An Introduction to Reading Hammered Coins…
This page is an important step forward to the identification of coins from various monarchs, although some illustrations of coins are my own, a lot here is accredited to others, and I’m not shy of giving credit where credit is due, as with everything on this page and elsewhere on uk-detectorist always click the highlighted areas, you won’t be disappointed, if i find it easy, then it is…
Anglo Saxon-Early Medieval
This is such a vast subject, that there will be highlighted links posted throughout to take you to experts & sites that are dedicated to one particular coin or a series of coins, offering a much easier solution to the problem of identification
To start with, the everyday run-of-the-mill coins we find as metal detectorists are too far gone for us to identify, let alone be able to have a positive ID, but when we find a coin that has something left, we all should try to find an ID… most people, instead of trying themselves to find the age of a coin will turn to the social media sites, i think personally this is sad, as they are missing out on a large part of metal detecting…
I personally do not have a lot of coins from this era, and as such have very little experience of the coins but when i found this Saxon of Aetheralred 11 i knew that it was a Saxon & was able to get a positive id from the spinks book…
Over the course of time, the more detectorists that are out there, the more coins come to light, whether it is a hoard or a single coin, the amount of gold, silver brass, or bronze just laying out there is huge…
One of the most easy-to-read examples of reading a coin description has to go to Carl Savage, once you follow this you will be amazed that the simplicity was not shown before, below is an example from his paper on Post Medieval Coins & Identification…
Any coin whether it has been dug up or bought might have a partial reading of a letter or letters with which to ID the coin…
One of the easy-to-use sites is by Paul Shields who has done a lot towards the reading of coins, and general ID of coins, with his coin inscription page
As with the inscriptions Paul Sheilds deals with the problematic Mint Marks found on coins, although the Spinks and older Seaby coin books help with an illustrated index to every Monarch, Paul shows you where to look for the mintmark…
As with all coins, of any age, the condition is always important, with the value affected by the condition of the coin…
But be aware, there are many coins out there ready to trip up the unwary, with forgeries being made since the first coin was produced
Short Cross Coins, are one of the most difficult coins to read, due to the fact, that subsequent monarchs kept the same coins, but there is still hope for a positive ID…. most people will know a Saxon short cross coin from one that was issued later, either by William, Henry or Stephen or any issues of the early Norman coins, in 1154 Henry II, (- Henry Plantagenet -) became King & Henry 11 used the same coins of Stevan and the coins of the rebellion, by 1158 Henry 11 ‘s official coinage is issued, with the same terrible results as the coins of the previous monarchs, these are the silver pennies which are called Cross and Crosslets or Tealby,s (- a big hoard of them was found there in 1807 -) don’t forget these Telbys are not in poor condition due to the fact of time, but this is how they were struck, more than often illegible, carelessly and hurriedly struck on poor flans, in 1180 the situation is so unsatisfactory for such a great King that Philip Aimer of Tours is commissioned and he designs a new Short Cross coinage. Philip makes his mark at the mint but he’s soon drummed out on suspicion of fraud; as is customary. And 1180 marks the start of a Short Cross silver Penny that proves so popular with the people that it is continued, pretty much unchanged, for close to 70 years.
All Short Cross pennies are marked hENRICVS – Henricus – Henry in Latin. This can be a bit confusing later on in the reigns of Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland but, for the people, Henricus was the proper, authoritative name of the King of England. In any case, Henry II’s son Richard didn’t have the time to change mere coinage and his other son, John, needed the cloak of his father’s name, John’s son is also a Henry – Henry III, with the short cross coinage continuing into the reign of Henry III right down until 1247 when the short cross coins were so worn and degraded and clipped that a new coinage was needed…
So if we look at the hammered coins in chronicled order we have the silver coinage of the;
anglo saxons, then the short cross coinage…
Norman coins 1066-1158
Cross-crosslets coinage 1158-1180
The short cross coinage 1180-1247
The voided long cross coinage 1247-79
The long cross coinage of various monarchs starting with Edward 1 in 1179 until the advent of milled coinage…
The short cross penny was one of the most successful English coin designs in history. The coinage ran for an incredible sixty-seven years without change, the incredible nature of this achievement is most appreciated when the coins are considered in their historical context.
Even as far back as the tenth century, it had been common practice to rotate coinage designs on a regular basis, somewhat like modern British banknotes. In essence, what happened was as thus; A coinage design would be introduced and would circulate for a number of years usually between five years and ten years, depending upon circumstance. After a certain period of time, a new design would be introduced and the old coins would be called in and melted down. Although no coin book actually states it as such, it can be inferred that the redeemed coins were possibly demonetized at some date after a period of grace. The reason for this conclusion is as follows. Firstly the point of regularly rotating the currency was to keep the workmanship and the silver fineness up to a high standard. The only way to effectively maintain such control over the coinage would be to regulate it strictly, hence why moneyers found to be producing underweight coinage or coinage of substandard workmanship would be castrated and have their right hand removed.
Whilst this system worked well up until the late eleventh century, by the early twelfth century the system was being abused. The coinage of Henry I produced from 1100 to 1135 became increasingly crude and of inferior workmanship. Poor and weak off-center strikes abounded, moneyors were producing underweight coinage and making a profit at the king’s expense from the silver they had kept back, they then ensured that the mint name was indecipherable so that the monarch could not track where the coin had come from. Henry however had a trick up his sleeve and decided to make an example of the moneyors he knew had produced substandard pieces. The moneyers were called to Winchester Cathedral at Christmas 1124. The brighter and more intuitive moneyers that had taken advantage of their position realised the game was decidedly now against them and they fled abroad. The majority however turned up as requested where they were shocked to find that the king turned on them and made them account for their actions. Debasing the coinage was serious business as the whole reputation of England’s financial status could be undermined as could trade. The king had several moneyers mutilated and castrated as a punishment hoping that this would send the message home to those that had been let off.
A typical example of the state of English coinage in the early twelfth century prior to the 1180 recoinage
King Stephen (1135-1154) silver penny, Shaftesbury mint issued about 1136. This believe it or not is an average strike!
Whilst Henry’s policy worked in the short term, as the coinage greatly improved, it didn’t’t stay improved for long and soon went back down the old road. However by 1135 Henry I had died and was not in a position to do much about it. The following decades saw a succession crisis and thus a civil war between King Stephen (a rather charming usurper by all contemporary accounts) and the real heir, his cousin the Empress Matilda (who was rather arrogant and unpopular by all other accounts). Either way the period from 1135-1154 saw a country where the power base moved from one party to another and the moneyors were pretty much free to take advantage as they saw fit. The coinage whilst remaining of good silver did deteriorate further due to poorer working conditions, there was a lack of decent dies as the Royal revenue responsible for such matters were more interested in other things. Thus substandard equipment plagued the moneyors who were also afraid to back either side entirely in case the situation changed. Thus coins with blundered obverse legends and indecipherable mints are common for coins of this period.
By 1154 Stephen had died and Matilda’s son Henry II had gained control of England, Stephen’s coinage continued to be produced until 1158, with all of the problems it had developed since 1135.
An extreme example of the state of the coinage by the 1140s, here is a King Stephen coin struck
from defaced dies (the moneyor was not committing himself to either side and was certainly not owning
up to the work either! As both obverse and reverse legends are no more than a few random letters)
Henry II hoped in 1158 to remedy the situation by introducing the Cross and Crosslets penny (more commonly known as the Tealby penny, due to a large hoard found there). The name Cross and Crosslets comes from the reverse design of a central cross with smaller crosses in the four angles. The silver standard of this issue was generally very good but the workmanship was truly dreadful. Bad strikes continued and the coins were not particularly aesthetically pleasing, thus in 1180 Henry decided to try a new tactic.
The coinage from the tenth century right up to 1180 had continued to have regular design changes but the whole point of this design rotation was to keep the coinage to a high standard. The problem was this whole approach was simply not working anymore, no matter how many moneyors were being mutilated someone would still find the allure of clipping a coin more enticing than the fear of the consequences. It was believed that the constant design changes were more of a hindrance than a help, because every few years the people would have to familiarize themselves with a new design, thus it was going to take a while for people to notice what to look out for when accepting the new coins. Such things as knowing whether a coin was underweight or clipped etc. The recent struggles between Stephen and Matilda had also emphasized the need for not change but continuity and stability.
Thus in 1180 it was decided to introduce a new coin design of better workmanship, of more uniform size and even shape (Tealby pennies sometimes came out square!), and more importantly of a design that could stay in circulation indefinitely.
Enter the Short Cross penny, Henry II Class 1 minted by Golcelm
of Winchester in about 1180. (Sorry about the smaller reverse picture!)
The short cross penny was born in 1180 and would run through four reigns with very little alteration, indeed such little alteration that the obverse legend would always read HENRICVS REX (King Henry) regardless of whether the king was called Henry, Richard or John. The style of the short cross pennies are all so similar that the entire life span of the series from 1180 to 1247 saw them assigned to classes based upon minor differences in design. Thus they are numbered from Class 1 to Class 8.
Class 1 are Henry II coins issued from 1180 to the death of the king in 1189
Classes 2-4 are issues of Richard I issued from 1189-1199
Classes 4-6 are issues of John issued from 1199-1216
Classes 6-8 are issues of Henry III issued from 1216-1247
The design was of a forward-facing king on the obverse, the reverse depicted a short cross, hence the name of the coins.
The coins held up well in circulation although like most coin designs over time, they were prone to becoming of increasingly sloppy workmanship as the years went on.
Class 3 during Richard I’s reign saw the first slip into degradation, which reached a zenith during Class 4. By the end of Class 4 in the early years of John’s reign, it was considered unacceptable to have such crude workmanship and thus Class 5 was issued in the hope of undoing the damage. Class 5 coins are certainly of better workmanship that Classes 3 or 4 but even so the new issue was still inferior to Class 1. But even by the end of Class 5 and early into Class 6 the quality was beginning to slip once more and the trend continued until the end of the coinage with the poor Class 8 issues.
Class 6 King John Short Cross penny was issued around 1210 by Rauf of London.
The increasingly sloppy workmanship was not, however, the final nail in the coffin for the Short Cross Penny. The coins had proved themselves a better alternative to their predecessors but the old enemy of hammered coins, clipping proved to be their ultimate downfall.
By the 1240s clipping had become so prevalent that something had to be done to curb it, thus it was decided that a design should be introduced that would show up clipped coins even sooner or hopefully make it near impossible to pass off a clipped coin. Thus in 1247 the solution to the perplexing problem was put forth and coined. It was decided that by extending the cross to the edges of the coin it would help to prevent people from clipping them as they would be easier to detect. The new Long Cross penny entered circulation in 1247 and the Short Cross penny’s long reign was over.
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The art of reading any coin comes with experience, but then again it always helps if you have a guiding hand…
Although the following exert shown below is from Rod Blunt’s excellent Voided Long Cross Pennies, i have inserted more links to take you to coins, articles, and sites where it should make finding an identification of a voided long cross coin very easy….
With the single exception of an extremely rare gold coin, the long cross coinage of 1247-1279 consists entirely of silver pennies. They were struck in 0.925 fine silver with a standard weight of about 22 grains (1.43g) and a diameter of about 18mm. The obverse depicts a crowned facing bust of the king, and the reverse has a long voided cross with three pellets in each angle. Both sides are inscribed: the obverse with the king’s name and title, and the reverse, in most cases, with the name of the mint and moneyer. During the thirty-two years of their issue, certain changes were made to the design, the form of the legends and the style of the letters. By studying these changes, along with documentary records and information obtained from hoards, the sequence and dates of issue of the coins can be determined and when their classification was undertaken.
The classification we use today was established almost one hundred years ago by Laurie Asher Lawrence… A surgeon by trade, who later became an author… (1857 – 1949) – He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Numismatic Society… It is documented in a paper published in three parts in the British Numismatic Journal between 1912 and 1915. This classification has stood the test of time remarkably well, with only relatively minor refinements by later numismatists. Subsequent finds have added a few coins to Lawrence’s lists of known classes and sub-classes for certain mints, but many of these – like the extremely rare class 6 penny of London – were anticipated by him.
One of the challenges of producing a guide to the classification is that of catering for the different needs of the casual user and the more experienced numismatist. On the one hand, the risk is of including an excessive amount of detail, while on the other, it is of omitting information that the specialist will find useful. To address this issue, I have adopted a two-tier approach to the structure of the article. The Internet greatly facilitates this approach by making it possible to separate out various aspects of the coinage, while at the same time making that information instantly accessible via hyperlinks. Those wishing to determine only the main class of a coin, for example, are able to do so without being faced with detailed descriptions of the many sub-classes. Having established the main class, however, the structure of the article will allow those who wish to do so to pursue the more detailed information at a separate level.
A difficulty often experienced by newcomers is that of reading the inscriptions on the coins. This is partly because some of the letterforms used during the medieval period are unfamiliar, but also because adjacent letters are frequently joined together (“ligate”), such that they can appear to be a single unrecognisable character. To add to the difficulty, the manual minting process often results in parts the inscription being weakly impressed, or even partially off the flan. The best way to become familiar with the various letterforms is to visit the mints and moneyers section and study the inscriptions on the coins illustrated, all of which are transcribed. To assist with the process, ligate letters are underlined, and the cross ends that divide the reverse legends are indicated by the “/” sign. Basic errors, such as mistaking a horizontally barred N for a Roman H, can be avoided once it is known that only the Lombardic “h” is found on the coins. It should also be borne in mind that the letters I/J and U/V respectively did not exist separately at the time, so a single letter in each case (usually in the style of I and V) served both as vowel and consonant, much as the letter Y still does today.
It is appropriate at this point, for the benefit of newcomers, to define some of the numismatic terms used in the article. In the context of the long cross coinage, the obverse of a coin is the side that bears the facing bust of the king. The reverse is the side that carries the long voided cross. A mule is a coin struck with the obverse die of one class or sub-class, and the reverse die of a different class or sub-class. Mules are very useful for determining the order in which the coins were struck.
udigidig.com 