Interesting Mary Groat - Home-Made Dies!

[Coinery]

In view of the differing devices, lettering, lis, lions, etc, it looks to have been carved directly onto the dies, rather than made up from individual punches! I can't see anything obvious that might suggest casting from moulds, so I'm thinking hammered and contemporary, any thoughts?

[Rob]

Does it ring?

[Coinery]

Does it ring?

yes!

edit: I should say, in as much as it sounds normal for a coin you'd spin and hear rotating to a stop, if you know what I mean?

Edited December 29, 2013 by Coinery

[Rob]

Perhaps I should have said does it ring normally when compared with others?

[Coinery]

Perhaps I should have said does it ring normally when compared with others?

No dullness to the sound, a definite solidity about it!

[TomGoodheart]

Interesting. And quite a decent attempt. This is the sort of thing you might find with Chas counterfeits, so some artistry went into your groat!

[Coinery]

Interesting. And quite a decent attempt. This is the sort of thing you might find with Chas counterfeits, so some artistry went into your groat!

Counterfeit (6) G2_2.jpg

Is that your's TG? That's a really interesting piece because, whilst it's unconvincing to us, it obviously was convincing to a Stuart (not I ), as it's been clipped for its 'silver' content!

I put up a very crude E1 HP recently, and also spoke to Chris C. about it. I think in that particular instance it genuinely was a Victorian piece, but a comment that came up was 'it would have to be a very dark tavern' or words to that effect, etc., etc...point being, maybe coinage (especially the larger denominations [xii's]) wasn't so well understood by the peasant classes, who were, after all, the most likely clippers in the first place???

[davidrj]

the peasant classes, who were, after all, the most likely clippers in the first place???

??? most likely by folk who handled a lot of coins - a slivver of silver from the one coin you saw in 12 months would have no market

[Coinery]

the peasant classes, who were, after all, the most likely clippers in the first place???

??? most likely by folk who handled a lot of coins - a slivver of silver from the one coin you saw in 12 months would have no market

Good point, David...I was just trying to explain away how an obvious 'unlikeness' of a type was not spotted? I would expect regular handlers of contemporary coinage to have spotted a dud??

[Coinery]

Just to clarify, in case I've gone off track...I was basically thinking that an 'atrocious' attempt at counterfeiting doesn't instantly reject it as being contemporary on the basis 'you'd never pass that off as genuine' in Tudor or Stuart England!

[Paulus]

Just to clarify, in case I've gone off track...I was basically thinking that an 'atrocious' attempt at counterfeiting doesn't instantly reject it as being contemporary on the basis 'you'd never pass that off as genuine' in Tudor or Stuart England!

I quite like the idea of having a 'poor but passable in a dark tavern' contemporary counterfeit in my collection! Especially if there was a humorous error!

[scottishmoney]

The lettering is different, suggesting that individual lettre punches were not used to make this piece - the M, the A, the R in Maria are not of the contemporary "Gothic" style that were used for the punches in the official mint. In fact they are more rounded.