1787 Shilling

[DougB]

Hi folks ... a real newbie question.

I've been looking at images of the 1787 shilling and I note that there are variations in the garter star at the centre of the Hanovarian arms.

On some coins there is a distinct raised field to each point of the star while on others the field is missing - as illustrated.

Am I correct in assuming this variation is indicative of the quality of the strike rather than any die differentiation?

[Rob]

There were many dies for this issue. This is for both with hearts and no hearts. Your large image above shows a lot of wear to the arms, so this would likely affect the central star too. The middle one has some of the rays missing, which judging from the position suggests a filled die. Dies were punched in by hand in the 18th century, so variation in execution is the order of the day.

[DougB]

Thanks for the reply, Rob.

I came across a British Numismatic Society article - “The 1787 Shilling - A Transition in Minting Technique by H.E. Manville and P.P. Caspar” - which discusses this coinage in some detail.

As you said, the problem originates with dies punched in by hand ... to the extent that: “Even on the reverse dies, however, fine features such as stops, the Westphalian horse, the semee of hearts in the Hanoverian arms, and the strings of the Irish harp were added individually” 

This two part process neatly explains the apparent variation in the raised star-point field and consistency in the rays of the Garter star that had me puzzled.

As an aside, I also came across the following in the same article: “Between 8th February and 23rd May 17,800 lb. Troy of shillings and sixpences were 'issued from the Mint' (i.e. delivered to the Bank), of which 200 journeys of 60 lb. each totalled 744,000 shillings”.

I’ve never come across the term ‘journey’ used in this context; I assume it refers to the uninterrupted output ‘run’ of an individual minting press?

[Rob]

Substitute the word batch. i.e. the number of shillings that would be made from 60lb of silver. (about 4500). I don't know how the quantity of silver in a journey was determined. It could be based on the expected life of a die pair, or fraction thereof. It may have been the standard weight for a silver ingot at the time. It will be written down somewhere.

The current journey is about 100-120000 coins, so for example, there were one and two journeys for the 1950, 1951 pennies. The undated mule was also one or two, but they aren't sure which.