Coin Weights (2001 guide)

Introduction

Please note that this guide has not been fundamentally changed from the original print version of the Finds Recording Guide (Geake 2001), written when the database contained just 8,800 non-numismatic records.

Coin weights were used to verify that precious metal coins were not below their legal weight limit.  They were used with folding balances: a medieval box containing two coin weights has been reproduced by Egan (1998, 174; fig. 142).  Withers and Withers 2011 (1995) is a comprehensive work with which to start.

PAS object type to be used

Use COIN WEIGHT

Terms to use in the description

Coin weights should, at the very least, have the following information recorded:

  • shape: square, circular, hexagonal, octagonal
  • obverse and reverse designs, if double-sided; many coin weights until the end of the 16th century were single-sided, or uniface (Withers and Withers 2011 (1995) , 9)
  • what coin it is for and dates
  • what it should originally have weighed
  • what it weighs now
  • Withers and Withers 2011 (1995) reference

Date

Coin weights are very rarely encountered outside the medieval and post-medieval periods, English gold coinage predominantly being post 1350.  It must be noted that while coin weights must be either contemporary with or later than the coins they were produced to verify, they can be many decades, even centuries, later, sometimes crossing the medieval/post medieval Broad Period boundary.  

Examples

Coin weights: Medieval coin weight for a French écu (top left, SOMDOR1370); Post-medieval coin weight for a coin of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (top right, IOW-504CF1); Medieval coin weight for a French écu (centre, SOM-5E4713); Post-medieval coin weight for a Low Countries rijder coin (bottom left, LON-278AD4); Post-medieval coin weight for Portuguese coin at 9 shillings (bottom right, BUC-5CEAC4). Copyright: Somerset County Council; The Portable Antiquities Scheme; CC-BY licence)
Coin weights: Medieval coin weight for a French écu (top left, SOMDOR1370); Post-medieval coin weight for a coin of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (top right, IOW-504CF1); Medieval coin weight for a French écu (centre, SOM-5E4713); Post-medieval coin weight for a Low Countries rijder coin (bottom left, LON-278AD4); Post-medieval coin weight for Portuguese coin at 9 shillings (bottom right, BUC-5CEAC4). Copyright: Somerset County Council; The Portable Antiquities Scheme; CC-BY licence)

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Key references

Withers and Withers 2011 (1995)

Withers and Withers 1994