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Coin Catalogue of Cromwell and Commonwealth of England Coinage issued between 1649 and 1660.
Sometimes referred to as "breeches money" this type of late hammered coinage was minted in England after a period of civil war which culminated in the beheading of King Charles I in London in 1649. For more information LINK
Hammered coins from this period bear no portrait of a king or queen for there was none. Instead there is a simple puritan design. The reverse depicts co-joined shields of England and Ireland, with a date and the legend "GOD WITH VS". The obverse bears the legend "COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND" and a single shield in the centre with a mintmark and stops, to complete the legend.
This period was also a time of innovation in minting coins. The traditional hammered technique for making coinage was coming under pressure from masters of forgery who made coins from de-based metals using crude home made dies and surface silvering and people who clipped coins - see Rogues Gallery on this website.
A solution was offered by Peter Blondeau - milled coins - with edge writing. After travelling over from France he was commissioned to prepare 100 samples each of two halfcrowns with differing edge lettering, a shilling and a sixpence, all dated 1651 using his press. Although he completed this task, producing coins of extremely high quality the mint was not inclined to accept his innovation and fought to delay the introduction of his technology on the basis of his production costs being too high.
In 1656, after repeated attempts, Peter Blondeau persuaded parliament to take up his new press techniques, and he was finally commissioned to make the now famous milled "Cromwell Coinage" using dies made by Thomas Simon, with gold and silver supplied from the mint. These coins were made in very limited numbers in the year 1657.
During 1657 there was a Trial of the Pix, where retained coins from the mint were tested for both weight and metal purity. The mintmark sun which had been the universal mintmark was changed after the trial to an anchor mintmark which was used for the remaining years 1658 to 1660.
Peter Blondeau was to make one final series of milled Cromwell coins using dies believed to have been supplied by Thomas Simon dated 1658. These milled coins were made in significant numbers but not without production problems. The Cromwell Silver Crown of 1658 is notable for a die crack in the lower half of the coin - see Cromwell Crown.
Oliver Cromwell died while Peter Blondeau was producing milled coins in London in 1658. In the remaining two years the mint reverted back to making hammered coinage which seems to have been produced in very small quantities with poor quality before the monarchy was restored in 1660.
This website is an attempt to put together images of coins from this period. When completed this site should be an excellent reference tool for all coin collectors. Photographs of coins are high resolution images seen best when downloaded, saved and opened as a graphics file. Alternatively if your browser has “Image Zoom” you should consider using this feature as an option. Try now on one of the coin images to the right hand side.
The catalogue of images for coinage of this period has been sub-divided by denomination using English Silver Coinage (ESC) references for silver coinage. For gold coinage a similar format has been followed except there are no reference numbers.
More information sections will be completed as time allows. Recently sections on medals, die orientation, and Cromwell Portraits have been added. Also the ESC section has been expanded to recognise varieties not listed in the 1992 edition of ESC by Alan Rayner.
In the meantime should you possess a coin which is missing from this site please contact us so we might include pictures of your coin to make this reference guide more complete for everyone.
Enjoy and spread the word about this new reference website.
E-mail - CromwellCoins@gmail.com
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