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Auction: 23126 - Spink Numismatic e-Circular 30: English and World Coins and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 9146

Shadwell Dock 'Billy and Charley' Forgery, Lead Cast Medallion, c. 1857-70, crowned bust right, 1502 above, within border, rev. two standing figures, one holding a branch, within border, 76mm, 86.25g, with some areas of corrosion to surfaces, the suspension loop now detached and incomplete, otherwise very fine

During excavations made in 1858 for a new dock at Shadwell, some two thousand metal objects were discovered. These ultimately proved to have been made by two illiterate, but ingenious mud-rakers, William (Billy) Smith and Charles (Charley) Eaton. These items were subsequently sold through the antiques dealer William Edwards.

Produced in their home on Rosemary Lane, Tower Hill, together Billy and Charley are believed to have created between 5,000 to 10,000 objects, ranging from medallions, daggers, vases, hollow figures and triptychs. The medallions are characterised by busts of kings and armed knights in low relief surrounded by sham inscriptions and frequently dated in Arabic numerals.

These now notorious forgeries have been the subject of numerous articles right from their discovery and the subsequent criminal trial of their creators in August 1858. Most notably an example of the same design was illustrated in the Country Life article by the archaeologists Audrey and Ivor Noel Hume in 1955. Further Christopher Peel's 1966 article in Seaby's Coin and Medal Bulletin on the subject sought to categorise and greater understand these items.

see
BNJ, Vol. IV, 1908
Forgeries and Counterfeit Antiquities, Hull Museum Publication, No. 54.
'The Shadwell Shams' - The Story of the "Billy and Charley" Forgeries by Barry M. Marsden


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Estimate
£150 to £200

Starting price
£100