James V's third coinage of 1540 was issued during a period of aggressive fiscal reform, with the king extracting substantial wealth from the Scottish church — a policy that funded both his minting program and his broader political ambitions without requiring parliamentary consent. The ducat denominations of this coinage are among the rarest survivors of sixteenth-century Scottish gold, with documented examples numbering in the single digits for some fractions.
Spink 5374 is a seldom-encountered fraction even by the standards of this series.
James V's third coinage of 1540 was issued during a period of aggressive fiscal reform, with the king extracting substantial wealth from the Scottish church — a policy that funded both his minting program and his broader political ambitions without requiring parliamentary consent. The ducat denominations of this coinage are among the rarest survivors of sixteenth-century Scottish gold, with documented examples numbering in the single digits for some fractions.
Spink 5374 is a seldom-encountered fraction even by the standards of this series.