58 NOTES ON CIVIL- WAR COINS. 



the obverse mark and, in the usual position of the reverse 

 mark, " some round object," to quote that author's words. 

 This can be seen distinctly on No. 5 of the Plate, and the disk 

 serves to link the shilling with the mint which produced the 

 larger coin. I feel no doubt that the "round object " is 

 again the result of erasing the mint-mark which was previously 

 on the die, and it is significant that these excisions are peculiar 

 to the coins which I ascribe to Sandsfoot. They do not occur 

 anywhere else among the published varieties of the Civil War 

 currency. I suggest as a possible explanation of the practice 

 that the dies were thus altered in order to render them avail- 

 able for use at another place, after the surrender of the castle 

 to the Parliamentary troops in June, 1644. 



Enough has now been said to describe, with the aid of the 

 plate, the main characteristics of the presumed Sandsfoot 

 coinage, without attempting to give a complete list of the 

 varieties which might be reasonably associated with that 

 locality or with the locality to which the mint was perhaps 

 subsequently transferred. In happier days a detailed 

 examination of the ruins on the cliff might possibly reveal 

 some traces of coining operations within the walls, as was the 

 case at the castle of Aberystwith. In 1903 an excavation 

 under the floor of one. of the chambers brought to light much 

 charcoal and ashes, together with the bases of three crucibles 

 which had presumably been used by Thomas Bushell, the 

 lessee of the neighbouring mines, for converting the Welsh 

 silver into the current moneys of Charles I. (Brit. Num. 

 Jour., X., 173). 



I will next consider the coins, chiefly half-crowns, which 

 have for the last sixty years been accepted by numismatists 

 as the product of a mint at Weymouth. The occurrence of 

 the letter W. beneath the horse on some of the pieces was 

 doubtless the chief point which led Mr. Dymock to investigate 

 the origin of this group of Civil War coins. When the mint- 

 marks are examined we find that they correspond with the 

 charges upon the shield of arms granted in 1592 to Weymouth 

 and Melcombe Regis. The most distinctive of these marks 



