Which Era Is Your Favourite One For Collecting British Coins And Why?

Yes shillings are great. They're larger, more affordable portrait coins.

I collect hoard coins, which is very compatible with collecting Stuart shillings. This one's unusual in that the hoard had nothing to do with the English Civil War.

James I 2nd Issue Shilling, 1605-1606

Tower. Silver, 31mm, 5.8g. 4th bust, value to left; ·IACOBVS·D·G·MAG·BRIT·FRA·ET·HIB·REX·. Quartered arms, rose privy mark; QUAE·DEVS·CONIVNXIT·NEMO·SEPARET (S 2655). From the Kempen (North Brabant, Netherlands) Hoard, buried in 1616, probably by a Dutch trader. It cointained coins from Spain, England and the Netherlands.

Those are good value shillings. I have shillings for all the Georges and they were all less than £100, but before that it gets harder.


Some say the first English coins were gold shillings, which would make them very much older. Æthelberht I, King of Kent's law code of the early 600s referenced shillings as being worth 20 sceattas (pennies), probably in terms of weight in gold.

Saxon Post-Crondall 'Two Emperors' Thrymsa/Shilling, 645-675

Kent. Pale gold, 13mm, 1.2g. Diademed and draped bust right; pseudo legend around. The reverse copies the Roman Two Emperors with winged Victory type (SCBC 767).

Yes they are, and very different to other British coinage. It wasn't long until they only had silver pennies. Even this one is 'pale' gold, which is somewhere around 10-40% gold.



Yes the old abbreviation l.s.d. (pounds, shillings and pence) stood for librae, solidi and denarii. The Romans had the 'pound' as a weight. The symbol £ is based on the L of libra (which also gave us lb for the pound weight).

The thrysma/shilling above is so much copied from the solidus, it even has the same design.

Magnus Maximus Solidus, 383-388

London-Augusta. Gold, 21mm, 4.59g. Rosette-diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust right, seen from front; D N MAG MA-XIMVS P F AVG. Magnus Maximus and Theodosius I seated, jointly holding globe; Victory above facing between; vertical palm branch under throne; VICTOR-IA AVGG, AVGOB in exergue (RIC IX 2b).



The Romans divided a 'libra' into 12 uncias (ounces) but their system was reformed so many times it got very confused. When Charlemagne came along he based his coinage on some estimate of what he thought the Roman system had been. It's Charlamagne's division of librae into 20 solidi and solidi into 12 denarii (1l. = 20s. = 240d.) that Offa imported when he introduced the flat Carolingian pennies to England, which would remain barely changed until Henry VII.

Offa Cut Halfpenny, Light Coinage, 780-792

London. Silver, 16mm, 0.43g. Offa (Rex). Aethel(weald), moneyer (S 904).