Messages

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Here is one for Henry

« on: September 08, 2013, 05:56:40 am »

Hello, it's me!

Took a while to find this.

High grade coins are hard to grade from pictures, but it certainly looks EF. There appears to be some minimal wear (flatness to ear lobe and elements of the arms on the reverse).

I'd be up for it.

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Medieval Belgian Seal Dish

« on: August 27, 2013, 12:53:32 pm »

The Chinese have started churning out aged looking US dollars and some UK coins like they're going out of fashion. It is a worry. Some are quite convincing.

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Medieval Belgian Seal Dish

« on: August 27, 2013, 12:14:56 pm »

I appreciate that. It's a high relief impression of the medieval seal, involving a cast of the original. It really doesn't feel like just a cheap brass mass produced picture/engraving, tacky 60s style horse-brassy in the 'style' of the original. Numismatics is my business (I run www.predecimal.com - my middle name is Henry!) and seals are related to coins which is probably why I ended up with this, although I can't remember exactly where I got it!

I wonder if the modern city of Kortrijk has a museum or something. Perhaps I'll write to them to see if they've seen another. It's probably about as rare as the Dark Side of the Moon album!

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Medieval Belgian Seal Dish

« on: August 27, 2013, 06:12:42 am »

Thanks for your input everyone.

It's thin but not wafer thin so probably display rather than usage. It could easily be utilised for Weetabix though! The loops are just soldered on. Apparently though, the chap on the horse is a Saint and he's about to share or lend his coat to the poor man who doesn't have a horse. I don't quite know why the sword is so prominent, perhaps as deterrent to make sure he doesn't take the &%$$ and run off with the coat!

I just find it interesting that hundreds of years later, someone would have the idea and go to the effort to make a dish based on an imprint of a very old and fairly insignificant seal (that can no longer be read or really understood). I think the actual seal is in a museum, and I suspect it's been in a museum for quite a while which would also mean that whoever made it would have had to have access to it. The only reference to it is that book cataloguing seals which was written in the 1870s. I wonder if a master imprint was made of it at that time.

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Medieval Belgian Seal Dish

« on: August 26, 2013, 03:20:55 pm »

The loops are welded on, almost like an after thought. Is it possible that it started life as an ornamental dish and had the loops welded on at a later date?

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Antique Questions Forum / Medieval Belgian Seal Dish

« on: August 26, 2013, 11:04:36 am »

I wondered if anyone had seen something similar or knew anything about this kind of thing?

It's a brass dish 24cm (9.5in) in diameter. The centre appears to be an impression of a medieval Belgian seal that reads:

S'PREPOSITORUM ET SCABINORUM CURTRACENSIUM

The S' is, I think an abbreviation of SIGILLUM and from what I can tell the whole thing translates to something like:

Reeve and Alderman seal (of) Kortrijk.

A Reeve was an official responsible for an area, I suppose something similar to a mayor in this case. The Alderman was probably a lower rank than a Reeve back then. Curtracensium was a Latin name for the Belgian (at that time Flanders) city of Kortrijk.

The 77mm seal in the middle of the dish is described in an 1873 book, referred to here:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fikKAQAAIAAJ&q=prepositorum+et+scabinorum+curtracensium&dq=prepositorum+et+scabinorum+curtracensium&hl=en&sa=X&ei=C0MbUvmtFMjKtQafoYDoAQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA
 
Any idea as to why an impression of the seal was made into a brass dish (I imagine at a much later date)? Any idea of the age of the dish or any other information gratefully received.