Elizabeth l half pennies.

[Gaz T]

Hand, tun, wool pack mint marks. 
all in reasonable condition. 
I wonder if any dies still survive for these tiny coins, would love to know the minting process for these as they all have tiny spurs on the sides looking like they were possibly hammered  in strips. 
 

[jelida]

You see these tiny spurs on the halfpennies of subsequent reigns too. I wonder whether the blanks were cut out of a strip of silver by four blows of a curved chisel of a quarter of the desired circumference. This would give a reasonable uniformity of size and weight, and they are certainly too small to be cut with shears.

Jerry

[Coinery]

Fabulous little halfpennies you have there! 
It was always my understanding that they were cut from sheet with shears but, on reflection, that seems incredibly labour intensive, and I can’t remember how, or where, I came to that conclusion. I’ve just had a read through BCW and they make no mention of it.

[Gaz T]

I think it would be difficult Jerry getting the four blows on something so small to line up and maybe time on these low value coins would be a priority. 
Thanks Coinery, I’m sure they would have been stamped on a strip or sheet of silver and the tangs held them together until they were placed over a bucket and removed, they would be so difficult doing them individually. 
I’ve placed my three coins with the tang and the piece missing from the coin, I think they would line up quite well with no Wastage of silver. 

[Gaz T]

We still use this Process for punching out very thin plate on a turret press.

[Gaz T]

I’ve searched for Elizabeth half pennies that are double struck or have defects from the single blow of hammering as I’m sure there must be. But I can’t  find any ! There are going to be  defects from the process of punching many out of a sheet of silver but most of the half pennies I can find are reasonably good.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Gaz T

[Coys55]

Very interesting. I’ve just checked my tiny  (9.5mm) commonwealth halfpenny and that appears to have same bumps and/or dents at 90 degree intervals. I can’t see them on the penny or half groat though. 

[Rob]

This Commonwealth halfpenny has quite a distinctive profile which might lend itself to 3 equal cuts with a curved profile, plus a bit extra, except there is no spur at 12 o'clock on the English side.

The mm.1 has 2 short and 2 longer sections with a bigger discrepancy than those above.

[Gaz T]

Just looked at my commonwealth’ half penny this has the little v marks and tangs. 
I could do with about 50 half pennies of the same mint mark to see if a good pattern could be made. I would think if someone was making a multi die and punch all of the coins would face the same way, looking at most Elizabeth half pennies the cross carries on to the edge of the coin, I’m thinking this could have been a scribe mark to keep each die being cut level to the next. More of the same same type coin would be needed to see if the crosses lined up as well as the tangs lining.