Today, we go for something completely different. The pictured coin is a cartwheel Twopence from 1797. It is a proof Peck 1068. We have graded it AFDC-FDC and the price is £1100. There was a great shortage of government-issued small change in George IIIs reign. The situation was so bad that a great many merchants and mining companies issued their own copper tokens e.g. the Parys Mining Company on Anglesey issued huge numbers of tokens, although their acceptability was strictly limited. In 1797 Matthew Boulton was authorised by the government to strike copper Pennies and Twopences at his Soho Mint, in Birmingham; the time was not yet right for a token coinage, so they actually had to contain one or two pence worth of Copper, this meant they weighed one and two ounces each (Penny — 56.6.3 grams, diameter 41 millimetres). The large size of the coins, combined with the thick rim where the inscription was incuse, led to the coins being nicknamed Cartwheels. (If this sounds unwieldy, compare it with the Swedish 10 Daler plate money piece of the mid-17th century, which contained 19 kilograms of copper! Unsurprisingly, Sweden became the first European country to issue paper money on a regular basis, in 1661 - see picture below.) The obverse of the Cartwheel coinage is a rather fine laureated right-facing bust of George III, with the inscription GEORGIUS III D G REX, while the reverse showed the seated Britannia, facing left, holding an olive branch and trident with the inscription BRITANNIA 1797 — coins were minted for several years, but all with the 1797 date.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:17:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015