1 Testoon - Mary I 1st Period, Type IIIb

Mary's first coinage period — struck before her marriage to Francis, Dauphin of France in April 1558 — represents the last window in which Scotland issued silver under her name alone. The Type IIIb is distinguished from earlier varieties by its retrograde or repositioned mint marks, a detail that has occupied Scottish series specialists for decades without full resolution on the precise die sequence.

Sp#5407 is among the scarcer testoon varieties of her reign. Production was disrupted repeatedly by the political machinery of the Franco-Scottish alliance, as the Edinburgh mint's resources were increasingly subordinated to the negotiated terms of the marriage treaty.