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A bit of a bloodbath at times in the Brian Dawson halfcrown sale with the three nice Shrewsburys all making 16K hammer. With the cheapest hammering at 5K and the other two 6K, they weren't exactly a bargain. The ex Bridgewater House galloping horse Exeter hammered at £40K, but the currency 1645 galloping horse only made 24K hammer, despite being unique. Lot 52 was a surprise at 4600 hammer against an estimate of 1000-1200 and lot 60, a 1645 Oxford with reversed 4 in the date an even bigger surprise at 4800 hammer against an estimate of 500-700. The nice Worcester C13 hammered at 17K and the 'Cannonball' made 13K. Somebody lost the plot on the CHST below at 8500 and the beautiful pattern on the cover, lot 119, hammered at 34K. The ever so nice Chas.II second coinage lot 125 made 30K hammer and in the milled section the 1726 made 9500.

On the plus side, I did get the one I wanted and could afford - the W/SA Boar's Head reverse I-40, ex Walters (1932) 529, Lockett 4226 & Asherson 114. :)  Despite some obverse graffiti and a few scratches, it is still the higher grade of the two known, the other being Morrieson 564 and Ryan 1316.

 

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Rob did you not get lot 28 the BRIT FRAN to go with your other of same legend but with ground?.....Some very healthy auction prices I agree!!

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6 minutes ago, coin watch said:

Rob did you not get lot 28 the BRIT FRAN to go with your other of same legend but with ground?.....Some very healthy auction prices I agree!!

Couldn't afford to bid on anything before lot 100 in case I got carried away and won something for a few K leaving me bereft of funds. Charles I Boar's head mark is not the easiest to find.

The largest BH population is the W/SA 6d reverse 1 with nine; two of which are in the BM, one in the ANS and another two which are highly undesirable leaving 4 to choose from, but I've already got a tower both sides sixpence. There is a B-6 shilling in the BM, but I've never seen another and in any case I need a B obverse shilling for the bird mark, leaving just the two halfcrowns above to choose from. Hobson's Choice really given I don't know where the Ryan coin is.

 

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25 minutes ago, Coinery said:

Well done, Sir!

incidentally how do you reverse a 4?

Many characters are composites of small straight and curved punches, so reversing a 4 is easy.

Edited by Rob

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I put a cheeky bid on lot 17, but my limit was pipped at the post unfortunately, It may well still turn up on a dealers tray soon!?

 

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20 minutes ago, Rob said:

Many characters are composites of small straight and curved punches, so reversing a 4 is easy.

That’s funny, for some strange reason I was expecting you to correct yourself and say it was inverted. I must be living on a different planet at the moment, that wasn’t even an option in my mind. :D

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I won lot 66, which ticked a few boxes for me - my first Charles I Bristol mint, my first declaration coin, and my first coin illustrated in Brooker

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Well done. That's a decent enough coin, and reasonably priced. Certainly compared to lot 68.

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4 minutes ago, Rob said:

Well done. That's a decent enough coin, and reasonably priced. Certainly compared to lot 68.

Thanks Rob! :)

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There really were some exceptional coins on offer, and the sale yielded some very interesting results. Although unique lot 83 lacked appeal for me in hand, i had a good go at the ex bridgewater house 1642 exeter Halfcrown but had to stop bidding. Really regret not chasing a few other lots that i was the under bidder on but you can't win them all i guess.

@Paulus that was a nice coin, much nicer than the pictures showed

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Is that the brian dawson from bolton - I remember him well from the seventies .

He is prob in his nineties now

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6 hours ago, Coinery said:

That’s funny, for some strange reason I was expecting you to correct yourself and say it was inverted. I must be living on a different planet at the moment, that wasn’t even an option in my mind. :D

I suppose it could be rotated, but the 5 following appears to be a composite figure, so assumed the 4 was too given all the 42s and 43s are not from a single punch. The small 4 used on some dies from 44-46 looks to be a single punch. If you compare the A11 with the F7, you can see the 5 is completely different, despite, I believe, being by the same engraver.

1645 A11-Dawson 60 - Copy.jpg

066 - Copy.JPG

Edited by Rob

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And while we are in the business of education, the obverse of the Oxford 1645 F-7  halfcrown is effectively full flan. Compare that with the reverse above and you can see that the reverse was engraved to a larger diameter than the obverse. The diameter of the obverse is 37.5mm at its widest point, confirming that the reverse must have been engraved on a piece of diestock of sufficient diameter to accommodate a physically larger denomination such as a triple unite, crown, half-pound or pound. Understanding that answers a whole lot of questions.

065.JPG

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You can easily see how the composite 4 came to be reversed, with the final bar being added to the wrong side of the ‘cross.’

The Es look composite on that coin too, as well as the 5.

Lovely flans on both those coins.

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8 hours ago, Rob said:

And while we are in the business of education, the obverse of the Oxford 1645 F-7  halfcrown is effectively full flan. Compare that with the reverse above and you can see that the reverse was engraved to a larger diameter than the obverse. The diameter of the obverse is 37.5mm at its widest point, confirming that the reverse must have been engraved on a piece of diestock of sufficient diameter to accommodate a physically larger denomination such as a triple unite, crown, half-pound or pound. Understanding that answers a whole lot of questions.

065.JPG

So, is your proposal that the reverse was intended for a larger denomination, say a crown, but was never used and, instead, was reclaimed for the halfcrown, OR that the die stock of a larger denomination was ground back and a half crown was cut into it?

If the latter, I can’t fathom why they wouldn’t have marked out the beaded borders correctly before cutting the design?

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Dies were sometimes cut on a piece of diestock that was a larger diameter capable of accommodating the design for a bigger denomination. We know that die faces were ground down once deemed sufficiently degraded and a new die engraved on the end of the bar. That new die may or may not have been the same denomination as previous. In the case of the Oxford 1645 reverse 7 above, the two diagonal flaws on the bottom line below the declaration along with the cluster of dots in the centre are quite likely to be the remains of its previous incarnation where the detail wasn't fully ground away.

As to why they got the diameter wrong, I think it is a case of die worn out/broken, so quickly recut a new one and get production going again. The quality of the detail on many of the known dies has all the hallmarks of hurried work. You do get the occasional one where more care has clearly been taken, but the overriding reason they were making Royalist issues was for the immediate payment of troops who would almost certainly be there for a limited time only, so speed was of the essence. You only have to look at a significant proportion of yesterday's coins to see the crude polishing lines on many dies that tell you they we made in hurried circumstances. So, in summary, I would think the reason the size was wrong is down to the fact that they would be more interested in getting production going than looking for precision in the design. It is particularly obvious on some Shrewsbury shillings, where the 3 line declaration clearly shows a shilling was the intended denomination, but the die is hopelessly oversized. See scan below where the obverse is full, but the reverse is significantly short.

I wrote an article on the Chester halfcrowns to this effect and also the identification of a faulty rocker press in the final Circular of January 2014 where I could show that the CHST below obverse die was recut to make the Declaration issue obverse. The important observation was that the die was recut with the new detail significantly offset from the position of the previous to the extent that the only rational explanation was a die face suitable for a larger diameter. Coincidentally it also gave an immediate explanation for why the Declaration reverse die broke from the offset or very soon after.

img151.jpg

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The shilling is compelling evidence but I just can’t buy the idea they’d make the most basic of errors in failing to scribe out an accurate inner circle, given how much more complicated (and time consuming) it would be to lay out legends, etc. if they don’t get these most basic of markings on the stock first? One would presume them experienced enough to realise this? It would even cross my mind to get that bit right, regardless of the rush I was in.

As well as cutting punches and repairing/making dies, I would naturally assume, if there was a large turnover, that stocks could be filed and marked out in advance, in preparation to be cut - that would streamline things, surely? Unless this is exactly what they did do, and then someone started cutting a halfcrown onto stock that was prepared/scribed-out for a crown?

another thing that troubles me, is I can’t imagine it taking a huge amount of time to cut a die, once the punches are made and to hand, so why wouldn’t they just file and recut/scrap an error die? I know you say time was short, but is there any evidence to say that the die-sinkers couldn’t keep up with demand (die-making, not coins struck)? 

I have another question, why were stocks ground back and reused anyway? The metal they were made from was hardly an expense, relatively speaking. The time and cost involved to reverse the annealing, and then file off the old design, must surely outweigh the cost of new and ready to roll diestock - or at least make the use of new stocks a negligible expense?

Actually I guess the above question is irrelevant in that menial labour could file and prepare new stocks. Though interestingly it should make abandoning an error die an easier process, if perhaps only a half-day or less is lost in the time it takes to cut a new die.

I wonder whether hundreds of dies were filed off to start over this way to be honest? 

I just can’t buy the idea that rushing to make them is the cause for a mis-scribed circle. Or, if it was, they wouldn’t just scrap it when realising, presumably quite early on in the process of punching it all up?

Just thinking out loud.

Edited by Coinery

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We are talking about a war situation here, not peacetime, and it appears to be accompanied by an absence of regular mint controls such as a pyx trial, for which there is no evidence. The engraver will accompany the troops, who were only paid when a supply of coin or plate silver was available to coin. Levies were made on the local populations to pay the troops defending them, or wealthy individuals were encouraged to donate plate (which was how most wealth was held) for the King's cause. This was then either distributed or melted to produce coin. Royalist mint coin production appears to be a real roller coaster with periods of inactivity followed by frenetic activity when demand rose. Somehow, they had to find coin for the troops, who were always owed money, and this was satisfied on an occasional basis. Clearly, if coin was available there would be no reason to produce coins, but with the war effort effectively funded by the wealthy aristocracy, they held plate which was donated and melted down. e.g in Besly's 1992 article, Vyvyan's mint record books at Exeter list the quantity of donated plate and from whom in detail.

The evidence of incompletely erased underlying detail tells us that dies were reworked. The main Royalist denomination was the halfcrown, because they always had a higher ratio of cavalry to foot soldiers than did Parliament. Half a crown was a day's pay (assuming they did actually get paid). However, the larger dies used on the pound, half pound and triple unite were redundant by 1644, probably following the closure of the Oxford Parliament in April 1644 and the dispersal of those Royalist forces to York and the south-west, though crowns continued to be struck at Exeter until the following year. This left dies with a diameter of approx. 2" with no application requiring the full surface area.

I'm sure they did mark out a circle for the legend, just that I don't think they were concerned about complete accuracy of dimensions. Hammered coins are regularly struck off centre, so there isn't the compelling demand for the neat obverse and reverse you see on milled coins and a discrepancy of a few mms in diameters would not be as important as paying the men. Holding stock is a reasonable premise in the case of a fixed mint, but in the Civil War you have a mobile facility. There is plenty of evidence for die movement between locations over what can only be a period of months. Punches appear to move in groups, which is what you expect as they would be the property of the engraver, just as engineers today would have their own set of tools. Their punches didn't contain a complete set of letters and numbers as would be desirable in a fixed location, rather, many characters are composite made from smaller shaped punches. The number of engravers involved is small, probably only 6 or 8 based on the punch sets and marks employed, and they would all follow the troops. Only Shrewsbury then Oxford, York, Bristol and Truro then Exeter can lay a claim to be 'permanently open', and even that was only a little over a year in the case of York. Oxford as the capital had a significant full time garrison from December 1642 through to surrender in 1646. Vyvyan's mint at Truro in 1642-3 and then Exeter from Sept 1643 on can reasonably be said to be open throughout, but the surprise defeat of Essex at Lostwithiel and the elimination of Parliamentary forces from the south-west in August 1644 resulted in the demand for coined specie collapsing. That is why there are 1645/4 crown dies. The sudden reduction in demand meant the dies stayed on the shelf for a year until the war revisited the area.

With the continual movement of troops around the country, there would inevitably be areas where it was impossible to source the metal bar required to produce dies, so reusing them was a necessity. Where they went was dictated by military activity and wasn't ordained in advance, so prior notice of an intent to purchase bar stock couldn't be given. Again, it works ok in a fixed location such as the Royal Mint, but not in deepest Shropshire when you happen to have overrun a Parliamentary supporter's mansion, and purloined his plate. Coin production in this instance is reactive and not proactive.

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Interesting read, thanks for taking the time. Do we know whether those who strike coins are the same are those who sink dies? It would seem a waste of skilled workers (engravers) employing them to the menial task of hammering out coins.

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1 hour ago, Coinery said:

Interesting read, thanks for taking the time. Do we know whether those who strike coins are the same are those who sink dies? It would seem a waste of skilled workers (engravers) employing them to the menial task of hammering out coins.

In theory the task of knocking them out could easily be done by most people, even a complete novice, so logically it would once again be a case of the right tool for the job, i.e. the engraver does the dies and the other jobs determined by ability, with the flexibility to work lower down the chain. As to what actually happened will require documentary evidence, but it would be reasonable to assume that they made the best of a bad job in the circumstances just as anybody else would. Manpower per se was not an issue, and you can't hold up military activity or the war in general while the job centre sends a suitable candidate for interview.

Coin production needs a team whatever to perform the various tasks involved in flan preparation, so it is obvious you can't just have just one person doing the job.

Edited by Rob

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So what possibility is there that the die-sinkers stayed in a fixed location, where it would be possible to cut dies without the inconvenience of constant marches (I feel I want to escape the idea it was all so chaotic, and look to other possibilities re major anomalies), where one would assume die making to be a bit of a challenge otherwise? Also smelting plate and turning it into flans on a regular basis would equally seem an impossible task for troops constantly on the march? 

Is there any value in the idea that dies, once completed, were transported to the source of the plate/flans/troops for use by coiners, or maybe even the plate was horsebacked to a fixed location/mint to be processed and returned to the front line?

You’re probably right in what you’re saying, but war efforts can be incredibly organised, logistically speaking, and it would seem to make more sense to keep your die-sinkers and their tools in a safe location away from the perils and risks of frontline troops.

Do we know of any die-sinkers being killed in battle?

edit to add “once completed” in second paragraph 

Edited by Coinery

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We do know that the castles were used to hold any stocks of unprocessed plate, and so it would be normal to locate the mint at the same place when dealing with a garrisoned location. The Shrewsbury and Worcester mints were certainly at the castle, as was Aberystwyth in the early years, but later Aberystwyth coins were struck at the mills at Talybont, as recorded by Boon in his book. These are the 'A' coins IMO and not Ashby as suggested by Boon.

Levies were made on the citizens to pay for the defence of the city, but were not necessarily collected, particularly towards the end of the war. I do think that most coin was produced at the acknowledged mints of the various towns, with captured plate brought back in prior to processing. i.e I don't think coins were just made in a field somewhere near Bognor Regis. The logistics were thought through, but coining was only transient and subject to need and dependant on silver supplies.

There is plenty of circumstantial evidence from the movement of punches and marks to say that the engravers moved around the country, and it is logical to associate this with recorded military activity. e.g. the tower mark on the early W/SA halfcrown obverse B together with the tower marked 6d and the possibly tower marked A1 shilling are the only occasions this mark was used in the W/SA group. In the summer of 1644, Charles left Oxford and went to Droitwich for a week of so before heading down to the south-west where his troops comprehensively routed Essex's Parliamentarians at Lostwithiel towards the end of August. Following Lostwithiel, the only activity in the south west was the siege of Plymouth, requiring only a much smaller containing force, which is why Maurice returned with the King to Oxford in the autumn of 1644.

Exeter had a resident engraver who would have been part of Prince Maurice's force, he being the commander of Charles' armies in the west of England. Following Lostwithiel, Maurice left the south west and you then see only Tower/Ex marks until the return of major military activity in the west from the summer of 1645 onwards, at which point the Rose mark returns, which also explains the apparently anachronistic 1645 Tower/Rose crown D18. Prior to 1645, the tower mark wasn't seen at Exeter, but I think this is down to the surprised quick end to the campaign, where the dies in use were sufficient to cover demand. I think 'Tower' was the same engraver who travelled west in July/August 1644, but was left at Exeter at which point the resident engraver was relieved and followed Maurice.

From Oxford, Maurice then went to Worcester as commander of troops in the Welsh Marches, taking up his position on 1st December following Rupert's move to Bristol, he no longer being President of Wales from that date. You then see the appearance of Rosettes/Roses on the W/SA coins, which would again tie in. All very convenient and speculative due to the absence of documentary evidence, but it does fit nicely. Chester also sees a rose marked halfcrown, coinciding with Rupert being in charge of the relief of Chester in 1644/5. Again, very convenient.

I'm not aware of any engravers being killed, but given I am struggling to name them, it is likely to be an uphill battle finding evidence. The only names we have are Thomas Rawlins, to whom it is possible to attribute a number of dies from their punches. David Ramage was on Briot's payroll and also a likely engraver. The reference to 'Rude the Coyner' at Hereford in October 1644 ties in with Gerard's return from SW Wales in the autumn of 1644. His troops over-wintered at Hereford, Monmouth and the surrounding area, and are probably the reason for the Welsh Marches halfcrowns. The early SA coins have a legend layout typical of European coinage, with the titles split into two letter groups separated by annulets. As has been commented in the past, these imply someone not familiar with British legends, and I would speculatively suggest the person responsible was foreign, brought over from the continent with either Rupert or Maurice, but probably the former. There is an outside possibility of confirming this by punch links with continental coins from where they lived pre-war.

Edited by Rob

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Loving the read, Rob, where’s your book?

I clearly know very little about all this, but I still get the sense there would be time to ‘do things properly,’ if they wanted to?

For someone whose sole job it is to cut dies, would they really make such a glaring error re the inner circle? I can’t get my head around that. Also, if they did, I get the impression there’d be an option to scrap it - I think they would notice the error really early on.

Can you think of any reason why they haven’t just used a crown die by accident, or even intentionally, just to make use of them?

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The last one is easiest to deal with. In the case of Shrewsbury and Oxford, the crowns, pounds, halves and triple unites had the mark of value on the reverse, so that would have been a non-starter for use with a half crown. Exeter appears to have had a selection of dies available based on the inventory captured in 1646.

Mules with a shilling would have been the most likely candidate, but shilling production was relatively limited. There are however shilling/halfcrown mules at Shrewsbury (in its W/SA guise) because halfcrown reverses 21 and 23 are both paired with the anomalous right facing bust shilling die (both unique). The D-23 pair is only known from one example, and the D-21 from three coins. The D-22 is the commonest of the three Briot horse die pairs, but the reverse die moved to Worcester. So, I'm fairly confident that the first two reverses listed together with the W/SA Briot horse halfcrown obverse die and the right facing bust shilling were the four and only dies in use at Shrewsbury immediately prior to its fall on 21-22nd Feb 1644/5. After these extremely rare die pairs, the punches used are not seen again, nor are the dies, suggesting they were captured and lost to the Royalist cause. Halfcrown I-35 reverse die is also known paired with the shilling obverse C as reverse 9, which again is a later striking and supportive of the arrival of Maurice (at Worcester), and its removal may be the reason the halfcrown reverses were paired with the shilling obverse.

The halfcrown reverse 22 die is also used at Worcester as Allen rev. 16, paired with Allen obverse C, and there also exists C-25, C-18 (also paired with obv B as B-10) and C-19 coins which point to a wholesale transfer of dies from Shrewsbury to Worcester at the point when Maurice set up his HQ at the latter in Dec. 1644. Reverses 25, 19 (as Allen 27) and 18 (as Allen 26) were also paired with the leopard head (Shrewsbury or Salopia, but likely the former) obverse E. A developing flaw on 19/27 tells us that the order in which they were struck was 27 and then 19. This agrees with military activity which was centred on Cheshire, Shropshire and Montgomeryshire during the summer of 1644 when there was relatively large scale minting. The dies were then moved during the winter recess when Maurice appeared at Worcester, and also tells us the obverses B & C were current at Worcester in late autumn/early winter 1644.

As these coins are money of necessity, I still think that standards were subservient to demand. The only consistent thing is that the silver standard of Royalist issues was maintained throughout the war (except the Garter issue), but that is the practical reality of the raw material mostly being touched plate, so no refining required. Some refining was done, but only if the quality of silver taken in couldn't be guaranteed.

Edited by Rob

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