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A question for advanced collectors and researchers who specialize in hammered British coins

I have trying to read more on my British hammered coins. This is quite a task because many of them have mushy or missing letters that impossible to read. Reading ancient Roman coins is a lot easier.

The two volume set of books by Jeffery North has extensive listing for the English mints and the many moneyers who worked in them. Given that many of these coins are scarce to rare, how did North or other researchers know about all of the moneyers and mints? Are there records that have survived from the middle ages that provide this information? I can't believe that it's based upon the surviving coins that have been seen.

For example, I purchased this Edward the Confessor penny from Heritage several years ago. I their description, they attributed the piece to the York Mint and the moneyer as "Stircol." There is no moneyer by that name in North, and the reverse of the coin reads, "+ STIRCOL ON EOFER." How this signify that this is a York Mint piece?

I gave the reverse photo a quarter turn from the Heritage photo because I believe that the "+" (cross) should be at the top.


Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?

Comments

  • Hi Bill,

    I think you will find the Fitzwilliam database very helpful. Here are 2 examples:
    https://emc.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/full-record/10090903
    https://emc.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/full-record/10110155

    Best,

    James

  • John ConduittJohn Conduitt Posts: 350 ✭✭✭

    I think you were right the first time. If you read articles from the Victorian era and now, it's apparent almost all the early and mid-medieval moneyers are known directly from coins. Sometimes a new hoard is found, and the references have to be overhauled e.g. with the Wicklewood Hoard of 1989 and the coinage of Stephen.

    This article lists the mints and moneyers from 1066-1158. The introduction outlines the adjustments that had to be made. Much of the debate is about re-attribution when a better example of a coin shows up. Some of the mints are even uncertain, where they're trying to align what's found on coins with what's in the records for the names of towns.

    By Edward I, the mints were reduced, there are more surviving records, and it gets a lot easier - although the moneyer names are not on the coins, of course.

  • robp2robp2 Posts: 141 ✭✭✭✭

    What edition of North are you using? STIRCOL is certainly listed in the 1992 editon after Snebern and before Sutere, and in any case is not a particularly rare moneyer.

    York coins have the full mint name as EOFERPIC at this time, variously contracted to account for the length of the moneyer's name.

    When reading coins of this period, the main consideration appears to be that there were no gaps in the legend. Consequently you may find doubled letters on occasion. The spelling of both mint and moneyer will also vary from time to time, eg. a letter might be missing or letters rearranged. There isn't too much scope for mint confusion if the coin is legible. Southampton and Northampton can both read HAMetc, so were assigned by reference to other locations where the name appeared. e.g a HAM moneyer striking at Winchester would clearly be Southampton. Another grey area is where Northampton was given as NORD, which is ambiguous with Norwich, but NORDP is definitely Norwich. A good example of moneyer's spelling variation is North's Waldos at Lincoln, which has many variations - mine reads PEDLOVS

    Of more interest to me at least, is the obverse reading, where you have +EDRER DREC with R for P as the third letter and the last letter before the helmet looks like a C instead of an X. Presumably the intention was to engrave RECX but ran out of space, or else used the initial cross as the X.

  • BillJonesBillJones Posts: 33,430 ✭✭✭✭✭

    What edition of North are you using? STIRCOL is certainly listed in the 1992 editon after Snebern and before Sutere, and in any case is not a particularly rare moneyer.

    The two volume set I have has a copyright date of 1994 and was re-printed in 2017.

    Yes, I have seen that the spellings can vary from what it might say in the book. Some of the people who do the cataloging for the auction houses can't seem acknowledge that. You can't blame them too much because I think that most of struggle with the cataloging of them coins.

    The ancient Roman coins are easier to read by far. They were often better struck, and their die sinkers knew how to spell.

    Thank you for your response.

    Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
  • NapNap Posts: 1,702 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I find British coin legends on Anglo-Saxon coins relatively easy to read, compared to later medieval coins. Just perspective depending on your familiarity.

    Rarity estimates are always based on analyses of surviving coins, particularly those in large hoards. There are no Saxon mint records, but even if there were, that hardly matters as mintage is not the same as survival. But that would seem obvious, and isn’t it the case with all coins?

    The spelling differences can be a little challenging. But you get used to it if you collect in this field.

  • ashelandasheland Posts: 22,612 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I forwarded this thread to a friend that does hammered British.
    Maybe he can help…

  • John ConduittJohn Conduitt Posts: 350 ✭✭✭
    edited October 29, 2022 2:38PM

    @Nap said:
    I find British coin legends on Anglo-Saxon coins relatively easy to read, compared to later medieval coins. Just perspective depending on your familiarity.

    The spelling differences can be a little challenging. But you get used to it if you collect in this field.

    Yes after a while post-Norman coins are not so hard to read. The font is always the same. You have to watch out for ligated and unbarred letters but otherwise they're predictable. The spelling is usually fine (if you're looking out for abbreviations) and usually the strike is good enough. At least, identifying ruler, mint and moneyer is not so hard - getting to the specific type when they differ only by minute differences in the style of the crown or the tail of the R can be tricky.

    The biggest problem is cutting and clipping, which you don't get with Roman coins. You do need at least some letters to identify a mint and moneyer. (I would add that with Roman coins, you never have a moneyer to identify, and the mintmark is often a nightmare to interpret).

    Norman coins, on the other hand, are often struck so weakly with such worn dies you're lucky if you can even tell what denomination it is. And they only made pennies.

  • John ConduittJohn Conduitt Posts: 350 ✭✭✭

    @robp2 said:
    York coins have the full mint name as EOFERPIC at this time, variously contracted to account for the length of the moneyer's name.

    ...and just to be a little more confusing, York was actually known by the Saxons as EOFERWIC (Boar Village), but W was not a letter in their alphabet. They used Ƿ (Wyn) instead, which looks like a P.

    There's a similar problem with Eth (Ð, as in ÆÐELRED) and Thorn (Þ), the latter being the cause of erroneaous names for tourist establishments such as 'Ye Olde Tea Shoppe' when Y is actually Þ (Th).

  • BillJonesBillJones Posts: 33,430 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 29, 2022 3:31PM

    The Norman king coins, after William the Conqueror (Rufus, Henry I and Stephen), were terrible. I have a William II (Rufus) that is very high grade, AU, and yet very difficult to read. I’ll post photos of it tomorrow.

    Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
  • BillJonesBillJones Posts: 33,430 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @JohnConduitt said:

    @robp2 said:
    York coins have the full mint name as EOFERPIC at this time, variously contracted to account for the length of the moneyer's name.

    ...and just to be a little more confusing, York was actually known by the Saxons as EOFERWIC (Boar Village), but W was not a letter in their alphabet. They used Ƿ (Wyn) instead, which looks like a P.

    There's a similar problem with Eth (Ð, as in ÆÐELRED) and Thorn (Þ), the latter being the cause of erroneaous names for tourist establishments such as 'Ye Olde Tea Shoppe' when Y is actually Þ (Th).

    Yes, the “P” instead of “W” is something you always have to bear in mind, but there other similar letters can confuse you also.

    Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
  • SapyxSapyx Posts: 1,977 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @BillJones said:
    ... Given that many of these coins are scarce to rare, how did North or other researchers know about all of the moneyers and mints? Are there records that have survived from the middle ages that provide this information? I can't believe that it's based upon the surviving coins that have been seen.

    Believe it or not, it is true. There are, essentially, no records of moneyers names dating that far back. So as is the case with Roman coins, all the knowledge we have about where and when they were made, comes from good old fashioned archaeological drudge work: studying hoards, and comparing the quantities of each coin type found in different hoards to create an approximate chronology.

    There's much disparagement in this thread about the quality of the inscriptions on English Hammered coins. I don't think they've done too badly, given the tools they had at their disposal.

    Quite literally, their tools. Mediaeval coin dies were not "engraved", like ancient or modern coin dies. Perhaps they'd forgotten how to engrave a die, perhaps they simply thought it was too slow and laborious a process for a tool that wore out relatively quickly. Instead, they were punched. And they didn't have a full set of letter-punches. Rather, they had a mixed bag of various shapes, so each letter needed to be individually crafted using multiple punches. To make a letter E, for example, you might use a large crescent-punch for the C-shape, then a small wedge in the middle for the centre cross-bar - that's certainly quicker and more space-efficient than using a large wedge four times. A letter "A" might be made from two long wedges plus a small triangle. Even the king's portrait is usually composited together by punch-work, with dozens of circles, triangles and wavy-bits coming together to form the portrait.

    So it's not surprising that sometimes, punches would go astray or get forgotten, creating mis-spellings and other typographical errors.

    Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
    Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"

    Apparently I have been awarded one DPOTD. B)
  • EVillageProwlerEVillageProwler Posts: 5,859 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just to add to the fun of attribution:

    On the subject coin, the reverse has an annulet which indicates that the coin was an official issue for the Archbishopric of York.

    How does one get a hater to stop hating?

    I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com

  • BillJonesBillJones Posts: 33,430 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Here is a high grade example of a William II (Rufus) penny. One of the factors that makes these coins hard read has to do with the die states. It seems like many letters mush down to series of fat "I"s. This is an S-1260.


    Here is second one, which I owned at one time before I acquired the piece shown above. This is more typical for the William II coins.


    And here is a third, the profile variety, S-1258.


    Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
  • John ConduittJohn Conduitt Posts: 350 ✭✭✭
    edited October 30, 2022 9:49AM

    @BillJones said:
    Here is a high grade example of a William II (Rufus) penny. One of the factors that makes these coins hard read has to do with the die states. It seems like many letters mush down to series of fat "I"s. This is an S-1260.


    Here is second one, which I owned at one time before I acquired the piece shown above. This is more typical for the William II coins.


    And here is a third, the profile variety, S-1258.


    And you haven't told us the mints and moneyers :D

    I will guess:
    LIFPIN ON CESTR - Lifwine of Chester
    LIFPINE ON SVDE?- Lifwine of Southwark?
    LEOFPOLD ON PINC - Leofwold of Winchester

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