Edward III, groat

Peter Vernon sent in the images of this coin, which was found by a detecting colleague. It displayed a number of anomalies so Peter had difficulty pinning it down. Therefore, I was asked if I could sort it out.

Firstly, it is a London groat of Edward III. On the obverse the legend reads EDWARD DI GRA REX ANGL Z FRANC D HyB; all the stops are annulets but the positioning is rather strange. There is no annulet after ANGL or D but, curiously, there is one after the F of FRANC. All the Ns are unbarred. The initial cross is square with four incuse petals and the letter R has a curly tail, so this groat was struck during series D of the fourth coinage.

On the reverse there are annulet stops in the outer legend. The inner legend reads CIVI TAS LON DON; the Ns are reversed and there is a double annulet stop after TAS.

This groat has a number of unusual features, especially in regard to the punctuations marks. Some are missing and others are in places you would not expect them to be.

Valuation

The coin would grade good Fine, it is well struck on a round flan and as it is rather unusual it shouldn’t be worth any less than £120 to a collector.