THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

TERMINOLOGY
is apparently nothing more than the principle observed
on the ancient Greek coinage of presenting deified
resemblances of the temporal rulers.
Sceatta—A silver coin of England, often amorphous,
under the earlier Anglo-Saxon rulers, and a word of
analogous origin to rouble, &c, from the Anglo-Saxon
verb sceattan, to cut. The earliest sceatta? occur with
Runic legends, and probably date from the sixth century.
Some of the improved types possess good portraits, and
are of careful execution. But the original engravers
of these pieces, who perhaps went to Roman models,
appear to have been illiterate Scandinavian copyists,
who understood no alphabet but their own. In certain
cases the legends on the sceattoe may be Roman in-
scriptions retrograde, or, when Runic letters were not
used, an abortive effort to transfer the Latin terms
of the prototype to the die. Whatever may be said
of the illegibility of the British coinage, the sceatta
series is, to a large extent, not less obscure and
enigmatical.
Sclieidemunz—Money in the German series intended
for general currency throughout a dominion or federal
union.
Scotish Mints—The principal were : Roxburgh, Ber-
wick, Perth, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Lanark, Stirling,
and Glasgow. Minor or occasional places of coinage
were : Dunbar, Dundee, Forres, Inchaffrey, Inverness,
Annan, Dumbarton, Linlithgow.
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