1 Penny Plack - James VI

The plack denomination had been a fixture of Scottish small coinage since James III, but by the 1580s the billon content had been so thoroughly debased that these coins were effectively copper with a token gesture toward silver. James VI's government faced chronic shortages of small change, and repeated proclamations throughout the decade attempted — mostly unsuccessfully — to regulate the exchange rate between Scottish and English coin as cross-border trade made a stable penny increasingly difficult to enforce.

Spink 5519 places this issue within a contested sequence of plack subtypes distinguished primarily by privy mark and legend punctuation.