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 Replies: 16 / Views: 880 |
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New Member
United Kingdom
4 Posts |
Hi I recently found the following coin in a spoil heap from the bottom after excavations (1.7m) which cut accross what might have been an old moat or ditch for my house, with a history which goes back to 1300s at least. Struggling to identify it. On one side it has a man or women with a robe hanging loose. below the feet is a dot with 6 dots around it. on the other side is a shield with horizontal lines on the left two quadrants, and what looks like a single lion on the bottom right quadrant. There is a ring of writing on the circumference on both sides. A colon is used as a separator of some of the words. Does anyone please know what this coin is please?   |
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Bedrock of the Community
United Kingdom
10670 Posts |
 to the Forum! What is the diameter of the coin in millimetres, please? I think this might be a medieval Nuremberg jetton, but I'm sure other members will come along and confirm the identity for you!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5467 Posts |
I agree this is some kind of token. The rose we can see at the beginning/end of the legend in the first photo makes me think of Dordrecht where there was a very active token manufacture in the 16th-17th centuries. But the script looks older, more like the Nuremburg tokens, and the rendering of the coat of arms reverse seems a bit crude.  Edited by tdziemia
04/13/2022 08:18 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5467 Posts |
Found! As it turns out, @numisrob and I were both correct. It is a Dutch imitation of a Nuremburg "Venuspfennig" token, Cataloged as Dugniolle 509a: http://dugniolle.com/dugniolle0501-0600.htmlThe placement in the catalog suggests it was struck in the 1490s. Edited by tdziemia
04/13/2022 08:31 am
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Moderator
United States
114684 Posts |
to the Community!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
614 Posts |
A remarkable find - congratulations!
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New Member
United Kingdom
4 Posts |
Hi all, thank you for identifying this coin / token. The token has a dot in the middle, with six dots around it under the feet. So is this a new variant of the token? Also, what would such a token be used for? Also, what material is it likely to be made of? (Thanks for your replies today). ps. its diameter is about 2.8 cm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5467 Posts |
This is a stylized flower (possibly a rose), the mintmark used by Dordrecht in those days.
The image in the Dugniolle catalog is a bit dark in this part of the token, but I think the mark is there. There are some other minor differences, which I think are pretty typical.
The composition is often something like bronze or brass.
I'll need for someone else to comment on the use.
Edited by tdziemia
04/13/2022 4:06 pm
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New Member
United Kingdom
4 Posts |
Thank you all for your responses. Interestingly it seems to be a mixture of 509a and 509b. We wondered what is the best way to clean the token without damaging it? Also how common are these in the UK and do they have any value?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5467 Posts |
I agree it doesn't perfectly match either 509a or 509b. The poorly executed shield design on the reverse caught my attention and matches 509a. But the objects at Venus' feet do not match that type.
Probably many dies were used to make these, with slight differences.
I will let others comment on cleaning. Though the coin suffers a bit from its having been in the soil, aggressive cleaning can make it ugly to a collector/buyer, and nearly worthless. If it were mine, I would leave it more or less as it is. For an object this old, it is in quite good condition.
Edited by tdziemia
04/14/2022 08:19 am
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Moderator
Australia
14493 Posts |
Quote:
Also, what would such a token be used for? Jetons of this type were primarily used as counters on "counting boards". Counting boards worked kind of like an abacus, except they were flat on a table. Counting boards were used (like an abacus) for doing mathematical calculations, in an age when (a) everybody still had to do maths using Roman numerals, since our modern "Arabic" numerals (eg. 0, 1, 2, etc) hadn't yet been introduced to Europeans, (b) when the monetary system was a combination of archaic non-decimal units (in England, that would be pounds, shillings and pence) and (c) when the coins often did not bear easy relationship with that monetary system (eg. groats, halfcrowns and the weirdly odd denominations often assigned to the gold coins). Jetons of different designs would be used by the accountant manning the board to represent different types of coins. Trivia: As a visual aid for sorting different piles of tokens, counting-boards were often given a chequered surface, very much like a chessboard (you could have used a typical counting-board to play chess on, when it wasn't in use for its official purpose). Which is why the head of the Treasury of the British government is still, to this day, given the title "Chancellor of the Exchequer".
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Valued Member
United States
173 Posts |
tdziemia great find. Right on the money. This is why we all come to this great forum. To learn and receive.
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New Member
United States
48 Posts |
I would be excited to dig something like that out of the yard!!
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Valued Member
United States
173 Posts |
My luck in my yard I would find Jimmy Hoffa.
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
1216 Posts |
Not bad for 5 or so centuries in the ground. Copper pennies in Qld look like that after 50 years in the ground. Did you metal detect it or just spotted it with your peepers?
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Valued Member
United States
173 Posts |
NathanH I'm going to the upper peninsula in Michigan for about 4 days in June. I'm taking my metal detector with me and I hope to find something because the area I am going was were the fur traders stayed way back in the days.
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Replies: 16 / Views: 880 |
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Posted 04/13/2022 08:05 am
