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Auction: 23004 - Ancient and British Coins - Featuring the 'White Rose' Collection
Lot: 518

Charles I (1625-1649), Civil War Issues, Royalist Worcester, 'Hartlebury Castle', Halfcrown, 1643/44, CAROLVS • D : G • MAG • BRIT .' FRAN ET • HIB REX dumpy horseman left, holding sword, rev. (m.m.) CHRISTO : AVS[PICE : RE]GNO, R over I in CHRISTO, oval-garnished shield, H-C below, five strings to harp, 14.60g [225.4grns], 12h, m.m. pear / three pears (Snelling Pl. XIV, no. 17; Ruding Pl. XXVI, no. 1; Hawkins 494; Montagu III, 559 same dies; Murdoch II, 198 same dies; Rashleigh [1909], 966 same dies; Cumberland Clark 167 same dies; Bascom 176 same dies; Carlyon-Britton 349 same dies; Rashleigh III [1953], 295 same dies; Lockett 2259; Burstal 477 same dies; Adams 241 same dies; Dawson 103 same dies; Gietzelt 141 same dies; Bull 679; Brooker 1137; North 2626; Spink 3129 ~ Pearce, SNC, October 2012, pp. 75-76 - 'Hawarden Castle', Chester), on a typically irregular flan with usual peripheral striking softness and flawing, otherwise lightly toned with much residual lustre, only nine other specimens have surfaced this Millennium alongside a new discovery within the Muir of Ord (Inverness) hoard (2012); all are inferior to the present specimen, the broad flan of which is matched only by the Montagu and Murdoch plate coins, traces of red wax in recesses, a really good very fine for issue and unseen at auction for 93 years, extremely rare thus

Provenance

E H Wheeler, Part I, Sotheby's, 12-14 March 1930, lot 447 - fairly well preserved, rare - £2.2.0 [Spink for White Rose, with this ticket]
E K Burstal, Sotheby's, 6 November 1912, lot 190* - very fine, extremely rare



Based on the letters HC in the garniture of the shield and the pear mintmarks, these coins were until very recently, always attributed to Hartlebury Castle, situated 10 miles north of the city of Worcester. Pears had formed part of the provision for Worcestershire bowmen on the fields at Agincourt, who mustered under a banner depicting a pear tree laden with fruit. Michael Drayton's poem of the battle stated that: “Wor’ster a pear tree laden with its fruit”. On Queen Elizabeth I's visit to the city in August 1575, the city ordered a black pear fruit-laden tree to be transplanted to the Foregate from Whystone Farm, in her honour. So admiring was she of the good management that had allowed the fruit to remain unplucked that she granted an augmentation of honour of a canton charged with "three pears sable" [Parkinson's Warden] to be added to the city's coat of arms. In light of this heraldry, it is difficult to misinterpret the clear mintmark design on the reverse of the present coin. Indeed the incorporation of localised mintmarks within the garnished shield was a widely-deployed contemporary practice in Exeter, Oxford, York, Bristol and Chester. Indeed Worcester was held for the King during the first four years of the Civil War, but surrendered to Roundhead forces on 12 May 1646 without a shot being fired.



Nevertheless Pearce, writing in the Numismatic Circular (October 2012, pp. 75-76, and January 2014, pp. 140-143), argues that the dies for 'Hartlebury' were subsequently used at Chester in 1644, so have no connection with Hartlebury and a 1646 siege at all. Pearce postulates that the HC signature in the garniture signifies an issue struck at Hawarden Castle, 4 miles west of Chester, at the end of 1643 (OS).



On a further point of observatiuon, the Montagu (1896, lot 559) and Murdoch (1903, lot 198) specimens have almost identically shorn flans to the present coin, which given the central striking softness to shield can discount both as potential provenances. Indeed when Montagu acquired his specimen from Addington, he opted to sell on his first example at his third duplicate sale to Murdoch in 1888. When the Rostron specimen appeared in 1892, Montagu was evidently not motivated to trade up again, for although that specimen has even greater portrait detail owing to an earlier die striking (not the smaller die cudding by MAG), the peripheries are truncated and lacking. This latter coin would eventually reappear at Spink in December 2005 as part of the fabled Colin Adams Halfcrown cabinet dispersal.



Noteworthy specimens include:


i) Colin Adams (Spink 177, 1 December 2005, lot 241); Frederick Willis (Glendining’s, 5 June 1991, lot 271); V. J. E. Ryan, Part II (Glendining’s, 22 January 1952, lot 1332); A A Banes (Sotheby, 30 October 1922, lot 194); Simpson Rostron (Sotheby, 16 May 1892, lot 60)

ii) Roth (Sotheby, 1917, lot 331* - £10.0.0 [Baldwin]); Murdoch (Sotheby, May 1903, lot 198 - £9.10.0); Montagu, Third Duplicates (Sotheby, May 1888, lot 349 - £15.5.0); Brice collection; J B Bergne, Sotheby, 1873, lot 744 - £9.10.0); J D Cuff (Sotheby, June 1854, lot 1147); Devonshire (Christie, 1844, lot 360)

iii) H W Morrieson (Glendining, March 1933, lot 555); (Glendining, 29 June 1906, lot 81 - rudely struck as usual, but very fine and rare); SNC listings 'the finest known', 1896-1898; Montagu, (Sotheby, May 1896, lot 559); Samuel Addington collection.

iv) Henry W Thorburn (Sotheby, 1918, lot 254 - £5.17.6 [Spink]); Simpson, Sotheby, 1903, lot 175 - £3.14.0 - [Verity]); Shepherd (Sotheby, 1885); Durrant (Sotheby, 1847); Dimsdale (Sotheby, 1824)

v) Henry Webb, Part I, (Sotheby, 1894, lot 538 - £4.4.0 [Lincoln]); J F Nech (1883)

vi) E H Evans (Sotheby, 1894, lot 143 - £2.18.0); Machell Collection

vii) Montagu, First Duplicates, (Sotheby, May 1883, lot 100 - £5.10.0 [Verity]); Wylie (1882)

viii) Hilton-Price (Sotheby, 1910, lot 104 - [Mallett]); Durlacher (Sotheby, 1899)

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Sold for
£7,000

Starting price
£2000