please help id medieval coin

kyuss · February 8, 2010 4:16PM

Please help id medieval coin. Real or fake?

ink to my blog entry with pics of the coin

Thanks in advance - you guys have always been so helpful in the past with my mystery coins. :-)

RobP · February 8, 2010 7:02PM

It looks good. Nice pictures but the legend isn't clear enough to give a definitive answer. I suggest you try posting a facing scan which would give the detail without the toning or shadows to confuse the issue. It is a British short cross penny. The monarch's name (Henricvs) reads clockwise from the sceptre and the reverse will have the name of the moneyer and where it was struck. To confuse matters somewhat, coins of Henry II, Richard I, John and Henry III all used Henricvs as the name because the populace wanted a currency they could rely on. The coinages of Henry I, the Anarchy and Henry II (Tealby issues) were a bit of a disaster, with typically badly struck, irregular flans that lended themselves to clipping. The short cross coinage was introduced in 1180 to attempt to restore confidence in the currency, in which it was successful. This is why the same name was used with only detail differences between the classes. Unfortunately the pictures aren't clear enough to identify the sub-type from the legend, nor to identify the moneyer, but the reverse legend appears to have ON LVN from 12-4 o'clock which would mean it was struck at London (commonest mint). It looks like a class 5 which would be King John (1199-1216). These are relatively common with a steady supply appearing on eBay, but yours looks a decent example albeit struck a little off-centre.

syl · February 8, 2010 9:11PM

Using the 1998 Lobel-Davidson book (1066-date), it appears to be Henry III (1216-1272) Class 6C because it has 3 curls on each dide of the head and 4 pellets in each quarter. My book also says that there is a very scarce variety of this, but no picture in the book For porices, the book (old) shows VG=12 pounds, F=35, VF=65 using Brit grading.

FilthyBroke · February 8, 2010 9:30PM

looks from here like Henry III, but a closer look at the inscription wil be necessary. Here's a great SITE that can help you in identifying specifically which king this one was minted under. The same basic design was used for Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III. Henry III is by far the most common, which is why I suggested that it's his.

RobP · February 8, 2010 9:41PM

Could be 6c. The 4 pellets in each angle is common to all, so not important. The 3 curls can be on either cl.5 or 6. It will come down to the shapes of the letters, which is why I suggested a facing scan. The S has a pellet centre, which is often found on cl.5b.

kyuss · February 9, 2010 3:34AM

thanks for all the info.... How should I do a facing scan? I took the scan of the obv and reverse.... should I just do it in higher resolution?

RobP · February 9, 2010 3:58AM

Place the coin flat on a scanner bed and do a 600dpi scan. The first two images show a picture taken from an angle to highlight the relief with shadows, and as such leads to distorted characters. Life is difficult enough trying to identify possibly ligated letters and the like without complicating it un-necessarily The shape of the various letters in the legend is important and so for id purposes an image taken perpendicular to the surface is required. Basically as the two lower pictures, but much bigger and a bit less contrast.

kyuss · February 9, 2010 4:23PM

i took a straight on shot with my higher resolution nikon in a coin mount and added it. I hope that helps.

FilthyBroke · February 9, 2010 9:05PM

Yes, those are some nice pics, it looks to be King John, with the LUND (London mint) and IOHAN (John) insriptions. I'll let it to the guys with better eyes to find the actual Spink #.

It's a very nice example of what seems to be a tougher coin in that series.

kyuss · February 10, 2010 2:29AM

thanks for the info! you guys always amaze me with the ids

ColinCMR · February 10, 2010 5:24AM

really nice coin!!

RobP · February 10, 2010 6:59AM

This one gets more interesting by the minute.

This is a type 5 style penny and IOHAN ON LVND is the moneyer. Unfortunately the waters get a little muddied at this point.

A moneyer called IOHAN struck at London in classes 1a & b and may be the same person who struck in 1a at Wilton, but there is no record in either North or Spink of a moneyer by this name striking in London during class 5, and neither is there an example in the Mass collection which was pretty comprehensive. However, there is always a moneyer called IOHAN striking cl.5 types in all sub-classes at Canterbury, in fact during one period there were at least two here, a IOHAN B and a IOHAN M with the possibility of a straight IOHAN being a third moneyer of this name. A IOHAN also struck cl.5 at Exeter, Ipswich, Kings Lynn, Lincoln, Norwich and Winchester and must represent at least two individuals. The East Anglian IOHAN is likely to be one person who moved around the area and the Winchester, Exeter person a second, though it could be more. This means we have a potential new moneyer for London, which would be a real surprise for such a common mint. But bearing in mind the importance of Canterbury at this time and its relative proximity to London, it is quite possible that a moneyer could be seconded to the latter. Canterbury was a place of pilgrimage at this time with presumably considerable amounts of silver and other offerings reaching the area. It is therefore logical that the mint would be busy and well staffed, but with the option to move a moneyer to a nearby mint if the need arose.

Cue some more mud. The Mass collection also had an imitation in the style of class 5 (Stewartby dies 5[ i ] with a moneyer IOHAN ON LVND which was of quite good style. The only catch is that your dies don't match, so that still leaves it as a possibly rare new moneyer for the mint. I don't have Lord Stewartby's book, so if someone else can help here it would be useful as there may well be copies I am unaware of.

You need to weigh it and let someone have a good look at it who knows the series well. Is it a contemporary copy? The Mass imitation weighed 1.52g against his genuine pieces' typical 1.3-1.45g, but there are a few outliers which render any comparison meaningless as a check. In my opinion it looks good, but I haven't been able to find a matching obverse die yet. A link to a known London moneyer's work would be fairly conclusive that it is genuine and the use of the pelleted S and the barred A would back this up. I'm going to have to sit on the fence for the time being, but interesting all the same and probably worth above average whether genuine or not.

kyuss · February 10, 2010 9:07AM

I can't weigh it as I returned it to the owner(a dealer friend who doesn't specialize in hammered and had no idea what it was) - going by the prices someone had listed earlier(VG=12 pounds, F=35, VF=65 ) I figured $70 was a fair price but more then I wanted to spend. If you think its something special and want it - let me know and I can see if he still has it.

RobP · February 10, 2010 9:51AM

<< <i>I can't weigh it as I returned it to the owner(a dealer friend who doesn't specialize in hammered and had no idea what it was) - going by the prices someone had listed earlier(VG=12 pounds, F=35, VF=65 ) I figured $70 was a fair price but more then I wanted to spend. If you think its something special and want it - let me know and I can see if he still has it. >>

PM sent

kyuss · February 19, 2010 1:39PM

Coin has been mailed off to RobP - so hopefully once he gets it, he will be able to figure out what the mint mark is.

Thanks again all!

please help id medieval coin

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