1478 Double Briquet, Flanders, Bruges Mint, Mary Of Burgundy. Levinson II-34.

@finn, what a nice pick-up! I have a couple thoughts for you, but expect that others will weigh in too with their opinions. First, I wouldn't bother at all with the Frey attribution in favor of sticking 100% with Levinson. I believe that the Frey number can sometimes change depending on which edition you are using and also some editions had errors corrected by subsequent editions, but then put back in for most recent editions. For me at least, I rely only on my Levinson for info about dated medieval coins from Europe. By the way, a second edition came out fairly recently, and first editions of Levinson are super cheap to purchase.

Your coin has been ascribed a rarity level of "C" for common by Levinson. That means that there are at least 250 examples extant outside of museum collections. Of course, they made a bajillion of these and so that doesn't say every much, except to show how few examples are available for collection with other years/mints. According to this reference, a good estimate is 1000 or more collectable pieces.

As to that interesting re-cut die, here is a quote from Levinson about the coins of Flanders:

Very nice! I specialize in this type.

Mint records are extant for this mint & year, but they didn't count coins -- it was based on silver & weight. Gelder-Hoc use Spufford's research to come at the mintage number just shy of 2.9M, the highest output for any denomination of briquet for any year or mint. Also, that number is for a production period from 12/20/77-6/30/79. Since Spufford's research is from primary sources, I assume dates are in OS (Julian calendar), so the production range spans a bit into the civil years of '77 & '79.

There are a number of numeral variations used in the middle ages, and I'm not yet personally convinced these styles of the numeral 8 are all recut dies. For a great comparison of numeral types and even regional variations, see Hill, "The Development of Arabic Numerals in Europe."

The key to medieval coins is being able to read them. Misattributions abound, even on TPG holders (I have some myself). Besides stylistic differences between mints at Brabant (II-32) and Flanders (II-34), the end of the obverse legend tells you the mint: here, FLA' for FLANDERS. Other abbreviations seen for this year are F', FL', and FLAD'. Additionally, Flanders didn't have a mintmark on '78 double briquets, whereas Brabant did.

I highly recommend Levinson's 2e book if you're interested in these types of coins. (The 1e is B&W and not as physically well made.) The most comprehensive reference for this specific coin is Martiny, "De Munten van Maria van Bourgondië, Gravin van Vlaanderen 1477-1482."

Actually, scratch that recommendation. I'm just going to tell you to go buy Levinson's 2e book. That's an order. (I promise you will not be disappointed! )

I admit that I'm biased here (), but I personally find early dates (numeral forms) really interesting, and Levinson's book is extremely well done. I actually bought a second copy because I use it so much!