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Colin B

Rare King George 1773 Half penny

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Hi All ,

I hope that somebody can help me, About 20 years ago I was working on an 400 year old pub.. And found a selection of various coins one of them being the coin in the photo.. Sorry for the poor quality picture .. Bugga it hard to get a good photo of a coin.. Any how I have been searching the last few days to see if I can find this coin. And the closes I could find was a 1773 George the 3rd coin.. I am assuming its a half penny  the size of the coin is 2 cm across Even thou the photos look blurry the actual coin face side is very clear that its a Bearded King George coin and dated on the back with 1773.. 

Would be grateful if somebody knows if there was ever any King George 3rd coins with a beard minted? Or do I have a really rare coin ..

Thank 

Colin George 1773.jpg

 

 

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If 20mm dia then it is a farthing, not a halfpenny. 

There are no bearded coins, but a better picture would help establish what you have. If it is really a beard then it would have to be a forgery (there were many around in the 1770s), however, the reverse lettering doesn't look bad from the (too small) image. A picture as close to 500kB as possible would be good.

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Hi Rob, 

 

Thank you.. I try and take a better photo.. Seem odd to have a forgery with an obvious mistake of a beard ..

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5 minutes ago, Rob said:

If 20mm dia then it is a farthing, not a halfpenny. 

There are no bearded coins, but a better picture would help establish what you have. If it is really a beard then it would have to be a forgery (there were many around in the 1770s), however, the reverse lettering doesn't look bad from the (too small) image. A picture as close to 500kB as possible would be good.

Not really forgery was punishable by death so the forger could plead in court there was no intention to decieve as per coinage as their "copy" had a beard so nobody would be fooled .

In reality everyone would be , as dickins rightly said "the law is an ass"

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I'm not convinced it is a beard from the image. The nose and forehead look reasonable, but the mushy centre could indicate die blockage or damage

 

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11 minutes ago, Colin B said:

Hi Rob, 

 

Thank you.. I try and take a better photo.. Seem odd to have a forgery with an obvious mistake of a beard ..

That's the whole point. It was called Evasion coinage. If it looked exactly like a real coin of George III and you were caught with it then it was off the gallows or for transportation to Australia or the colonies. So the counterfeiters started making these coins/ tokens that had differences on them to the original coins to get round the laws and cheat the hangman or transportation.

http://www.thecoppercorner.com/history/evasions_hist.html

Edited by Ukstu

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1 minute ago, copper123 said:

Not really forgery was punishable by death so the forger could plead in court there was no intention to decieve as per coinage as their "copy" had a beard so nobody would be fooled .

In reality everyone would be , as dickins rightly said "the law is an ass"

Coppers forgeries weren't punishable by death, only silver and gold.

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Rob is right, no beard, simply a 'mushy' effect in the metal and subsequent wear creating the appearance of one.

The placement of letters spelling Britannia is wrong for a Regal issue coin.

Edited by Michael-Roo

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Much better photos.

A contemporary counterfeit. Obverse off centre. Lots of excess metal on the planchet or chunks missing from the die giving the appearance of design anomalies.

Edited by Michael-Roo

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Here's an official 1674 farthing I have which also displays excess metal. Britannia appears to be sporting a backpack, Charlie has a ponytail.

 

1674-obverse-cuds.jpg

1674-reverse-cuds.jpg

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Ok thank you Glad that has been sorted .. I can sleep tonight now lol... 

I am guessing theses type of coins are worthless?

 

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Not at all. Counterfeit, but contemporary counterfeit. A nice souvenir of the everyday lives of ordinary people in the 1770s. Worth a few quid, but so what? The value is in it's age and the part counterfeiting played in the social history of the period.

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That is so true, Just goes to show that even in 1770's a everyday person had the means and know how to counterfeit coins 

 

Thank you for your help.. 

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And when a farthing may have meant the difference between eating or not eating, if you were unlucky enough to have been slipped one, you probably went hungry that day!

Edited by Michael-Roo

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45 minutes ago, Colin B said:

That is so true, Just goes to show that even in 1770's a everyday person had the means and know how to counterfeit coins 

Bear in mind there were two quite distinct reasons for forgeries: the silver washed copper forgeries of George III silver between 1816-20 that SEUK collects and studies were done for the good old traditional purpose of trying to get rich quick. The huge number of forgeries of halfpennies between 1770 and after were MAINLY done because of the chronic shortage of base metal coins (the main reason that trade tokens were also minted in large numbers). And when you consider that there was only that short series (1770-1775) between 1754 and the cartwheels of 1797, then the issue of 1799, then 1806-7 and then nothing until George IV - you can begin to understand the scale of the problem.

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22 hours ago, Rob said:

Coppers forgeries weren't punishable by death, only silver and gold.

Ok transportation then , it was considered nearly as bad as death

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21 hours ago, Colin B said:

Ok thank you Glad that has been sorted .. I can sleep tonight now lol... 

I am guessing theses type of coins are worthless?

 

errrr no, americans love them

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On 13/05/2018 at 8:34 PM, Michael-Roo said:

 

Here's an official 1674 farthing I have which also displays excess metal. Britannia appears to be sporting a backpack, Charlie has a ponytail.

 

1674-obverse-cuds.jpg

1674-reverse-cuds.jpg

Is that  the o/o sideways in carolo?

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