Hammered Coins; A Fascinating entangled web... Once upon a time...
Sylvestius
Posts: 1,584 ✭
... there was a coin purchased as a King Stephen penny (ain't it always the way with me?) a defaced die one at that... i'm sure you all remember it.
Well yes it was a defaced die issue in theory. Until i wanted to find out more about it and identify it further if possible, i showed it to two dealers and they who saw it in person stated it was indeed an extremely rare issue and that they could identify it no further than myself.
So the dealer i bought it from, the dealer that sold it him, those other two dealers i showed it to and myself that all thought, yep it's a defaced die king Stephen penny.
Then i thought, well lets just try one more see if he knows much else about it. Then i got back the reply from him that "Actually that's a 10th/11th century German coin". Shock horror! So he got someone at a museum to take a look at the picture and this expert confirmed 100% that it was indeed a German pfennig. Where upon i was stunned.
So i contacted my original dealer to inform him of the revelations and he considered the new evidence and asked me to get the opinion of another dealer if i could to verify it any further, cos four to two was kinda in Stephen's favour still.
Thus i emailed a hammered coin dealer and asked him, whereupon he said that he'd seen the very same coin before and it had been offered to him as a Stephen penny, when in actual fact it was yes a German coin, the guy that tried to sell it him had then gone to another dealer elsewhere and had sold it to him as a 'Stephen' penny instead.
Which means that yes indeed it wasn't even a Stephen penny afterall. Now the dealer i bought the coin from has been excellent as always and really proved why i like dealing with this dealer. Despite the fact i've had the coin a month (which is way outside the usual week return policy) he's agreed to provide me with a full refund.
So i finally did manage to get a medieval coin from Europe eventually, even if it was only briefly. I've gotta say this has been one really entangled web of intrigue.
It also goes to show the dangers of coin collecting even to those in the know like all those dealers, some having been in the business for several decades.
It must also show that i must have known something. I was a little concerned about the size of the coin, it was a little smaller and underweight than i expected which made me want to get second and third opinions on it anyhow... i just got more than i bargined for.
Well yes it was a defaced die issue in theory. Until i wanted to find out more about it and identify it further if possible, i showed it to two dealers and they who saw it in person stated it was indeed an extremely rare issue and that they could identify it no further than myself.
So the dealer i bought it from, the dealer that sold it him, those other two dealers i showed it to and myself that all thought, yep it's a defaced die king Stephen penny.
Then i thought, well lets just try one more see if he knows much else about it. Then i got back the reply from him that "Actually that's a 10th/11th century German coin". Shock horror! So he got someone at a museum to take a look at the picture and this expert confirmed 100% that it was indeed a German pfennig. Where upon i was stunned.
So i contacted my original dealer to inform him of the revelations and he considered the new evidence and asked me to get the opinion of another dealer if i could to verify it any further, cos four to two was kinda in Stephen's favour still.
Thus i emailed a hammered coin dealer and asked him, whereupon he said that he'd seen the very same coin before and it had been offered to him as a Stephen penny, when in actual fact it was yes a German coin, the guy that tried to sell it him had then gone to another dealer elsewhere and had sold it to him as a 'Stephen' penny instead.
Which means that yes indeed it wasn't even a Stephen penny afterall. Now the dealer i bought the coin from has been excellent as always and really proved why i like dealing with this dealer. Despite the fact i've had the coin a month (which is way outside the usual week return policy) he's agreed to provide me with a full refund.
So i finally did manage to get a medieval coin from Europe eventually, even if it was only briefly. I've gotta say this has been one really entangled web of intrigue.
It also goes to show the dangers of coin collecting even to those in the know like all those dealers, some having been in the business for several decades.
It must also show that i must have known something. I was a little concerned about the size of the coin, it was a little smaller and underweight than i expected which made me want to get second and third opinions on it anyhow... i just got more than i bargined for.
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I know you've wanted to get your hands on a "Stephen" for quite some time, and I'm sorry this one turned out to be ... well ... not Stephen. Better luck next time, man.
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Tom, formerly in Albuquerque, NM.
that's a fascinating story. What was the grade of this defaced die coin?
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With defaced die or erased die issues they usually obliterated the legends on the coins and replaced them with random letters (so the monarch whom ever may be in power at any point in time couldn't detect who'd produced it or which side in the War they had supported). Also gave the moneyor chance to produce underweight coins.
However when i studied the picture of the pfennigs and i turned the coin around so that the 'sceptre' with bar across was meeting at the top (like an apex roof), is when it was possible to see it as yes a church.
I must admit in all these years i've never been so surprised and shocked. This is also the reason why i don't buy stuff like this on ebay... cos if i had, i'd be stuck with it now!