Crude Civil War era ‘emergency money’ coins created by Newark Royalists fetch thousands at auction with Stanley Gibbons Baldwin's
Civil war era ‘emergency money’ coins forged in Newark have fetched thousands more than expected at auction.
Three lots of the coins, created by Newark Royalists while the town was besieged, were up for auction with Stanley Gibbons Baldwin's earlier this month.
One example, lot 93, sold for nearly double its top estimate, fetching £6,000 at The Frank Waley Collection of Hammered Silver and Milled Gold auction.
It was estimated to sell for £1,800-2,300.
Lot 94 also exceeded its expected sale price of £800-1,300, and was sold for £1,400, while lot 92 was sold for £2,400, within the £2,000-2,500 estimate.
The obsidional coins, often referred to as ‘siege coins’, were made during the English Civil Wars in isolated towns which were cut off during the gruelling conflict between Royalists and Parliamentarians.
They could not access official coins, but still needed ways to pay the defending troops and for day-to-day transactions of the garrison.
Silver — whether from church plates, flagons, or private flatware — was crudely hammered out and marked by townspeople, with the name of the town, the denomination, and the date, as well as the letters OBS, standing for the Latin word obsessum (besieged) or obsidio (siege).
Newark played a crucial role in the war and was known as the “Faithful Fortress” for its unwavering loyalty to King Charles I — but its inhabitants suffered greatly as they endured three separate sieges between 1643 and 1646.
Newark's defenders remained fiercely loyal to the Royalist cause, until King Charles I himself ordered their surrender in May 1646, and it was in the final year of this suffering that the coins up for auction were created.
The examples from Newark were said to sit “at the cruder end of the siege coinage spectrum”, roughly cut into the shape of a diamond and far less intricate than coinage minted away from the pressures of war.
One coin even appeared to still show marks of the original decoration from the plate it was made from.
