Hi all,
I haven't been collecting long and recently bought my first hammered medieval coins at auction, including this King John penny.
At auction, the coin was listed as class 5c (Sp. 1352) with reverse legend as + FOLKE • ON • S • ADM (Fulke of Bury St. Edmunds). While I have no issue with most of this, I'm having trouble reconciling the first 2 letters of the moneyer's name. In all other examples of this I've found online, the first letter was a pretty obvious F, and the second a wide V. In my case, the 2nd letter seems a completely rounded O and the 1st looks much more like an N. In fact I can't see how this is an F at all.
This is it under a microscope
So, my question is… have I, in my inexperience, not been able to correctly identify the letters, or is this some kind of error, or forgery?
Any comments very welcome.
Cheers,
Nick