1343 Edward III Florin ('Double Leopard')

A king who wanted his own gold

For centuries English money had been silver. The only exception was a short-lived gold penny issued by Henry III in 1257, which failed. By the 1340s gold coins were spreading across Europe, and England was paying its large bills, especially the overseas debts piling up in the war with France, in Italian and French gold. The most trusted of those coins was the florin of Florence, first issued in 1252 and widely imitated.

Edward III decided England needed gold of its own. On December 14, 1343, the crown made an indenture with two Florentine moneyers, George Kirkyn and Lote Nicholyn, and on January 27, 1344, a proclamation called for "one coin of two Leopards, the piece current for six shillings, which shall be the weight of two small florins of Florence of good weight." Half and quarter pieces, the leopard and the helm, were issued alongside it.

The new coin weighed a nominal 108 grains of fine gold, twice the continental florin. Its design borrowed from a French gold coin, the masse d'or of Philip IV, and from Edward's own great seal. One auction specialist calls the result one of the most ornate and attractive coins in all of English coinage.

Why it failed in months

The double leopard did not work. Merchants found it wrongly tariffed, valued too high for the gold it contained, and would not accept it. Striking stopped in July 1344, and on August 20, 1344, the coin was effectively demonetized. Most of what had been made was melted down.

Three reasons are usually given. The crown's minting charges were very high relative to the gold content; the coin overvalued gold against silver, at roughly 12 to 1; and six shillings was an awkward sum that did not divide neatly into the mark of 13 shillings 4 pence or the pound of 20 shillings. A 2022 account from an auction specialist adds that the Florentine bankers who advised on the coinage had little reason to want a strong English gold coin.

Its replacement, the gold noble, was introduced the same year and became the first English gold coin produced in quantity. At 6 shillings 8 pence it was exactly half a mark and a third of a pound, and it carried an image of the king in a ship, recalling Edward's naval victory at Sluys in 1340.

Sources differ on the exact dates. A 2006 news report said the double leopard circulated from December 1343 to July 1344; other accounts date the issue from the January 1344 proclamation and place its replacement in August 1344.

Reading a double leopard

The obverse shows the king crowned and seated facing, holding a scepter and orb, beneath a Gothic canopy of three arches, with a leopard's head on either side and fleurs-de-lis scattered in the field. The legend reads EDWR D GRA REX ANGL Z FRANC DNS HIB, "Edward, by the Grace of God, King of England and France, Lord of Ireland." Claiming the French title on a coin was a statement of Edward's claim to the French throne, which he had formally assumed in 1340.

The reverse carries a royal cross within a quatrefoil, with a leopard lying in each quarter, and the legend IHC TRANSIENS PER MEDIUM ILLORUM IBAT, from Luke 4:30: "But Jesus passing through their midst went his way." The same verse later appeared on the noble.

The "leopards" are really lions. The numismatist Sir John Evans pointed out that leopard was the French heraldic term for a lion passant guardant, the beast of the English royal arms.

Because all three survivors come from different dies, they can be told apart at a glance. The privately held coin has five fleurs-de-lis to the king's left and seven to his right, a larger head almost touching the arch, and the letter N between his feet. One British Museum coin has eleven lis and also an N; the other has twelve lis on each side and a G between the king's feet.

From the Tyne to a detectorist's field

For five centuries no example was known. Then in 1857 schoolchildren found two together on the bank of the River Tyne. The British Museum acquired one that year, buying it from a man named Fenwick; its record gives a weight of 6.888 grams. The other was sold at auction in London on May 28, 1868, for £113 to Sir John Evans, the numismatist who later wrote about England's first gold coins, and after passing through several hands it too entered the British Museum.

In February 2006 a metal detectorist found a third example in the south of England. The exact spot was kept secret to stop other detectorists from descending on the site. Offered at auction in London on June 29, 2006, against an estimate of £100,000 to £150,000, it sold to a coin dealer bidding for a global coin investment fund and set a record for a British coin. Reported totals differ: the selling firm later gave £480,000 including buyer's premium, while a news report on the day and a later encyclopedia account give £460,000. A 2016 report put the price at the equivalent of US$850,000.

The coin was later lent to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. In 2016 the underbidder from 2006 bought it privately for a client assembling English and world rarities, for an undisclosed sum that he said "easily establishes this coin as the most valuable English coin of all time"; one account calls the figure seven digits. After the sale it was graded MS62. It remains the only double leopard in private hands.

The first step to English gold

The double leopard was a failure as money but a turning point all the same. It was the first large English gold coin, and its quick replacement by the noble began a long run of English gold coinage. The auction specialist who sold it in 2006 called it a direct precursor of the noble.

The fractions are just as scarce. A 2022 count put the known survivors at three double leopards, five leopards and five helms, all struck between January and July 1344. Most of the smaller pieces are in institutions, but detectorists keep adding to the count: a newly found leopard was sold in 2003, and another was found in Norfolk in 2019.

The numbers

Mintage

Not recorded; struck only from January to July 1344, and most were melted

Known survivors

Three: two in the British Museum (River Tyne, 1857) and one in private hands (found 2006)

Weight

Nominal 108 grains (about 7.0 g) of fine gold; surviving coins weigh 6.986 g (private coin) and 6.888 g (British Museum 1857,0304.1)

Composition

Fine gold

Face value

Six shillings (72 pence)

Design

King enthroned under a Gothic canopy between two leopards' heads; reverse royal cross in a quatrefoil with leopards in the quarters

Moneyers

George Kirkyn and Lote Nicholyn of Florence, under the indenture of December 14, 1343

References

North 1105; S. 1476

Timeline

1. 1252

   Florence issues its gold florin, the coin the double leopard was designed to double.

2. 1257

   Henry III issues a gold penny, England's first documented gold coinage; it fails.

3. Dec 14, 1343

   Edward III's indenture with the Florentine moneyers George Kirkyn and Lote Nicholyn orders the new gold coinage.

4. Jan 27, 1344

   A royal proclamation issues the double leopard at six shillings, with leopards and helms as fractions.

5. Jul 1344

   Striking of the double leopard stops.

6. Aug 20, 1344

   The leopard coinage is effectively demonetized; the gold noble takes its place.

7. 1857

   Schoolchildren find two double leopards together on the bank of the River Tyne; the British Museum buys one.

8. May 28, 1868

   The second Tyne coin sells at auction in London for £113 to Sir John Evans; it later enters the British Museum.

9. 1900

   Evans publishes "The First Gold Coins of England" in the Numismatic Chronicle.

10. Nov 6, 1987

    A British Museum double leopard goes on view in the Age of Chivalry exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, through March 6, 1988.

11. Feb 2006

    A metal detectorist finds a third double leopard in the south of England.

12. Jun 29, 2006

    The new find sells at auction in London, setting a record for a British coin.

13. 2016

    The coin is sold privately to a collector in the United States and graded MS62.

The world in 1340

• Jan 25, 1340

  Edward III is declared King of France, sharpening the Hundred Years' War.

• Jun 24, 1340

  The English fleet destroys the French navy at the Battle of Sluys.

• May 1343

  English forces including the Earls of Lancaster, Derby and Salisbury join Castile's siege of Algeciras.

• Jun 19, 1344

  Edward holds a three-day "Round Table" tournament at Windsor Castle.

• 1344

  Peace talks between England and France, sponsored by the pope at Avignon, fail.

• 1346

  Edward invades Normandy and defeats the French at Crécy.

• 1348

  The Black Death reaches England, killing a third or more of the population; Edward probably founds the Order of the Garter the same year.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1343 Edward III Florin ('Double Leopard') is number 30 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (57 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The two British Museum coins were found together by schoolchildren on the bank of the River Tyne in 1857.
• Edward's 1344 gold coins were the first British coins to carry the French royal title on the obverse.
• Its "leopards" are lions: leopard was the French heraldic term for a lion passant guardant.
• All three known double leopards were struck from different pairs of dies.
• Where the 2006 coin was found has never been disclosed, to protect the site from other detectorists.
• One of the two Tyne coins sold in 1868 for £113.