The Posthumous Coinage of Henry III

Durham

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Durham – Class 6

There are now eight known specimens of Class 6 pennies from Durham of which I am aware, and also a cut half found in 2001.  All have the same obverse die.

• The only specimen known for many years was the coin in the British Museum. 
• In 2019 a further example appeared on the Portable Antiquities Scheme website, the coin having been found by a metal detectorist in the Church Fenton area of North Yorkshire.
• In 2020 a third specimen was sold at auction by DNW. 
• One which the author acquired on Ebay in May 2025; it’s provenance unfortunately unknown. 
• Further coins include a metal detector find acquired by the late Bob Thomas, and two relatively lesser quality coins owned by another collector.

• Only one obverse die represented by all eight coins, but the situation is different for the reverses.
• A good place to start when comparing reverse dies is in counting the pellets of the inner circle in each of the four quadrants; this is shown in the table above.
• Coin #8 (and #7) appear to be from a different reverse die. This is confirmed by looking at the ligation in the third quadrant; coins 1 & 3 show OND, the second coin unclear, and the seventh and eighth coins are clearly OND.
• The conclusion is that the first six coins are from the same reverse die, die R1, and the last two coins in the table demonstrate the existence of a second reverse die, R2.

Durham Class 6 Corpus

At left is shown a table of the known full pennies, eight in total. The specimen in best condition is the one sold at the DNW auction in 2020. It went for a hammer price of £1,400, and with the buyer's commission would have cost a total of about £1,750.  The auction estimate was only £150-200!

• Very few Durham class 7 coins have survived; there are two in Museums (The British Museum and the Fitzwilliam), and five pennies, plus one cut half, in private ownership. 
• The cut half and one of the pennies are not in good enough condition to confidently identify the dies.
• So far, there appear to be five different Class 7 obverse dies, & four/five different reverse dies, with a number of die pairings observed.
• With more dies known than in class 6, class 7 was undoubtedly a longer–lived issue.