Elizabeth I 1558-1603 AD - Half Pound & Angel

After her succession in 1558, Elizabeth recalled all the base silver coins which were still in circulation and replaced them with coins of a high silver content. The beginnings of the change to a milled coinage occurred from 1561 to 1571. The term ‘milled’ is used because the first machines were powered by water mills and the mills were used to turn out strips of metal to a consistent thickness, from which the blanks were cut. The coins were then struck on a manual screw press. In gold, the milled coinage consisted of a limited number of half-pounds, value ten shillings, crowns of five shillings, and extremely rare half-crowns of two shillings and sixpence, all beautifully styled and well-struck and circular. The gold milled coinage is found with two mintmarks, a star or a lis.

Milled coins were unpopular with the hammermen (mint workers) because the machinery was seen as a threat to their jobs. Also against it was the slowness of the early machines. The term ‘milled’ is also applied to the lines on the edge of the machine-made coins which were introduced to prevent the practice of clipping silver or gold from round the edge although the correct term is ‘grained’. Hammered coinage continued with gold denominations consisting of the fine sovereign (99.4% gold content) of thirty shillings, the pound (240d), ryal (180d) and half-pound (120d). Curiously the series of angels, half-angels and quarter-angels were still in circulation, all with the same values as the half-pound, crown and half-crown. The initial series of silver coins included the crown, half-crown (neither now minted in gold) shilling (now firmly established as a major denomination), groat, half-groat and penny.