Magdalen College Gargoyle Type V – 1 Troy Ounce Silver Round

Explore the Gargoyles of the World collection

Gargoyle at Magdalen College in Oxford, England

LOCATION: MAGDALEN COLLEGE, Oxford, England

Oxford rewards anyone who remembers to look up. Among its towers, cloisters, and carved stonework are creatures with expressions as memorable as the buildings themselves. Intaglio Mint’s Magdalen College Type V round gives one of those architectural personalities a place in the Gargoyles of the World collection.

Oxford’s Imaginative Stonework

Founded by William Waynflete in 1458, Magdalen College developed around an ambitious group of buildings that included its chapel, hall, library, and cloisters. The Great Tower was a later addition, begun in 1492 and ready for use by 1505.

The college is especially known for its freestanding grotesques, often called “hieroglyphics.” Twenty-two were installed around three sides of the cloister quadrangle in 1508–1509, carved by John Buce and Robert Carver. Human and animal forms gave the architecture an imaginative population of its own.

Later viewers read meanings into those figures. William Reeks, a seventeenth-century Fellow, offered interpretations that became influential, although the college notes that they were his own readings. That distinction is part of the fascination: carved creatures can preserve both a maker’s skill and centuries of stories told about them. The history of the wider collection provides context without assigning an undocumented meaning to this particular figure.

Obverse Design

The obverse presents a detailed depiction of a gargoyle at Magdalen College in Oxford, England. Bringing the architectural subject into a small silver relief encourages the close attention that such high-mounted carvings can escape in their original surroundings.

Reverse Design

Gothic window frames surround the central “GARGOYLES OF THE WORLD” wording. A small gargoyle perches on the “O” in “GARGOYLES,” and the hallmark follows the lower circumference at six o’clock.

Specifications

Weight: 1.00 troy ounce
Thickness: 3.10 mm
Purity: .999 fine silver
Edge: Reeded
Diameter: 39 mm
Finish: Brilliant Uncirculated

GARGOYLE – TYPE V – MAGDALEN COLLEGE – 1 TROY OUNCE – 39MM

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A carved creature from Oxford’s Magdalen College is featured on this Type V Gargoyles of the World round. Contains 1 troy ounce of .999 fine silver, with a 39mm diameter and reeded edge.