6 Pence - Elizabeth I Milled issue, Lis

Elizabeth I's milled coinage was produced under the direction of Eloy Mestrelle, a French mechanic who introduced screw-press technology to the Tower Mint around 1561. The experiment was short-lived. Mestrelle was dismissed by 1572 — later hanged for counterfeiting — and hand hammering resumed as the dominant production method for decades. These milled sixpences, struck across just a handful of years, represent the only sustained attempt at mechanized coin production in England until the Blondeau experiment under the Commonwealth nearly a century later.

The lis mintmark places this piece firmly in the 1567–68 window of the milled series.