British Coins

James VI, After Accession, a copper jeton or Pattern for a copper coinage, crowned rose and thistle dimidiated, rosa · sine · spina ·, rev. crowned lion rampant, arbor ·vitæ · chris, 20mm, 2.07g/6h (Burns –; SCBI –; S – ; Barnard –). Reverse legend part flat in striking, otherwise fine and of the highest rarity, no other specimen recorded
£500-1,000

This curious piece has no readily obvious parallel in either the English or Scottish series and one can only speculate as to the possible reasons for its existence. The obverse type and the reverse legend arbor vitæ chris (tree of Christian life) would appear to allude to a post-1603 issue, while the weight has close approximations to that of the copper twopences issued in Scotland from 1614, which also bear a rampant lion on the reverse. Additionally, the reverse legend does not appear to have been taken from a contemporary continental issue in the manner of other similar occurrences to which attention was originally drawn by the Bungay cleric William Allan (SNC 1907-8, and Stewartby, SNC May 1981). Peck (BMC p.19) refers to several proposals for coining copper tokens during the years 1607-12 but it seems that these came to nothing, perhaps because the price of copper had risen significantly through the first decade of the 17th century. For Scotland, Burns (p.437) draws attention to the proposal ‘by some private speculator’ to coin 10,000 stones weight of copper, brought before the Privy Council on 27 May 1613, just over a week after the patent had been granted to Lord Harington. The speculator’s offer was ‘unanimously rejected’ but it did lead eventually to the new Scottish copper coinage instituted by a warrant dated 1 March 1614