Sovereign Rarities Ltd
Auction 2 24 Sep 2019
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Very Rare Worcester Mint Silver Halfcrown of King Charles I
Charles I (1625-49), silver Halfcrown, Worcester Mint (1644-45), tall armoured King on horseback left, with sword and flowing scarf, beaded border with legend surrounding, initial mark pellet with annulet stops on obverse, .CAROLVS D: G: MAG: BR: FRAN: ET HI: REX., rev. oval quartered shield of arms in crowned frame, beaded border with legend surrounding, rosette stops, CHRISTO* AVSPICE* REGNO, weight 14.09g (Brooker 1149; Allen C-17; Bull 669/17; N.2592; S.3100). Toned, uneven in shape, short hairline scratch by horse's mouth, good very fine and pleasing, very rare.
The Worcester Mint was originally assumed to be Weymouth in Dorset, after being first suggested for the W mint mark coins by the Victorian numismatist T. F. Dymock in the Numismatic Chronicle of 1861, page 185. Victorian numismatists accepted this due to lack of contemporary evidence as there are no coinage commissions for any Mints in Dorset or Wiltshire and the subject continued to be debated into the 20th Century. Therefore the Weymouth attribution was listed as such for over 100 years, even as late as the 1983 Seaby Standard Catalogue, as it was not until the early 1980s that the attribution was acceptably changed to what it is still today, based on an article by George Boon then Curator of the National Museum of Wales, "Provincial and Civil War Issues" featured in the John G. Brooker Sylloge "Coins of Charles I" published in 1984.
The Worcester attribution is based mainly on the subsequent hoard evidence of where such coins have been found geographically, for instance a number turned up in the Telford Hoard in 1982. Also contemporary surviving evidence from the Ordinance Agent Captain Strachan at Weymouth in 1643-44 demonstrated a distinct lack of cash, as he was continually writing to the King's Capital at Oxford; which would mean if coins were struck there, it would have been after his letters ceased complaining about cash shortfall, and before the town fell to the Parliamentarians on 17th June of 1644, an incredibly short space of two and a half months.
Therefore the Halfcrowns are today all attributed to Worcester, and the smaller silver denominations of Shilling, Sixpence, Groat, Threepence and Half-Groat to Worcester or Salopia. The Halfcrowns either feature a W under the horse or no mark other than a pellet as we have herewith for sale, the defining feature being the tall horseman style coupled with the rosette stops on the reverse. Other varieties have mint mark of a helmet or castle and some feature lis or lions in their legends.
Derek Allen formerly of the British Museum wrote the definitive article categorising this series of coins as long ago as 1938, when the guarded assumption was still that these coins were Weymouth, and the Salopia mint mark SA was assumed to mean Salisbury. His article referenced above appeared in the British Numismatic Journal, volume 23, pages 97-119.
To put a historical perspective on these issues it is known that King Charles I passed through Worcester with his troops in the early part June of 1644, having left Oxford on the night of the 3rd June with 7,000 men and first passing through Northleigh, Burford, Bourton-on-the-Water and Evesham.
Provenance:
Ex Roderick Richardson, Numismatist, Spring 2018 Circular, item 13.
Charles I (1625-49), silver Halfcrown, Worcester Mint (1644-45), tall armoured King on horseback left, with sword and flowing scarf, beaded border with legend surrounding, initial mark pellet with annulet stops on obverse, .CAROLVS D: G: MAG: BR: FRAN: ET HI: REX., rev. oval quartered shield of arms in crowned frame, beaded border with legend surrounding, rosette stops, CHRISTO* AVSPICE* REGNO, weight 14.09g (Brooker 1149; Allen C-17; Bull 669/17; N.2592; S.3100). Toned, uneven in shape, short hairline scratch by horse's mouth, good very fine and pleasing, very rare.
The Worcester Mint was originally assumed to be Weymouth in Dorset, after being first suggested for the W mint mark coins by the Victorian numismatist T. F. Dymock in the Numismatic Chronicle of 1861, page 185. Victorian numismatists accepted this due to lack of contemporary evidence as there are no coinage commissions for any Mints in Dorset or Wiltshire and the subject continued to be debated into the 20th Century. Therefore the Weymouth attribution was listed as such for over 100 years, even as late as the 1983 Seaby Standard Catalogue, as it was not until the early 1980s that the attribution was acceptably changed to what it is still today, based on an article by George Boon then Curator of the National Museum of Wales, "Provincial and Civil War Issues" featured in the John G. Brooker Sylloge "Coins of Charles I" published in 1984.
The Worcester attribution is based mainly on the subsequent hoard evidence of where such coins have been found geographically, for instance a number turned up in the Telford Hoard in 1982. Also contemporary surviving evidence from the Ordinance Agent Captain Strachan at Weymouth in 1643-44 demonstrated a distinct lack of cash, as he was continually writing to the King's Capital at Oxford; which would mean if coins were struck there, it would have been after his letters ceased complaining about cash shortfall, and before the town fell to the Parliamentarians on 17th June of 1644, an incredibly short space of two and a half months.
Therefore the Halfcrowns are today all attributed to Worcester, and the smaller silver denominations of Shilling, Sixpence, Groat, Threepence and Half-Groat to Worcester or Salopia. The Halfcrowns either feature a W under the horse or no mark other than a pellet as we have herewith for sale, the defining feature being the tall horseman style coupled with the rosette stops on the reverse. Other varieties have mint mark of a helmet or castle and some feature lis or lions in their legends.
Derek Allen formerly of the British Museum wrote the definitive article categorising this series of coins as long ago as 1938, when the guarded assumption was still that these coins were Weymouth, and the Salopia mint mark SA was assumed to mean Salisbury. His article referenced above appeared in the British Numismatic Journal, volume 23, pages 97-119.
To put a historical perspective on these issues it is known that King Charles I passed through Worcester with his troops in the early part June of 1644, having left Oxford on the night of the 3rd June with 7,000 men and first passing through Northleigh, Burford, Bourton-on-the-Water and Evesham.
Provenance:
Ex Roderick Richardson, Numismatist, Spring 2018 Circular, item 13.