Angel

[Martin Oliva]

I am looking for some help with identyfying the year of my angel coin, and also some valuation? Can anybody give me some hints about it?

[HistoricCoinage]

It's of Henry VIII's First Coinage and so dates between 1509-26.

A picture of the other side would help determine grade and, thus, value.

[Martin Oliva]

[Rob]

Fine or a bit better. There is a lot of detail missing, even if the legend is quite good. Spink quote 700 fine, 2K in VF

[Martin Oliva]

Thank you. Would you know what year that may be?

[Rob]

Unfortunately the surviving mint records of the time don't list the privy marks involved at any particular time. However, we know that London used pheon, castle, and crowned (sometimes) portcullis on the silver, and gold additionally used a castle with H superimposed in the period 1509-26.

If we assume that the first mark for the reign was pheon because that was the mark in use at the end of Henry VII, that would have accounted for the initial output. We can reasonably assume that castle followed pheon, and that was followed by portcullis. Portcullis, crowned or not, is much more common than castle as a mark which probably only lasted a year or two, so we can probably say that crowned portcullis covered most of the period in question. As there are only three marks for silver, it is clear that the pyx was either infrequently tried, or multiple pyxes were made for the same mark.

We know that there are groats with crowned portcullis over crowned T, which was the mark used at Tournai during the period of English occupation from 1513-8. However, I don't have any details for how long the mint operated there. Politics would suggest that the mint started operating as soon as was practical in order to show the locals the English money as the new landlords, and indeed there is a groat (4 known from 2 types dated 1513). The town was captured on 23rd September 1513, so this would suggest coining took place soon afterwards. Tournai was returned to the French in October 1518 upon payment of 400000 crowns (Snelling) at which point any dies would have returned to London, if they hadn't already done so.

Therefore we can say that crowned portcullis was in use either during the period 1513-8, or immediately afterwards because of the dies with the recut mark. I would lean towards the (crowned) portcullis mark being introduced in about 1512 or 1513 based on the rarity of castle. This would leave 12 or 13 years for the mark to run, but it is possible that pheon was in use concurrently as the mark is not that rare. It could equally have been used, stopped, and then reused, or even used throughout the 17 year period.

There is documentary evidence that a trial was made before Cardinal Wolsey and others of two kinds of money struck between 1st June 1522 and 15th October 1523. Eighteen satchels contained £7/16/- in groats and halfgroats, taken from 14886 pounds weight Tower. This at least gives the amount of silver coined for these two denominations in the period, if not the total weight of silver, because pennies et infra were not included and their distribution not noted. Whether this corresponded to a change in privy mark is uncertain. We do know that the same mark was used in two different periods for the second and third coinages, and these only separated by a few years, so it may have been standard procedure to alternate(?) between pheon and crowned portcullis, or even have uncrowned portcullis as a third mark, but this is only conjecture.

It's possible that crowned portcullis, which is a common enough mark for the angel, was mostly struck using the proceeds of the money received from France in 1518, but don't quote me on that one.

Best guess is therefore sometime between 1513 and 30th October 1526. This isn't particularly helpful in answering your question and doesn't add anything to what is already written, but is the best I can do.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Rob

[Martin Oliva]

I really appreciate all the effort of yours to help me, thank you!