NUMISMATICS.
[Addison, in commenting on the Usefulness of Ancient Medals, says, "A series of an Emperor's Coins is his life digested into Annals." Who shall, therefore, gainsay the the utility of A Numismatic Manual, or Guide to the Study of Coins. The author, Mr. John Y. Akerman, does not intend his volume exclusively for the use of the experienced medallist, so that much popular interest may be expected in its pages. The title bespeaks its contents, but we quote a few brief extracts relating to rare English coins.]
Ecclesiastic Money.—This money was coined by prelates prior to the Norman Conquest. Of these there are pennies of Jænbearht, archbishop of Canterbury, with the reverse of Offa, king of Mercia, Aethileard, Wulfred, Ceolnoth, Plegmund, and Ethered. They are all extremely rare, excepting those of Ceolnoth, which are not so rare as the others. Besides these there are pennies of St. Martin, coined at Lincoln, and St. Peter's pennies, struck at York, which are supposed to be as old as the time of the Heptarchy. Those of St. Edmund, coined at Bury, are prior to the Norman Conquest. The pennies of St. Paul are, it would seem, by the cross and pellets on the reverse, not older than the reign of Henry III.
All Stephen's money is very scarce, and one or two types are exceedingly rare. At a sale in London, in 1827, the penny of Stephen with the horseman's mace, brought thirteen pounds. His coins are generally very rude and illegible. This king coined pennies only.
The groat of Edward I. is of the first rarity.[10] The pennies of Hadleigh, Chester, and Kingston, are scarce; the other pennies are extremely common, and scarcely a year passes without a discovery of new hoards. The half-pennies and farthings are somewhat scarce. From this time to the reign of Henry VII., the English coins bear a great resemblance to each other.
Edward IV.—The groats common, except those of Norwich and Coventry, spelled "Norwic" and "Covetre." The half-groat and halfpenny scarce, the penny and farthing rare. The Bristol penny is extremely rare.
Richard III.—All this king's coins are very rare, except the groat, which is less rare than the others, some groats having lately been discovered. The Canterbury-penny of Richard III. CIVITAS CANTOR, supposed unique, sold at a public sale a short time since, for seven pounds ten shillings. The Durham penny of the same king brought four guineas.
Henry VII.—Folkes, in his Table of English Silver Coins, after describing the various pieces coined by Henry VII., says, "We may further in this place take notice of a very uncommon and singular coin, charged with the royal arms, but without a name. The arms are surmounted with an arched crown, and placed between a fleur-de-lis and a rose, legend DOMINE-SALVVM. FAC. REGEM; on the other side is fleur-de-lis and a lion of England, and an arched crown between them above, and a rose below, with this inscription, MANA. TECKEL. PHARES. 1494. An English lion also for a mint mark. It is, by the make and size, a French gross, and is supposed to have been coined by the Duchess of Burgundy, for Perkin Warbeck, when he set out to invade England." There are also half-groats of this coinage, with the same date, one of which brought twenty guineas at a sale in London in 1827.
Milled Money.—The artist first employed on the milled money of England was a Frenchman, named Philip Mestrelle, who was executed at Tyburn, on the 27th of January, 1569, having been found guilty of making counterfeit money.
Charles I.—The obsidional, or siege pieces, struck by the partizans of this monarch during the civil wars, are extremely interesting, and, with the exception of those coined at Newark, are all rare. They may be known by their shape from every other English coin, as well as by their legends. Those of Newark are of a diamond or lozenge form, some are octangular, and others of a shape that would puzzle a geometrician. Some have the rude representation of a castle; others, a crown; and many have the initials, C.R., and the legend DVM. SPIRO. SPERO.
Oliver Cromwell.—The coins of Oliver were the production of the inimitable Simon, whose works are to this day admired and prized. Some have doubted whether they ever were in circulation, but it is now pretty generally allowed that they were.
Charles II.—The milled money of this king is of a very different style, and has the head laureated. All the pieces of this coinage are common. To the eternal disgrace of Charles, he encouraged an artist whom he had brought over from Antwerp, and gave the preference to his works before those of Simon, who produced in the year 1663, a pattern crown of most extraordinary workmanship, on the edge of which was the following petition in two lines:
"THOMAS SIMON most humbly prays your MAJESTY to compare this his tryal-piece with the Dutch, and if more truly drawn and embossed, more gracefully ordered, and more accurately engraven, to relieve him."
To any one but the heartless profligate whose portrait occupied the obverse of the medal, this appeal would have been irresistible, but it does not appear that the unfortunate artist was relieved. He probably died of grief and disappointment at the unjust preference shown to his rival.
James II.—The base money struck by James the Second, in Ireland, in 1689 and 1690, is common, except the crown of white metal, with the figure of James on horseback. Some of his half-crowns and shillings were struck of metal, the produce of old cannon, which were melted down for the purpose, and are in consequence termed "gun money."
Anne's Farthing.—The common current farthing of Anne is scarce, but scarcer with the broad rim. The patterns of 1713 and 1714 are rare, but those with the reverse of Britannia under a kind of arch, or with Peace in a car drawn by two horses, and the legend PAX MISSA PER ORBEM, are the scarcest of all.
At a public sale of the coins of the late Mr. Dimsdale, the banker, the Oxford crown with the city under the horse, was knocked down at sixty-nine pounds. At the same time the rial of Mary brought sixty-three pounds, and the rial of Elizabeth twenty-one pounds ten shillings.
A friend of the author is of opinion, that the coins of Henry VII., with the head in profile, are the first English money bearing a likeness of the sovereign.
[The work is illustrated with, several lithographic fac similia of coins; and the vignette is from a very beautiful gold coin of Hiero II. of Syracuse, in the possession of Mr. Till, of Great Russell-street, Covent-garden. This morsel of antiquity, not larger than one's little finger nail, must be upwards of two thousand years old!]