Henry VII Groat

For the first time since the reign of King Stephen, some of the coins struck for Henry VII had a profile portrait on the obverse. However, the earliest coins of Henry VII were similar in design to those of the previous king, Richard III. The first change to groats came in 1489, when the old-style open crown worn by the king was replaced by a crown with arches.

The new-style crown is shown on the coin illustrated here, which is a London groat of Henry VII found by Chris Mcloughlin. The king’s crown has two jewelled arches. Therefore, the coin is an example of class IIIB (number 2198A in the Standard Catalogue). There is a lot of muling of mint marks on groats of Henry VII and some combinations are very rare; this isn’t a rarity, as it has mint mark pansy on both sides. The stops on the obverse are single rosettes but on the reverse there is a double rosette before CIVI, before LON after DON and a single rosette after TAS.

Valuation

The obverse of the coin found by Chris would grade Fine. The reverse is better, but it is slightly short of flan and has the scuffs on both sides as seen so often on detecting finds. In its present state of preservation, if I was cataloguing it for sale at auction then I would place upon it a pre-sale estimate if £60-80.

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