Introduction On 6th June 1680, the Lord Lieutenant (The Earl of Arran) issued a proclamation that a new table for the calculation of foreign coin values. This was done in response to the large amount of foreign (non-English) coins that were circulating in Ireland at this time but the monetary challenges that faced Charles II…
Introduction Amongst the rarest coin issues of the turbulent times that covered the Wars of the Three Kingdoms are the gold pistole and double-pistole of 1646. These are the only gold coins struck and circulated in Ireland. They were produced by Dublin goldsmiths Peter van Eindhoven and Gilbert Tonques, on behalf of the Duke of Ormonde,…
Introduction Many people think of the Great Rebellion as a two-sided fight – the Irish Catholics versus the Anglo-Irish Protestants … but it was a lot more complicated than that. There were at least five opposing parties during the rebellion, which have been described by Carlyle as follows :- the Catholics of the Pale demanding…
Most of the coins listed below were struck as ‘proofs’ – the exception being the first of the series, the €5 Special Olympics coin. This was a cupro-nickel coin and is available as BU mini-presentation folder. In addition to this, all other coins were struck in either Sterling silver or gold and are issued in…
In order to understand the ‘situation’ of the Irish Celts and, therefore, theorize as to “why they did not produce coins like their English cousins”, we first need to understand the situation of the English Celtic tribes. By the 2nd century BC (the Late Iron Age in Britain) the locals were trading iron “currency bars”…
Celtic coinage is the most intriguing and varied of all the British coins since no one knows specifically for whom, when or where they were produced. To date, over 45,000 of ancient British and Gaulish coins have been discovered in Britain and all of these have been recorded at the Oxford Celtic Coin Index, but…
The Year of the Five Emperors (AD 192 – 193) Pertinax The ‘Year of the Five Emperors’ refers to the year AD 193, in which there were five claimants for the title of Roman Emperor – Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus and Septimius Severus. The year opened with news of the murder of Commodus…
The Nervan-Antonine Dynasty (96–192) The Nerva–Antonine dynasty was a dynasty of seven Roman Emperors who ruled over the Roman Empire from 96 AD to 192 AD. These Emperors were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, and Commodus. They are probably of great interest to fans of the Gladiator movie but the real history…
Coins of the Roman Empire This is intended as a simple, introductory guide to Roman coins. Links to academic and other sources of information are provided for each Roman Emperor and more detailed Roman coin databases are available online. Roman Provincial Coinage (University of Oxford) Online Coins of the Roman Empire (New York University / ANS) Coin…
The Old Currency Exchange is a specialist dealer and valuer of Irish & GB coins, tokens and banknotes 