Tudor Silver Hammered Shilling
This silver shilling dating from 1550-1553, during the reign of Edward VI, was discovered in Towersey in 2007.
Edward VI was the son of Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour. He was born in 1537 and on the death of his father in 1547, at the age of nine, he was crowned King of England and Ireland until his death in 1553, aged just 16.
This coin was minted in London and later augmented with a silver rim, possibly for use as a reckoning counter or for the game of shovel board and as a result is significantly overweight.
Popular in Tudor times amongst English upper classes, Shovel board (or Shove-groat) was played on long narrow tables with players aiming to get their weights or coins as near to the other end of the table without falling off. It was not unknown for players to deliberately knock their opponents’ weights out of play to gain an advantage
Hammering was the most common method of producing coins for centuries. It involved the maker striking a pattern on both sides of a blank piece of metal between two dies. This meant that no two coins were exactly the same. Eventually in the 1660s hammered coins were replaced by milled coins which were produced by machine so were more precise and uniform
Identified by The British Museum,
it is on display in the Wall Paintings Room.
