Lot 296
Great Britain. Milled Half Pound, ND. S-2543; N-2019. 5.69 grams. Elizabeth I, 1558-1603. Milled Coinage (1565-1570). Coinage by Mestrelle, the monarch in jeweled dress, with curly "Z" in her name, and grained edge. Crowned bust left. Reverse: Crowned, square-topped shield. Lis mintmark (struck 1567-1570, era of the 3rd Coinage). A splendid example, rich with luster and mellow golden red toning, on a broad flan and showing intricate design details. Few exist of this caliber! Extremely rare as such. NGC graded MS-62.
The debasement of English coinage was begun by Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, to help finance his wars, and was continued under his son, Edward VI. Large-scale debasements of this sort were highly uncommon to the British (and likewise unwelcome), although they had perpetrated such means regularly on their Irish subjects. Elizabeth, within two years of her mounting the throne, when William Cecil had become secretary of state, sought a means to clean up the mess English coinage had become. By 1560 the "great re-coinage" began to re-establish the fineness maintained previously for the gold and silver issues.
During this time, in 1561, a French moneyer, and probably a Huguenot, by the name of Eloye Mestrelle, presented himself to the Privy Council in London and offered to set up machinery at the Tower to help with the re-coinage. Thus the first of England's milled coins were struck. Eventually six denominations in silver, and three in gold, were produced. His coins were admirable, yet in spite of (or perhaps because of) their excellence he met the same fate as other, earlier advocates of machine-made coinages. After the completion of the great re-coinage, the mint authorities of the old school (hammered minting), clinging to their brothers in the guild and feeling genuinely threatened by Mestrelle's genius, declared his machinery too slow and inefficient compared to striking by hand, and so engineered his removal in 1572. The poor Mestrelle's coining activities apparently didn't end there. Six years later he was hanged at Norwich for counterfeiting, yet innovation had been glimpsed and it would come to England and replace the coinage of the ages within another century.
Estimated Value $12,000 - 15,000.
Ex Dr Jacob Y. Terner Collection (by private treaty to the Millennia Collection). Illustrated in Money of The World, coin 84.
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| Realized $31,050 |
