1663 'Petition Crown' of Charles II

A plea in silver

Charles II was restored to the throne on May 29, 1660, and his government moved England's coinage from hammered pieces to machine-made, or milled, coins. A royal competition was held to design the new money. For reasons that remain unclear, Thomas Simon did not submit his trial design in time, and the Flemish brothers John and Joseph Roettiers won by default. Their coins went into circulation in 1662.

Simon answered the next year with this crown, submitted directly to the King as a personal petition. It was meant to show that his work was better than the Roettiers', and to argue that only his designs should be used for the new machine-made coinage.

Around the rim, in two lines, he engraved his appeal, a request that the King compare this trial piece with the Dutch one and, if it were more truly drawn and embossed, more gracefully ordered and more accurately engraved, relieve him. The word Dutch referred to his Flemish rivals.

Thomas Simon

Simon was born in Yorkshire around 1623 and studied engraving under Nicholas Briot. About 1635 he took a post connected with the Royal Mint. In 1645 Parliament made him joint chief engraver with Edward Wade, and after cutting the Great Seal of the Commonwealth and dies for its coins, he became chief engraver to the Mint and seals. He made several fine portrait medals of Oliver Cromwell.

Lettered edges on British coins began under Cromwell, while Simon was engraving the Mint's dies. The lettering guarded against clipping, the practice of shaving silver off the edges of coins. Charles II's regular coins carried the Latin DECVS ET TVTAMEN, an ornament and a safeguard, a phrase that stayed on British coins until the pound coin was redesigned in 2015.

After the Restoration Simon was made engraver of the King's seals, but the petition did not win him the coinage. He is believed to have died of the plague in London in 1665. The crown is usually considered his masterpiece.

England in 1663

The Petition Crown belongs to the busy early years of the Restoration. Charles had married Catherine of Braganza in 1662. In 1663 he chartered the Royal African Company in January and the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in July, and the Province of Carolina was established in North America in March.

The coinage itself was changing. On March 27, 1663, the new gold guinea, worth one pound, was proclaimed legal tender. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, opened in London on May 7, and Parliament passed the second Navigation Act in July. Two years later the Great Plague struck London, and in 1666 the Great Fire.

Three centuries of buyers

The earliest known sale of a Petition Crown came in 1742, in the sale of the Earl of Oxford's collection, where one brought 20 pounds. Prices swung widely afterward, from 6 pounds 6 shillings in 1795 to 500 pounds in 1889. Because so few exist, electrotype copies were made for collectors who could not afford an original.

In 2007 an original sold for 207,100 pounds, about $420,000, and in 2018 one sold in New York for a reported $649,000.

On January 8, 2024, the NGC MS62 example of this entry, the second-highest-graded Petition Crown, sold at auction in New York for $960,000: an $800,000 hammer price plus a 20 percent buyer's premium. It broke the previous record for the coin and was then the most ever paid for any British silver coin. That May, a higher-graded example, NGC MS63+, sold for 775,000 Swiss francs plus premium and taxes, about $1.04 million in total, setting a new record for a British silver crown.

How to know a Petition Crown

The obverse shows Charles II in laureate bust with flowing hair and his lovelock over the right shoulder, and the legend CAROLVS II. DEI. GRA. The engraving is fine enough to show the shadows of the veins in the King's neck. The reverse carries the crowned shields of England, Scotland, Ireland and France arranged in a cross, with the Order of the Garter at the center and two interlinked Cs in each angle. The obverse is slightly concave and the reverse slightly convex, so that the King stands out more strongly.

The edge is the key. A Petition Crown carries Simon's two-line petition. Simon's dies were also used to strike the closely related Reddite Crown, which differs only in its edge inscription, REDDITE QUAE CAESARIS CAESARI. Electrotype copies exist and must be ruled out.

A loser's lasting win

Simon lost the contest, and the Roettiers brothers went on making the dies for the crowns. But from 1664 their crowns carried subtle corrections that show the influence of Simon's pattern.

In 2023, the Royal Mint issued modern commemorative coins inspired by the Petition Crown to mark 360 years since it was struck.

The numbers

Mintage

Not recorded; a pattern, not issued for circulation

Known survivors

Fewer than 20, seven in public institutions

Weight

About 33 grams

Diameter

40 mm

Composition

Silver

Designer

Thomas Simon

Edge

Two-line engraved petition to Charles II

Timeline

1. 1645

   Parliament appoints Thomas Simon joint chief engraver at the Mint.

2. May 29, 1660

   Charles II is restored to the throne.

3. 1662

   Milled coins by the Roettiers brothers enter circulation after Simon misses the competition deadline.

4. 1663

   Simon strikes the Petition Crown as a trial piece and petition to the King.

5. 1664

   Roettiers crowns are issued with subtle corrections influenced by Simon's pattern.

6. 1665

   Simon is believed to have died of the plague in London.

7. 1742

   Earliest known sale: a Petition Crown brings 20 pounds in the Earl of Oxford's sale.

8. 1795

   An example sells for 6 pounds 6 shillings.

9. 1889

   An example brings 500 pounds.

10. 2007

    An original sells for 207,100 pounds, about $420,000.

11. 2018

    An example sells in New York for a reported $649,000.

12. 2023

    The Royal Mint issues commemorative coins for the crown's 360th anniversary.

13. Jan 8, 2024

    This entry's NGC MS62 example sells for $960,000 in New York.

14. May 2024

    An NGC MS63+ example sells for about $1.04 million in total.

The world in 1663

• Jan 10, 1663

  The Royal African Company receives a royal charter.

• Mar 24, 1663

  The Province of Carolina is established in North America.

• Mar 27, 1663

  The gold guinea, worth one pound, is proclaimed legal tender.

• May 7, 1663

  The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, opens in London.

• Jul 8, 1663

  Charles II grants a royal charter to Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

• Jul 27, 1663

  Parliament passes the second Navigation Act.

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, 1663 'Petition Crown' of Charles II is number 28 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 (76 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Simon lost the competition for Charles II's coinage simply by not getting his trial design in on time.
• The edge inscription calls Simon's Flemish rivals Dutch.
• In 1795 a Petition Crown sold for 6 pounds 6 shillings; in 2024 one brought $960,000.
• The DECVS ET TVTAMEN edge motto from Charles II's era survived on British coins until 2015.
• The same dies struck a sister coin, the Reddite Crown, which differs only in the words on its edge.