A number of types of rude uninscribed coins, partaking of the character
of those of Gaulish origin, mostly in billon, but sometimes of silver
or bronze, are ascribed to the Channel Islands, and numbers of them
have been found in Jersey and other islands, as well as in our own
country. The examples engraved are in my own possession, and were
found, with others, in Devonshire.
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The usual type is a boldly cut, but rudely designed, head, a coarse
imitation of the Greek already referred to; and the _reverse_ a
horse more or less disjointed or disintegrated, and accompanied by
indications, more or less distinct, of wheels and other objects.
As indicating to some extent the area over which the coins of the
ancient Britons circulated, it may be said that the approximate number
of _recorded_ localities in which “finds” have been made in the
“forty shires” may be summarized as most of all in Kent (say forty
places); about half that number in Dorset, Sussex, and Essex; about
a third in Oxfordshire; say a fourth in Suffolk, Surrey, Buckingham,
Hampshire, Herts, and Northampton; and so decreasing in Beds., Cambs.,
and Norfolk; Berks, Middlesex, and Gloucester; Wilts and Somerset;
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire; Leicestershire, Monmouthshire, and
Worcestershire; and Devonshire, Cornwall, Huntingdon, Lancashire,
Northumberland, Nottingham, and Westmoreland. Derbyshire,
Staffordshire, and the other counties not enumerated, not having, so
far as at present known to me, produced a single _recorded_ example.
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