Coin weight for a James I gold rose ryal

Andy Reynolds said he found this item amongst the belongings of his late father-in-law. Andy assumes it was a detecting find and he asked for further details.

This is a square brass weight for checking if a gold coin was up to the correct standard. On one side is a shield of arms of a type first used after James I took up the throne of England. On the other side, in three lines, is a crown, XXX and a letter S. There is also a countermark (top left) in the form of a Roman I with a crown above.

This type of weight was used late in the reign of James I (after 1620) for checking the weight of a gold rose ryal (a 30 shilling piece). The crowned I countermark was an official verification mark.

Valuation

Weights for checking gold coins turn up quite regularly as detecting finds. However, this one is quite rare and is also in better than average condition so if I was cataloguing it for sale at auction I’d set the pre-sale estimate at £50-60.

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