Shillings

Second Debased Issue

WTH-8138: Edward VI Hammered Silver DURHAM HOUSE Shilling. Second debased issue, initial mark Bow, undated but circa 1548-50. Durham House. Spink 2472. Old (unidentified) tickets from someone who knew what they were doing: correctly identified as on the tickets...type 5 bust 2. See Bispham classification in BNJ 1985, table 4, pgs 138-9 & plate 2, #6. Bispham gave Durham House dies a separate classification from the Tower dies. Thank you to Rich Mooney's numismatic expertise (and Joe Bisphan's!) on this one. Only the second Durham House shilling I have ever had and this one the better of the two. A rarer coin in very nice grade for issue. £745

Provenance:

Ex Ian Davidson (yellow ticket)

Ex ??? (old tickets)

WTH-9139: Edward VI Hammered Silver Shilling. Second debased issue, initial mark Arrow, dated 1549. Tower mint. Spink 2466. Tall narrow bust with a small crown. Second period, bust 5. A ridiculously large W in EDWARD with a very small RD to boot. Excellent grade for issue. Well centre, full flan and good edges. £650

Provenance:

Ex Tim Owen

Third "Fine Silver" Issue

WTH-7950: Edward VI Hammered Fine Silver Issue Shilling. Initial mark Tun - the more interesting variety with x4 pellets surrounding the obverse im and none surrounding the reverse. Tower (London) mint, 1551-53, following on for the debased issues of earlier Edward VI and later Henry VIII. Indeed, this Third Period Fine Silver issue was literally the finest ever issued under the Tudors, which is impressive considering the 1551 Third Base Issue was probably the very worst under the Tudors! Spink 2482. A pleasing coin with excellent eye-appeal, being altogether better than the majority of examples you come across. £465

WTH-8023: Edward VI Fine Silver Issue Hammered Shilling. Initial mark Tun, third period, fine silver issue of 1551-3, London mint, Spink 2482. Lost very soon after it was issued from the mint but lost to the plough soil so although VF, which is actually rare to see in these shillings, there are associated surface marks. £435

Sixpences

WTH-9132: 1551 Edward VI Hammered Silver Sixpence - an Extraordinary example! Fine silver issue of 1551-3, initial mark y, London mint, Spink 2483. A pleasing example of this attractive and sought after issue which is rarer than the shillings and, just like the shillings, often presents as problematic - damaged, bent, worn etc. Some damage is undoubtedly down to a very sceptical public in the early 1550's who had lived through 50+ years of debased coinage thanks to Henry VIII. They would be disbelieving of these fine silver coins and so would bite them and bend them to test they weren't fakes. This coin is centrally pierced, strongly implying that it was done so under the governance of Sir Isaac Newton himself, in 1696 at the Great Re-Coinage. Hammered coinage in England was phased out at the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and was officially ended in 1662 with the introduction of Charles II milled silver coins. Whilst no more hammered coins were minted post 1662, the old hammered coinage was still legal tender; hammered and milled running side by side, although much of it was battered and bruised through shear over-usage, not to mention seriously underweight through clipping. In 1696, although hammered coinage was still popular with the public, it was decided that enough was enough – all circulating hammered coinage was to be assessed by the mint. Anything substandard was to be exchanged for the new milled coinage and anything in high enough grade and, most importantly, of the correct weight, was allowed to circulate for a few years more. This latter cohort was identified as “of still legal tender” by the addition of a central punch or piercing administered by the mint. The mint employee who processed this coin back in 1696 somehow managed to make the piercing go directly through the eye of Edward! You could argue that he was perhaps mischievous and bored and did it intentionally, but the punch has actually gone through the reverse side (that being the larger hole) so he literally had no sight of the obverse king's eye... forgive the pun! What an amazing coincidence.

There were problems, as one would perhaps expect with such a huge national undertaking:

1. Due to the mint’s promise of a like-for-like value replacement, regardless of condition, many enterprising individuals, before submitting for exchange, clipped their hammered coinage further still, retaining the silver shavings to be utilised for effectively what was free money later on.

2. As a direct result of this extra clipping, together with the high cost of minting the new milled coinage, the government lost a great deal of money – nearly £3 million.

3. The timing was appalling – the new milled money was not ready in time for an exchange. Riots threatened and there was great public unrest until the government bridged the period by issuing paper notes.

4. The infamous Window Tax, of which we’re all still cognisant of today, was introduced specifically to pay for this near £3 million financial black hole. There have been some bad government taxes over the years, but a window tax?!

Bearing in mind there were not actually that many hammered coins that passed the grade in 1696 (the process was actually 1696-99), together with the fact that post 1699, whenever a pierced hammered coin passed through the hands of officialdom, it would inevitably be withdrawn, it’s perhaps easy to see why these coins are rare. You really don’t see than many of them. Georgian and Victorian gentlemen collectors would not be interested in pierced coins (for goodness’ sake, these were the people who mutilated the Cromwell crowns by smoothing over the infamous die flaw because they couldn’t live with them as they were!!), which is another reason why these extremely interesting coins are so rare. Find another like this!! £550 RESERVED (M.He.21-4-25 Lay-Away)

WTH-8139: Edward VI Hammered FINE Silver Sixpence; the Great Re-coinage of 1696! Fine silver issue of 1551-3, initial mark y, London mint, Spink 2483. A pleasing example of this attractive and sought after issue which is rarer than the shillings and, just like the shillings, often presents as problematic - damaged, bent, worn etc. Some damage is undoubtedly down to a very sceptical public in 1550 who had lived through 50+ years of debased coinage thanks to Henry VIII. They would be disbelieving of these fine silver coins and so would bite them and bend them to test they weren't fakes. This coin is centrally pierced but this was not a product of a wary public, rather it was pierced intentionally at the mint, under the governance of Sir Isaac Newton himself, in 1696 at the Great Re-Coinage. Hammered coinage in England was phased out at the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and was officially ended in 1662 with the introduction of Charles II milled silver coins. Whilst no more hammered coins were minted post 1662, the old hammered coinage was still legal tender; hammered and milled running side by side, although much of it was battered and bruised through shear over-usage, not to mention seriously underweight through clipping. In 1696, although hammered coinage was still popular with the public, it was decided that enough was enough – all circulating hammered coinage was to be assessed by the mint. Anything substandard was to be exchanged for the new milled coinage and anything in high enough grade and, most importantly, of the correct weight, was allowed to circulate for a few years more. This latter cohort was identified as “of still legal tender” by the addition of a central punch or piercing administered by the mint. There were problems, as one would perhaps expect with such a huge national undertaking:

2. As a direct result of this extra clipping, together with the high cost of minting the new milled coinage, the government lost a great deal of money – nearly £3 million.

WTH-9109: Significant 1551 Edward VI Hammered Silver Sixpence. Third period, "Fine Silver" issue. London mint, Spink 2483. Initial mark y so one of the very first coins struck (circa 1551). This issue, coming on the back of decades of Henry VIII coinage that didn't look like silver - and actually didn't contain much silver - took the populace by surprise. Many were suspicious at handling this unfamiliar looking coinage, often biting and bending it to test the silver. However, much more interesting than all that - this coin is a rare survivor of the 1696 Great Recoinage. The Great Recoinage was the first part in a two part process to remove all the old fashioned hammered coinage, most of it clipped, worn and underweight, from British circulation. The entire point of a coin back then was that the silver content represented the actual value, so a badly clipped silver hammered penny was actually not worth a penny anymore in real terms. Milled currency, featuring milled edges as proof against clipping, had started some 30 years earlier at the start of the Restoration. However, the earlier hammered coinage had been around for many, many centuries and thus couldn’t be removed overnight. In 1696, all hammered currency had to be assessed. Coins that were still “full weight, of a presentable nature, with a piercing that conforms to the Act – central, no metal loss; signs of having been in circulation for at least 50 years” (this last criteria presumably to protect against counterfeits), were certified and allowed to circulate freely alongside the new milled coinage post 1696. All other hammered coins were removed from circulation by exchanging them for the new milled currency. The sting in the tail was that the old hammered currency was exchanged by weight, not value! In actual fact, the majority of hammered coinage was effectively withdrawn from circulation under this process. This was, however, only a temporary stay of execution as under George II, just a few decades later, all hammered coinage was removed from circulation and legally made non-currency. There are no exact surviving records of numbers for this process but it was generally considered to be far from a success economically for the state. Many centrally pierced hammered coins probably ended up melted down as later collectors probably assumed the hole was merely damage, making these few survivors even rarer. Sixpences turn up less frequently than shillings, especially in this VF grade. That, coupled with the Great Recoinage association, makes this an extremely important and desirable coin. £445 RESERVED (M.He.25-3-25 Lay-Away)

Provenance

ex Baldwin's

Groats

WTH-8158: Edward VI (in the name of Henry VIII) Hammered Billon Silver Groat. Henry VIII posthumous issue, 1547-51. Initial mark Grapple, Tower (London) mint, Spink 2403. Bust 4. Billon issue of .333 silver. Even though this coin was struck very early on in this period, it is still officially an Edward VI coin. Edward was but nine years old when he claimed the throne in 1547. The images really do this coin no favours whatsoever - it is a better coin in the hand. £475

Provenance:

ex Alan Cherry (his ticket)

Pennies

WTH-6832: Edward VI Hammered Billon Silver Penny. Rarer LONDON Penny, Third Period “very base issue” of 1551, in fact so much so that coinage from this debased issue circulated at 50% face value. Spink 2474. London is a lot rarer than York, contrary to what Spink suggest. £175

WTH-7645: Edward VI Tudor Hammered Silver Penny. Third period, “very base issue” of 1551, in fact so much so that coinage from this debased issue circulated at 50% face value. York mint. Spink 2475. Wavy flan but in terms of detail only, marginally better than the Spink plate coin. £225

WTH-8097: 1551 Edward VI Hammered Billon Silver Penny. Initial mark Mullet. York mint. Spink 2475. Above average for issue. £195

WTH-8151: Edward VI Tudor Hammered Silver PORTRAIT Penny. First period, April 1547 - January 1549, a billon silver, or base silver issue. London (Tower) mint, obverse legend starting E.D.G. (but with unusual mascles / lozenges as stops). Spink 2460. Billon silver was all about make a profit for the king and government. Experiments in creating a debased silver coin that would be accepted by the public (ie in an age where very much the value of any coin was absolutely equivalent to the value of the metal in said coin, that was then not going to be the case) were undertaken in Ireland in the 1530's. The temptation was too great in England and debasement was started under that third coinage of Henry VIII and didn't stop until 1551. Several debased issues were actually not accepted by the public and these had to be addressed, usually by a revaluation. The obvious example of this for Edward VI was the third issue base pennies and halfpennies which were so debased, and so bad looking (the mint was seriously getting carried away at this point, thinking they could do anything) that they were revalued as halfpennies and farthings respectively. One final thing: the base silver coins, blanched in acid by the mint to improve their surface upon issue from the mint, soon became discoloured and blotchy in use. The larger denominations (Testoons and Groats), through wear on the high relief parts of their design, revealed the inner (non-silver) content to a seriously fed-up public and also to a not very pleased monarch. The comptroller (from the misspelling and misuse of the word "controller," derived from the Latin word, "contrarotulator," which means "keeper of a duplicate roll" and not an American word as some think it is) at the Tower and Southward during 1544-8, a certain Parson Brock, was literally chided not only for presiding over the debasement as a priest, but also for having given his monarch and sovereign a red, copper nose! This penny, bearing in mind its debased nature, has one of the very best portraits I've ever seen on a penny - incidentally, although the silver content of the coinage was literally being stolen by the authorities, the engravers were coming up with some of the best designs thus far to go on the not-so-silver coinage! A rare coin and in this grade, a lot rarer still. £1,625 RESERVED (S.M. Lay-Away 24-3-25)