Germyn Lynch – An Uncommon Commoner

911198.

Sold For $1350

IRELAND. Edward IV. As Lord of Ireland. Second reign, 1471-1483. AR Groat (24mm, 2.11 g, 10h). Sixth (Light ‘Cross and Pellets’) coinage. Dublin mint; im: pierced cross fitchée/-; Germyn Lynch, moneyer. Struck circa 1473-1478. ЄDWΛRD[VS : DЄI : GR]Λ : DnS : ҺУBЄRn (double saltire stops), crowned facing bust; G (for Germyn Lynch) on breast, annulet to left and right; all within tressure of arches, with annulet in upper two spandrels / [POSVI] DЄVm : Λ DIVTOR Є [mЄVm]/CIVI TΛS · DVBL InIЄ (double saltire and rosette stop), long cross pattée, with two pellets and rosette in first and third angles and three pellets in second and fourth angles. SCBI 22 (Copenhagen), 399; SCBC 6334. Good VF, toned.

Ex Adolf Ganter Collection.

The moneyer for this issue has been the subject of great prosopographical interest among historians, as “...it is most unusual to be able to trace for over forty years the fate and fortunes of a common man in late medieval Ireland.” Germyn Lynch, who flourished in the mid-late 15th century, is recorded as having served as a goldsmith, freeman and alderman of London, shipmaster, and, most importantly numismatically, Master of the Irish mints, a post from which he was interestingly dismissed five times on account of making lightweight coins, such as the issue above. In Timothy O’Neill’s work, A Fifteenth Century Entrepreneur Germyn Lynch fl. 1441-1483 in Settlement and Society in Medieval Ireland, the author writes that, “...if such variety can be glimpsed from the scattering of references ... the full life history of Germyn Lynch ... would surely equal the most exciting imaginings of any writer of historical novels.”