Henry VII Replica Testoon
Towards the end of the reign of Henry VII, in around 1504, a new coin was introduced which was known as a Testoon, from the Italian Testone or Headpiece, introduced in Milan in 1474. It was one of the first English coins to bear a real portrait of the monarch instead of the representative portrait which had served for the previous ten centuries. The Testoon later became the Shilling and was a permanent part of the circulating coinage until Decimalisation in 1971. Original examples are excessively rare and sought after and fetch over £50,000 making them inaccessible to most collectors. Thankfully, these high quality silver plated replicas have been produced so that you can see what these Testoons looked like.
