actual town of Newark that was besieged, not just the castle, although then and now, the castle lies in the heart of the town. On 26 November 1645, Scottish and Parliamentarian troops launched a twin attack on Newark. The Scots besieged Newark from the north; Parliamentarian forces besieged from the south. The garrison refused to capitulate and aggressively defended the town. During the harsh winter, the Scots built up siege works which were manned by 16,000 men. They also tried to dam the River Deven (a tributary of the famous River Trent which literally laps up the side of the present day castle walls) to starve the town’s grain mills power. Despite this sustained attack, Newark held out. Townspeople who survived later recounted that they were forced to eat horses and dogs because food was so scarce. The town was blighted by the plague. These silver Newark siege pieces - sixpences, shillings, ninepences and halfcrowns - were emergency money; literally cut from the silver pate at Newark Castle and then stamped with the dies. Circular coins would have been difficult to cut, hence the diamond shape. Examples with original underlying designs from the silver plates have been recorded. The town only surrendered at the order of Charles 1st, who was himself forced to order the surrender as part of the conditions for his own surrender. The town finally surrendered on 8 May 1646. It is interesting to note that soldiers from the Newark garrison fought at the famous battle of Marston Moor (2 July 1644). This coin, a twelve-penny shilling, needed to be 6g as that was its intended buying power - literally x12 pennies worth of silver (the good old days when the coin in your hand wasn't just a worthless lump of base metal with an attached bank promise of value, rather the coin in your hand was literally worth what the coin said it was worth in metal, be that copper, silver or gold). In size alone this was a very generous blank that the moneyer initially cut out for a shilling (presumably larger in size because the silver plate being cut up at the time was a thinner plate?); one that clearly came out at more than the stipulated 6g because either the moneyer himself, or someone further up the food chain, cut off and rounded the four corners in an attempt to reduce the weight. At still over 6g, even with circulation and the passage of time, that effort was only partially successful. This is something you rarely see - in fact, I've never witnessed it before. The Brooker collection contained only one example of this rarer die variety but looking at all the Brooker Newark denominations, and indeed his Pontefracts, none had their corners removed in this way to reduce weight. A rare coin in its own right. SOLD

Provenance:

ex Oriole collection of gold and silver English coins

Dispersed by Spink 2025