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VII. THE YORKSHIRE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY’S 
COIN COLLECTION. 
(i.) HISTORICAL. 
The coins unearthed in York are principally Roman, the bronze 
ones are often much corroded. Mediaeval coins and Nuremberg 
tokens are scarcer, whilst the find of a styca is a rare event. 
At the beginning of the 18th century Alderman Elcock and Sir 
James Brooke had cabinets of coins. Dr. Langwith, who left York 
in 1700 for Cambridge, had also a collection of coins from York, 
which his father, one of the Minster vergers, helped him to gather 
together. 1 
In 1704, an oak box, containing 250 coins of William I., was 
found in High Ousegate. About a hundred were considered worth 
preservation, and Thoresby, the Leeds antiquary, examined about 
fifty of them. 
Drake, in his “ Eboracum " published in 1836, gives a catalogue 
of Dr. Langwith’s Roman coins which numbered 126, and ranged 
from Augustus to Gratianus, and which were found in the brick¬ 
yards outside Bootham Bar and between Bootham and the river. 
Drake remarks that the Roman coins found at York are of a late 
date and in a bad condition, and adds, “ I never heard of any 
exceeding rare ones being found, they are mostly of the base 
Empire, and amongst them Getas coins are the commonest of any.” 
He also gives some account of the Saxon and Danish coins minted 
at York and those coined at York from the Norman Conquest to 
those issued by William III. He illustrates 48 of the Saxon and 
Danish coins and also 50 York tradesmen’s halfpennies from the 
collection of Samuel Smith, baker, in Grape Lane. In the reprint 
of “ Eboracum ” in three volumes in 1785, there is a catalogue of 
of 68 Roman coins in the possession of W. White, F.A.S., of York, 
and 6 belonging to T. Beckwith. Drake ascribed to King Edwin 
a penny which evidently belongs to Edward the Confessor. The 
coins of Eadberht, King of Northumbria, were formerly assigned 
to Ecgberht, King of Kent ; the correction was made by Hawkins. 
In 1802 about 100 silver pennies 3 of William I. were found on 
the site of the City Jail, near Baile Hill. 
The coin cabinet of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society is in 
the Council Room. In 1823, the Rev. W. V. Vernon presented 
1 Raine, “Y.M. Handbook.” 
2 Hargrove’s “ Guide,” p. 26. 
