Celebrating the crowns - the best coins of the British series

DonnaML · January 18, 2023

I believe I've mentioned before that ever since I had to sell my very nice George II AR Crown some years ago, I've thought it was unlikely I would ever buy another one, given the very substantial price appreciation in his crowns over the last decade -- to the point where it's difficult to find a nice example for less than $1,500 or so, putting them up there with the William & Mary crowns as the second most expensive type of milled British crowns out there, next to the Victoria Gothic crowns (which cost considerably more). I won't even count the William IV crowns, which never actually entered circulation if I remember correctly.

However, at the NYINC last week, I found a (relatively!) inexpensive example at the Baldwin's table, which is really quite nice, with pretty much all the details preserved, if you ignore the scratches in the fields, especially on the reverse. (They almost look like deliberate scribbles.) But, as is often the case, the scratches aren't all that obvious if one views the coin in hand without magnification. So I decided to buy it, and I'm happy with it.

George II AR Crown 1746, Obv. (Type C) Old-head; mature bust, left, wearing armor with the face of a mature lion on his shoulder epaulette, GEORGIVS • II • – DEI • GRATIA •; LIMA below bust [“LIMA” = provenance of Spanish silver captured by Admiral Anson during his round the world voyage, 1740-44] / Rev. (Type 3) Crowned cruciform shields, plain in angles, Leg. around from 1:00, ∙M∙B∙F∙ET∙ H∙REX∙F∙D∙B∙ET∙L∙D∙S∙R∙I∙ A∙T∙ET∙E∙17-46 [King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg, Arch-Treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire and Elector] / Edge DECVS • ET • TVTAMEN • [An ornament and a safeguard] ANNO REGNI • DECIMO • NONO. S. 3689, ESC 1668 at p. 238 (ill. p. 237) [Maurice Bull, English Silver Coinage since 1649 (Spink, 7^th ed. 2020)]; old ESC 125 [H.A. Seaby & P.A. Rayner, English Silver Coinage from 1649 (Seaby, 4th ed. 1974). Purchased Jan. 12, 2023 at NYINC 2023 from Baldwin’s [A.H. Baldwin & Sons Ltd.], London, UK.

With this coin, I have now re-assembled a set of English milled crowns that's pretty complete through the silver era and on through Elizabeth II up to the end of 2002; see the tray photos above. I definitely need to upgrade my James II crown, and I have no William & Mary or Victoria Gothic crown -- and no Victoria Jubilee Head crown, either, because I think the obverse design is remarkably ugly! But here they are up through the last regularly-issued AR Crown, the George VI coronation issue from 1937: