Money, etc.

DATES RARE ON ANCIENT COINS.

HOWEVER deservedly the coins of antiquity are admired for the beauty of their workmanship and the interest which they create, either from their portraits or symbolical reverses, it is much to be lamented that they so rarely give us a date. In fact no date is to be found on Greek coins but that from the era of the Seleucidæ; this only appears on a few of the coins of Asia Minor, and upon those of the kings of Syria, Pontus, and Bithynia; and as it first occurs only on the coins of Demetrius I. of Syria, the identification of most of his predecessors is extremely doubtful. We have the same deficiency of dates to regret in the Roman coins: the late Mr. Wyon could only recollect two in the whole series of Roman emperors bearing a date; and there are no dates on consular coins. This want of dates therefore makes the greater number of coins of very little use to the student of chronology.

DOMESDAY PRICES.

The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles, in his History of Bremhill, makes a few useful observations, suggested by the account in Domesday Book, on the wages and some of the prices of agricultural produce on the farms where the villani and servi laboured. When we find two oxen sold for seventeen shillings and fourpence, we must bear in mind that one Norman shilling was as much in value as three of ours; and when we find that thirty hens were sold for three farthings each, we must bear in mind the same proportion; the price of a sheep was one shilling, that is, three of ours. Wheat was six shillings a quarter, that would be according to our scale two shillings and threepence a bushel. Now at the time of this calculation, somewhat more than two hundred years after Domesday, i. e. in the reign of Edward I. (1299), what were the wages of the labourer? The ploughman's wages were about five shillings a year, fifteen shillings by the present scale; a maid for making "pottage" received a penny a week!

PAST AND PRESENT VALUE OF MONEY.

In reading accounts of the expense of living in past ages,

its amount, at first sight, appears almost incredibly low; the reader in few cases rightly estimating the comparative value of money in the past and present times. Thus, the silver shilling in the twelfth century and for some centuries afterwards, weighed three times as much as it now does; and, on account of the scarcity of money, the expense of living varied from onefifth to one-eighth of what it does at the existing period. The real proportion is continually varying; but, in order to avoid exaggeration, and to arrive at an even sum, 63 has been assumed as the general average, and this multiplied by three gives twenty; or, in other words, the value of a certain sum then was equal to twenty times as much as at the present day. From the increasing quantity of the circulating medium, soon after this period the difference in the expense of living decreased to the average of five; and therefore, and for some centuries to come, the multiplier will be fifteen instead of twenty.— Youatt, on Sheep, p. 200.

The following Comparative Table of English Money is from Sir Frederick M. Eden's State of the Poor, &c. The unit or present value refers, of course, to that of the shilling before the last coinage, which reduced it :

In 1299 the price of a fat lamb in London, from Christmas to Shrovetide, was 16d. (Stillingfleet's Chronicum Rusticum, p. 66.) Three years afterwards the price of a fat wether was 1s., and that of a ewe 8d. (Dugdale's Hist. St. Paul's Cathedral); and in 1309 there is a notice of an extravagant price given on occasion of an installation feast, when 200 sheep cost 301., or 3s. per head (W. Thorn, in the Decem Scriptores). The reader will not much err if he multiplies these sums by 15, as expressive of their proportionate value at the present day.

The following extract from a table exhibiting the progress

in the depreciation of money from the Norman Conquest to the end of the eighteenth century (originally constructed for Sir George Shuckburgh Evelyn's Memoir of a Standard for Weight and Measure), is from Ruding's Annals of the Coinage.

In 1050 the price of wheat per bushel was 24d., and the cost of an ox 7s. 6d. ; in 1150 wheat was 41d. per bushel, and an ox only 48. 84d.; husbandry labour at the same time was 2d. per day. In 1250 wheat was 1s. 7 d., and an ox 17. Os. 7d.

The depreciation of money, consequently, compared with the price of wheat (taking it in 1050 at 10), would be represented in 1350 by 100, in 1550 by the same, in 1675 by 246, in 1760 by 203, and in 1795 by 426.

According to Child, in his Discourse on Trade, the price of land in England in 1621 was no more than twelve years' purchase. Sir Charles Davenant states that in 1666 it had risen to fourteen to sixteen years' purchase. From the accounts of the purveyors of Prince Henry's household, for the early part of the seventeenth century, we learn that, in 1610, the price of beef was about 3 d., and mutton about 3d. the pound. In 1619 the price of two cauliflowers was 3s.; and among the articles provided a few years previously for the household of James's queen, are a few potatoes charged at 2s. a pound. Abridged from Notes and Queries, No. 283.

Numismatists are of opinion that the coins of Henry VII., with the head in profile, are the first English money bearing a likeness of the sovereign.

TESTOR, OR TESTON.

The coin of silver termed a "teston" originated in Italy, afterwards was introduced in England temp. Henry VII., in his nineteenth year, A.D. 1504, and thence into France temp. Louis XII., A.D. 1513,-so named from having the king's head, teste or tête, impressed thereon. Scotland also had a coin of the same denomination, temp. Mary, 1553 to 1560. In England, temp. Henry VII., the value of the teston was about one twentysixth of the Tower mark fine, and that of Louis XII. about one twenty-sixth of that of Paris; but temp. Henry VIII. it became so reduced as to be worth (1545) not more than one-fourth of its original value of 12d. The teston had great cause to blush, in England, in 1551, from the excessive debasement it under

went; and again, temp. Elizabeth, 1560. Hence, perhaps, the origin" of read testons," mentioned in Heywood's Epigrams, from the redness of their complexion, being composed the greater part of copper.-W. Webster, the Numismatist.

QUEEN ANNE'S FARTHING.

It

The popular notion that there were only three Farthings struck of Queen Anne, and that consequently they are extremely rare, has occasioned more mischief and mortification to those who have been misled by it than any error of its class. Only one type of the farthing was in circulation; but there are several pattern-pieces, executed by Croker, which are much valued by collectors, and accordingly bring high prices. Mr. Till, the coin-dealer, assures us that some hundreds of Anne's farthings were struck and circulated. bears the bust of the queen, draped, and the head adorned with a string of pearls, with the legend ANNA DEI GRATIA;" the reverse has "BRITANNIA" around the figure of Britannia, with the spear and olive-branch: the date 1714 in the exergue is stated by Mr. Till to bring from 7s. to 12s., "and if extremely fine in preservation, may be worth a guinea. Some are found with a broad rim, and are considered more scarce than the others. I speak of these coins as being in copper.' Dr. Dibdin states the value of this farthing to be under 58. Mr. Akerman recognises "the common current farthing of Anne" as scarce, but scarcer with the broad rim.

Mr. E. Hawkins, of the British Museum, has seen a hundred letters from different individuals, in each of which it is stated that the Museum has two of the three reputed farthings, and the writer has the third; and in some instances asks if he is entitled to a reward of 1000l. or 2000l. Every collector has three or four specimens; the Museum has four in gold, four in silver, and eight in copper.

The five pattern-pieces are as follow:

1. R. Britannia, as usual, with date 1713 in the legend. Ex. blank. 2. R., as last, but with date 1714 in the ex. Both these, Mr. E. S. Taylor (Notes and Queries, No. 265,) says, "are comparatively common, and were probably current. They have a broad milled edge, exactly similar to the farthings of George III."

3. Q. ANNA AVGVSTA. R. Peace in a biga, with an olive-branch, and the hasta pura, or pointless spear, in her hand. Ex. 1713.

4. Obv. as Nos. 1 and 2. Rev. Britannia seated under an arch. Ex. 1713.

5. Legend of both sides, indented on a broad rim, like the early pennies of George III. Rev. Peace standing with olive-branch and spear: BELLO. ET. PACE. Ex. 1713.

Mr. Akerman thinks the high prices brought by the patternpieces (varying from 17. to 37., and the highest, at an auction,

57.), may have given rise to the notion of the fabulous value of the farthing itself. One of the current stories is, that a lady in the north of England having lost a farthing of Queen Anne which she much prized as the bequest of a deceased friend, offered in the newspapers a large reward for its recovery; and any farthing of that monarch was ever after supposed to be of great value. Then, it is related that when only three farthings had been struck, it was perceived that a flaw existed in the die, which was destroyed, and another made, from which are the farthings which have circulated. Of the three, one is said to have been kept by Queen Anne, and to have descended to George III., who gave it to the British Museum. The second was long in the possession of the Derby family, and thence passed into the Museum; and the third is said to have been given by Queen Anne to one of her maids of honour, and is now in the possession of her descendant, Major Fothergill. Each of these three farthings has a flaw in Anne's portrait. (See Illustrated London News, Oct. 7, 1854.)

The romantic disappointments of the possessors of "Queen Anne's farthings" would fill a volume. In the Times, Sept. 28, 1826, a magistrate related that a poor man came to London from Bedfordshire, with a real but common farthing of Queen Anne, hoping to make his fortune by it. Mr. Till relates that a poor man came from York, and a man and his wife from Ireland, in the same vain hope. Dr. Dibdin, when on his Northern Tour, was shown a Queen Anne's farthing by a father, as a 500%. legacy for his son. (See Popular Errors, pp. 181-4.)

CHARACTERISTICS OF A BANK-OF-ENGLAND NOTE.

Very little alteration has been made in the appearance of the Bank-of-England Note since it was first issued at the end of the seventeenth century; but the quality of the paper, and the engraved writing, have been brought to a high degree of excellence.

The paper has been made since 1719 at the same mill at Laverstoke, in the picturesque valley of the Test, in Hampshire, where about 50,000 notes are made daily.* The paper is distinguished: 1. By its peculiar white colour. 2. Its thinness and transparency, preventing any of the printed part of the note being washed out by turpentine, or removed by the knife without making a hole. 3. Its characteristic feel, crisp and tough, by the touch of which can be distinguished true from false notes. 4. Its wire-mark or water-mark, produced in the paper in a state of pulp (the mark is stamped upon counterfeit

*To the lover of beautiful nature, who can hang a thought on every thorn, the situation of this Bank-note paper-mill,-this manufactory of money,-" opes irritamenta malorum," amidst these scenes of rural quiet, is suggestive of reflection a thousandfold.