page_title: Middleham Hoard
section_title: Coins
hierarchical_section_title: Middleham Hoard / Coins
caption_attribution_description: Selection of the 54 coins of the Middleham Hoard in the Yorkshire Museum numismatic collection.
context_page_description: The Middleham Hoard is a coin hoard found near Middleham, North Yorkshire in England. It dates from the period of the English Civil War, and consists of 5,099 coins, all silver. It is the largest hoard of coins buried during the Civil War to have been discovered. The hoard was discovered in June 1993 by William Caygill while using a metal detector. Though referred to as one hoard, the coins were buried in three pots in two pits. These had slightly different deposition dates; likely in the later 1640s, though the person making the deposits was probably the same. The coins are dispersed between museums and private collections, 54 of them now in the Yorkshire Museum's numismatic collection.
context_section_description: The coins include English issues of all the monarchs between Edward VI and Charles I, Scottish and Irish coins, and those of Philip IV of Spain and his governors in the Spanish Netherlands (Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella), as well as 39 counterfeits.  The total face value was over £312. Of the 5,099 coins, 4,772 were English, 31 Scottish, 10 Irish, 245 from the "Spanish possessions in Europe" (all Netherlands) and 2 from the Spanish New World.
  One of the main features of the hoard is the relatively large proportion of Spanish coins.  There are 247 coins from the Spanish Netherlands and Spanish America, comprising nearly 5% of the hoard by numbers, but these coins are of high value (a ducaton being worth five shillings and sixpence) and the face value of these Spanish coins is about £65, which is some 20% of the face value of the entire hoard.  The circulation of Spanish coins in England during this period seems to have been largely limited to royalist areas, and they have been found in other Civil War hoards from Yorkshire, although no other hoard has such a high proportion of Spanish coins.
  Another notable feature of the hoard is the inclusion of 39 counterfeit coins, most of them from Pots A and B (only six from Pot C).  Most of the counterfeits are copies of contemporary English coins, but Pots A and B both include counterfeits of Spanish-American reales, which may have been counterfeited because the genuine coins were often poorly struck and would not have been very familiar to most people.  Two of the three counterfeit Spanish-American coins in Pot A were cast from the same mould, and the two counterfeit Spanish-American coins in Pot B were also cast from the same mould, which suggests that the counterfeits may well have been made locally (if the counterfeits came from far away there would have been a higher degree of diversity).  It is also possible that some of the counterfeit English coins were made locally, such as copy of a Charles I shilling from the York mint.
  The distribution of coins in the three pots between reigns is shown in the table below.
  Many of the coins had been clipped, the proportions rising as their age increased.
caption: A selection of the coins from the side
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