The Paul Bancroft Collection of Iron Age Coins

British Iron Age, BERKSHIRE, Uninscribed issues, silver Unit, Chieveley Chickens type, head left, hair of four curved locks of beaded lines in triple bands, stalk lips, pellet line below neck, rev. triple-tailed horse right, pellet tails, pellet mane curls up to upside-down cock’s head, another cock’s head below, 1.15g/2h (ABC 1010; BMC –; VA –; S –). Attractively toned with blue and yellow hues, good very fine and extremely rare £400-£500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Paul Bancroft Collection of Iron Age Coins.

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Collection

DNW Auction CC1, Celtic Coins from the Collection of the late Michael J. Grover, 29 September 2008, lot 5131

The coin seems to be a left-facing prototype of the Dobunnic unit, Allen type A; the fine silver and style suggests it is a forerunner of the substantive, right-facing issue. The triple-tailed horse bears a certain resemblance to the Atrebatic type, the cog-wheel on the Atrebatic coins developing into the crested cockerel head on the Dobunnic series. For a similar coin, see C Rudd FPL 27, August 1997 (36) where it is stated that the few known examples are “very clearly localised to the Newbury area of Berkshire”, an area lying between the territories of the Atrebates and Dobunni.