A decision was made at the King's Council held at Oxford in 1247 to undertake a major recoinage, due to the poor quality of the coinage in circulation. The king's brother, Richard, earl of Cornwall provided 10,000 marks in silver in return for a half-share of the proceeds from the recoinage. Initially only the London, Canterbury and Bury St. Edmunds mints were employed, however in 1248 a further eight mints opened. These mints were closed in 1250 and the type modified to include the king holding a sceptre, only the London, Canterbury, Bury St. Edmunds and Durham mint remained open. Following Henry III death in 1272 the coinage continued to be struck in his name during the early years of Edward I reign.

As only pennies were struck, coins were frequently cut into halves and quarters to make halfpennies and farthings. The cross on the reverse aided this practice.

In 1257, a gold coin was struck to the value of 20 silver pennies. Known today as the 'Gold Penny' the issue was intended to mirror the adoption of gold coinage by Florence, France and Naples a few years earlier. Initially undervalued against silver the coinage this experiment proved unsuccessful. It was revalued at 24 silver pence in 1270, however the majority specimens must have been melted down. All the known examples (less than 10) are struck by the king's goldsmith Willem at the London mint. 

The primary work on this series is by L.A. Lawrence and arranges the coinage into seven classes with further sub-classes. An extremely useful book on this coinage is Christopher Wren's guide to identification.

The illustrations below give only a broad outline of the coinage, those seeking more detailed information should look in North's English Hammered Coinage Volume I and to the specialist works below.

Mints & Moneyers

Ion, Philip, Robert, Walter