Lot 3749
Great Britain. Unite, ND. S.2687; Fr-246. Charles I, 1625-1649. Tower mint under the King. Class B, Class 1a. Mint mark anchor A / anchor B (obverse/reverse) (1628/1629) bust 2a. Obverse, King's portrait left, XX (Twenty shillings) to right. Reverse, crowned coat of arms within a scrolled frame. Type as Schneider 124. Very attractive.
Struck on a large round flan, nicely centered and glowing with full original luster. All lettering well struck up, and a superb portrait of England's most ill-fated monarch. Virtually as made, for what was a crudely produced coin. NGC graded About Uncirculated, Details (Surface Hairlines).
* This specimen was produced in the 1628-1629 period, a time of turmoil in England. Writs were issued in March 1618 requiring every county in England (not just seaport towns) to pay the despised ship tax. Later in the same month Oliver Cromwell made his first appearance in the English Parliament as the new Member for Huntingdon.
In June 1628 the King reconvened Parliament and accepted the Petition of Rights as a concession so that he could gain the subsidies he required to finance his foreign wars. The document, nearly as important as the Magna Carta, laid down basic rights for the citizen and restricted the powers of the monarch. Sadly, Charles later rejected the document.
In August 1628, the Duke of Buckingham (a court favourite of King Charles and his father James I) was assassinated in the Greyhound tavern in Portsmouth by a disaffected army officer, John Felton. In March 1629 England granted a royal charter to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Also in March that year, the King dissolved Parliament and only recalled it 11 years later, thus setting in motion the events which led to the English Civil War, and his death in 1649!
Estimated Value $4,000 - 4,500.
|
| |
| Realized $5,405 |
