Newbie question re: Offa coin

[Guest Andy C]

Hello, and thanks for reading this.

I am a new collector and apologies if my questions are obvious or my assumptions inaccurate.

I have a coin of King Offa, see photo, which has been in the family for at least 80 years. My grandfather took it to the British Museum for assessment some time in the 1930's, and whilst no concerns were raised about its authenticity, an issue arose because someone at a time past has soldered a ring to the top (!) in order to wear the coin on a chain, and therefore the weight could not be checked accurately. This has since been removed, again by persons unknown, and there is now no obvious evidence of this 'modification'.

The coin measures 18mm across its widest point.

My real question is about the condition of the coin, which, in comparison to many of this date, appears to be superb.

I presume that I should now find a reputable house to verify the coin. any advice or suggestions would be sincerely appreciated.

Andy C

[Rob]

Is it an Ashmore copy? It looks too crisp for my liking. It is also almost identical to the BM's example including the offset strikes on the obverse and reverse which can be seen in North vol.1 plate 4/16. However, it is not a direct copy so not the same dies as the BM's as the letter form looks too regular and not quite right. I'm going for an Ashmore as he used the BM's pieces as a template.

Edited May 30, 2011 by Rob

[Guest Andy C]

Rob

Many thanks for this helpful lead. As far I know, the coin was around in my GFs collection before WW2, but I will research this some more. Prompted by your comments and the useful BM photos, I have now found an image of the declared 'toy' copy held by the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, and I confess that this looks fairly much identical to my coin.

http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/_functions/imagewindow.php?http://www-img.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/img/cm/cm19/CM.2853-2003(1).jpg

Andy

Is it an Ashmore copy? It looks too crisp for my liking. It is also almost identical to the BM's example including the offset strikes on the obverse and reverse which can be seen in North vol.1 plate 4/16. However, it is not a direct copy so not the same dies as the BM's as the letter form looks too regular and not quite right. I'm going for an Ashmore as he used the BM's pieces as a template.

[Rob]

When I clicked the link to the Fitzwilliam it gave a blank screen. Does it give the original source of the copies? Any info is always useful. Thinking about it, 1930 is too early for an Asmore, but there have been copies of ancient coins for centuries, so it could be anyone.

Edited May 30, 2011 by Rob

[Guest Andy C]

For reasons I do not understand, when I pasted the link into my earlier reply, the forum posting truncated the full link. I tried several times with the same result. As you will see, you end up at a page the address of which ends with ...(1

Add to this manually the following characters:

).jpg

and the page will load.

When I clicked the link to the Fitzwilliam it gave a blank screen. Does it give the original source of the copies? Any info is always useful. Thinking about it, 1930 is too early for an Asmore, but there have been copies of ancient coins for centuries, so it could be anyone.