About the Piece
Saint George was venerated as a Christian martyr centuries before the dragon entered his story. By the Middle Ages, however, the legend had transformed him into the mounted warrior now recognized across Christian art: George confronts a dragon threatening a princess, wounds it with his lance and ultimately kills it with his sword. The weapon gained its own identity later still. Richard Johnson’s The Seven Champions of Christendom, first printed in 1596, gave Saint George’s sword the name Ascalon.
There is therefore no surviving historical Ascalon for Spectres to reproduce. This is an original Spectres interpretation built from the legend itself. Saint George stands above the defeated dragon at the hilt, while the dragon’s outstretched wings become the sword guard rather than simply appearing as decoration. On the opposite face, the princess appears behind George, tying the weapon back to the person he rides to save. His horse appears further down the blade, completing the figures that define the dragon-slaying story.
The rest of the sword draws from the Christian visual world that carried Saint George’s legend for centuries. Pointed arches, tracery, crosses and rose-window forms run through the blade in the language of Gothic church architecture, turning Ascalon into something more than a fantasy sword with Christian symbols added to it. The weapon itself becomes the setting for the legend — George, dragon, princess and sacred architecture built into one form.
Specifications
What’s Included
- Individually numbered Spectres piece
- Matching numbered Certificate of Authenticity with product specifications
- Custom-designed Spectres presentation box
Every Spectres piece carries the Ghost mint mark.
How is this a coin?
- A coin is defined by its official issuance, not by its physical shape. This piece is formally issued as legal tender by a sovereign issuing authority, with an official denomination and year of issue.
- Money and coinage have also taken unconventional forms throughout history, including ancient Chinese knife- and spade-shaped money. Spectres continues that idea in modern legal tender, where a coin may be round, shaped, functional, sculptural or fully three-dimensional.