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THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

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VII<br />

UNITED KINGDOM<br />

The fourth and concluding division of the work is<br />

devoted to the coinage of those races which have suc-<br />

cessively occupied and governed the region now known<br />

as the United Kingdom. It is hardly requisite to men-<br />

tion that down to comparatively recent days this section<br />

embraced several numismatic systems more or less dis-<br />

tinct from each other. England itself, from the second<br />

half of the tenth century, may be said to have pos-<br />

sessed a single authorised regal coinage ; but Scotland<br />

had its own money, at first autonomous and subse-<br />

quently of independent type, till the union of the<br />

crowns ; and even Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the<br />

Channel Islands have enjoyed intermittent or partial<br />

monetary privileges down to our own time.<br />

The historical and artistic value, if not interest, of<br />

the British coinage sensibly declines after the death<br />

of Anne in 1714. The best period may perhaps be<br />

said to lie between the reigns of Edward III. and<br />

Charles II. With the House of Brunswick-Luneburg,<br />

although foreign artists were generally employed to<br />

execute the work, the style becomes monotonous and<br />

'156

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