This week’s fresh listings:
This page is to be updated every
Tuesday and will contain all the latest Coin,
Medal & Token listings for that particular week.
The more observant of you may have realised that I no
longer keep previous "Fresh Listings" coins on this page.
All for sale coins can be
found via the category grid on the front page.
Most sold
coins are now accessible via a
new link on that same category grid.
Additions to www.HistoryInCoins.com
for week commencing Tuesday 8th July 2025
WCom-9170: 1650 Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth
Battle of Dunbar Military Reward. Silver, dated 3rd September 1650. A military
reward, given out personally by Cromwell, for participation in the Battle of
Dunbar, a decisive engagement in the English Civil Wars, in which English
troops commanded by Oliver Cromwell defeated the Scottish army under David
Leslie, thereby opening Scotland to 10 years of English occupation and
rule. Issued in gold
and silver, depending upon the rank of the recipient. Something of an iconic depiction of Cromwell
- Thomas Simon, the engraver, was dispatched by Parliament to Scotland to take the "...effigies, portrait or statue of
the Lord General to be placed upon the medal". It is recorded that Cromwell himself did NOT
want his portrait on the medals. In a
letter, he said: “… I doe
thinke I may truly say it will be verie
thankfully acknowledged by me, if you will spare the haveing
my Effigies in it”. Perhaps modesty, or more likely the realisation
that an effigy on a national medal perhaps smacked too much of monarchical
aspirations, something he was supposed to be vehemently opposed to, having just
beheaded Charles 1st and effectively dismantled the monarchy. Either way, Parliament ignored him and went
ahead and did it anyway. The reverse -
the Parliament assembled n one House with the Speaker - being perhaps even more
iconic than the obverse, was actually suggested as a design by Cromwell himself
in a letter to the Committee for the Army in February of 1650, some seven
months prior to the battle. Sold
with old tickets. Thomas
Simon's signature appears as THO . SIMON. FE (obverse
truncation), meaning it is Medallic Illustrations (i)
392/14 and not 391/13 as on the ticket.
In 1760, the original dies, both obverse and reverse, for the Dunbar
Medals were discovered in Hursley, Hampshire, in the
former residence of Richard Cromwell - a wall was being dismantled and the
medals were inexplicably found inside the structure. They were re-struck in the 18th century by
the Royal Mint engraver Thomas Pingo. Born 1714, died 1776 so giving us a clear
window of 1760-76 for these re-issues.
This medal is one of those re-issues (the original 1650 military rewards
are valued at several thousand pounds each, should you ever be fortunate enough
to even see one). The dies were not
particularly well protected in the masonry and so exhibited rust and cracking
from the outset, something that quickly escalated due to exposure to the
elements, to the point where the reverse die broke, which perhaps accounts for
the uniface medals we occasionally see. If you look closely at this medal, the rusty dies manifests itself on some of the obverse legend. A particularly pleasing
example.
£575
Provenance:
ex Drewry Family collection (purchased for £175 late 80's)
ex
CNG, 1997
WSC-9171: Robert II Scottish Hammered
Silver VERY RARE MINT Groat. Crowned
bust, left with a star at the foot of the sceptre. The letter B behind the head is for the
moneyer Bonagius, a particularly sought-after feature
as Bonagius did not act as moneyer for all the Dundee
coinage. Further, this is a very clear B
which makes the coin even more desirable.
VILLA DVnDE - the extremely
rare Dundee mint. S.R.5135 - it
is interesting to note that Sovereign Rarities couldn't even source an example
to use as a plate coin. Miniscule
numbers were struck at Dundee as compared to Edinburgh and Perth. Robert II was first Scottish king of the Stewart line. His grandfather was
Robert the Bruce; his mother, Marjorie Bruce, being Robert Bruce's
daughter. Robert was Regent under the
imprisoned David II and was himself later imprisoned with his three sons in England when Edward III was
recognised as successor to David II. All
Robert II coins are hard to source but Dundee mint coins are in a
league of their own! The AMR example,
which sold in 2019 for £2,000, was perhaps on a par with this coin but the
moneyer's initial B was far from clear. An extremely rare and desirable coin.
£1,935
WMH-9172: William 1st Hammered Silver
Norman Penny. B.M.C. V,
Two Stars type: +GODPINE ON LVN – Godwine of London.
S.R.1254. Not a particularly rare
mint or moneyer but a nice, clear example of this much rarer type - obviously
all Norman pennies are much, much rarer than their Medieval and Tudor
counterparts, and in a lot of cases, rarer even than the late Saxon pennies,
but when you do come across a William 1st penny, it's invariably B.M.C. 8.
£995