1 Shilling - James VI 9th and 10th Coinages

James VI's 9th and 10th coinages coincided with his tenure as James I of England following the 1603 Union of the Crowns, a political reality that complicated Scottish monetary policy considerably. The Scottish shilling was valued at one-twelfth of a Scottish pound — itself worth roughly one-twelfth of its English equivalent — placing this coin near the bottom of a deeply fragmented bimetallic system that James repeatedly attempted to rationalize without success.

Spink 5510 is among the smaller silver denominations of the period, and the thin planchets used in Scottish silver of this era are notoriously prone to flan cracks.