Details

LOT 4182

England. Stuart Period Bronze Weight of Sixpence. After 1690.

Circular punch within double circle; VI D(retrograde) around punch / Striated surface. Condition as seen.(2.88gr, 11mm.).

Provenance

Found whilst searching with a metal detector near Nettlestead, Suffolk, UK.
Recorded at British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) no.SF-8DFBBE.

Footnotes

From PAS: Dr Lisa Brundle comments on LIN-2CB2A6: A weight marked XXX D would have been used to ensure that payment of thirty pence (or half-a-crown) contained the correct amount of silver, rather than silver coins whose face value was thirty pence but which were seriously underweight. Other denominations in this series are VI D (sixpence), XII D (a shilling), and V S (a crown). Weights of both series have been recorded with initials stamped on them, and in several cases, these initials correspond to the initials of the founders who put their names on coin-weight. It is this series that links firmly with the monetary conditions of the 1690s, when the silver coin in circulation was very worn, a situation which eventually led to a major recoinage.