Identification of a hammered medieval coin

[Guest Mark_I'm_a_Guest]

Yesterday, whilst out detecting I found this hammered silver coin. If it had been copper alloy I would have presumed it was a token, but being made out of silver I am stuck for an identification.

It looks a tiny bit like a Spanish Reale...

Ani ideas anyone?

CHEERS

Mark

[Geordie582]

I make it

Spain Ferdinand 1455 Half real

In circulation in England along with Flemish and French hammered coins. I assume the vast majority of the population was not too fussy about their coins, as long as they were silver!

Edited August 7, 2006 by Geordie582

[Guest Guest_Mark_I'm_a_Guest]

Wow, fantastically fast response. Thanks for the positive ID, now I'll know what to call it tonight at the club meet.

Regards, thanks once again,

Mark

[Sylvester]

I make it

Spain Ferdinand 1455 Half real

In circulation in England along with Flemish and French hammered coins. I assume the vast majority of the population was not too fussy about their coins, as long as they were silver!

Flemish coins would come as no surprise to me from this period. Bearing in mind the English wool trade was the staple export commerce of England during the period and the place we usually dealt with was Antwerp.

France wouldn't come as much of a surprise either because the mid-fifteenth century was the back end of the Hundred Years war, and we still held Calais (until 1558), and thus French coinage would enevitably find it's way in.

Spanish coinage surprises me a little.

Where did you find it Mark? (Near a port/sea town?) Which is what i'd expect. Or somewhere on a trade route. Obviously if you say somewhere landlocked like i dunno Leicester i'd be even more surprised.

[Geordie582]

I have the same Spanish coin from a batch of detector finds bought on ebay (I wanted one particular coin) They were mostly in poor condition and the half real very worn. Also in the batch was a fragment of a Venetian coin. This is why I said that Medieval populace couldn't have been too fussy about the origin of their currency. Having said that, I was reading on a coin website (can't remember which!) about the money handed over during a card game in one of the Sharpe episodes and the information was that currency at the time was accepted from any country - people were still not fussy as to origin!

Edited August 13, 2006 by Geordie582