King Henry II came to the throne in 1154 as the first member of the Plantagenet dynasty. During the first few years of his reign King Stephen's coins continued to be issued, but in order to restore public confidence in the currency, a new standard, known as the Tealby penny, was introduced after a cluster of such coins was found at Tealby. in Lincolnshire. A very large hoard was discovered in late 1807 and numbered over 5,700 pieces. The coins were found at Bayons farmstead near Tealby in Lincolnshire, and the first report was written in the Stamford Mercury on November 6 - the 1807 Newspaper article to read ...
"A few days ago a man plowing the field of George Tennyson, Esquire at Tealby, in this county, discovered at one end of a large mound (which promises to reward the labor of careful examination) a clay pot with a large glaze, which contained about five thousand silver coins of Henry I and Henry II of various mints, and some of them perfectly preserved.
From this hoard alone, 17 new mints were added to what was known as of 1807, but only about 600+ pieces were preserved for national and other important private collections, of which 5127 pieces were deemed unworthy and sent to be melted down. in the Tower of London. The Tealby hoard was an important find for the study of medieval numismatics, but one of the most interesting elements of the hoard is that it is believed that it may have been buried inside an intact Roman storage jug made about 900 years ago.
A total of 30 mints were involved in the initial recoining (the Ipswich mint did not work in the early stages - but was extremely productive from Class B to the end of the series). Early recoining involved the mints: Bedford, Bristol, Bury St. Edmunds, Canterbury, Carlisle, Chester, Colchester, Durham, Exeter, Gloucester, Hereford, Ilchester, Launceston, Leicester, Lincoln, London, Newcastle, Northampton, Norwich, Oxford, Pembroke, Salisbury, Shrewsbury, Stafford, Thetford, Wallingford, Wilton, Winchester and York. However, only 12 mints could remain active after the recoining was completed. This marks the beginning of a gradual reduction in the number of mints used to mint English coins.
Tealbypennies from the following mints are extremely rare: Bedford, Launceston, Lewes, Pembroke, Shrewsburg, and Wallingford.
Tealby coins are inscribed HENRI REX ANG, HENRI REX AN, HENRI R ANG, HENRI REX, HENRI REX A or HENRI RE X on the obverse, and HENRICUS REX on the short cross coins.
Although Tealby's coinage was acceptable in terms of weight and quality of silver, the overall quality of production was terrible, resulting in the introduction of a new style of coin in 1180, the penny with a short cross. This style remained more or less unchanged until 1247, giving both coinage and the state a sense of stability. The practice of placing the mint and the mint on the reverse continued, although the reduction in the number of mints allowed for better quality control.