A curious Edward I-II farthing

Phil Clark said he found this coin last weekend. It is hammered silver dating to the Edward I-II period and is 12mm in diameter so it must be a farthing. Phil said it looked unlike anything he had seen before and he asked if I could provide him with a full ID.

When I received the images I sent an email to Phil, asking if they really showed how the coin looked. I thought at first that one of the images had somehow or other been reversed. However, Phil assured me that this is how the coin really looks.

On one side it has the typical appearance of the obverse of an Edward I-II farthing. The other side should have a long cross with three pellets in each angle and a legend reading CIVI TAS LON DON. Instead of having the usual reverse it has another obverse! On the extra obverse the legend appears at first sight to be jumbled up. However, the letters are in the correct order but face in the wrong direction!

Brockage

Weird but perfectly genuine coins occasionally turn up. For example, some year’s back I saw illustrations of a penny of Edward III, which had been struck by two obverse dies. More recently an obverse brockage of a farthing of Edward I-II was sold at auction. A brockage occurs when a coin was struck but was still stuck to the upper die. When the next coin was struck one side would have a concave image of the coin still stuck to the upper die.

Faulty die

Phil’s find isn’t a brockage and neither is it a case of a coin being struck from two obverse dies, as only one is standard and the other has the legend reading in reverse. When a die was being made the lettering would read anti-clockwise and when impressed on a silver disc the lettering would read in the correct manner. The faulty die used to strike one side of Phil’s find had the lettering punched in clockwise; the end result of this was a coin with the legend reading backwards. A die with such a glaring fault should have been destroyed. Perhaps it was scrapped but if so it raises an obvious question: why was it used to strike a coin with a correctly produced obverse die?

Genuine?

Is this oddity genuine? Well, all I can say is that despite the fact that one die has a glaring error it does look genuine. If accepted as such it would certainly be of great interest to specialist collectors.