Unique ID: 120
The Hampshire Thunderbolt quarter staters were minted by the Belgae (or more likely an unknown tribe no longer in the historical record) around 53-50 BC. They are a continuation of the boat and geometric theme started by the Morini tribe with their GB-Ca2 and GB-D quarter staters.
This coin is obverse die 1, reverse die 6, and is only the third coins with this reverse die that I know of (“Divided Kingdoms” only lists two). Reverse die 6 is interesting as the objects in the quadrants are in the wrong positions; every quadrant is rotated one place clockwise. The pellet in the upper left quadrant moves two quadrants. The previous reverse die (number 5, which is also very rare) swapped the upper left and lower right quadrants. The next die, (number 7, got it right again, but number 8 reverted to swapping the upper left and lower right quadrants. Dies after this are all correct. It’s possible that dies 5, 6 and 8 were cut by an apprentice die cutter. Either that or the normal die cutter became very distracted for a while.
This is one of twelve in the collection (see 2, 14, 28, 32, 37, 40, 43, 50, 117, 122, and 123).
