coin for ID please

[davetoo 0]

Hi,

We have had a coin for decades and would like to now what it is.

It is very heavy.

Can you help?

I have brighten the photo hope it will help.

Thanks Dave

[davetoo 0]

A few more images of it.

Thanks Dave

Hi,

We have had a coin for decades and would like to now what it is.

It is very heavy.

Can you help?

I have brighten the photo hope it will help.

Thanks Dave

[Peckris 579]

A few more images of it.

Thanks Dave

Hi,

We have had a coin for decades and would like to now what it is.

It is very heavy.

Can you help?

I have brighten the photo hope it will help.

Thanks Dave

The ruler was very helpful - from the rim, it was either going to be a 1797 'Cartwheel' penny or twopence copper coin. From the dimensions, I can tell you that it's the penny.

In that condition (just about as bad as it could be!) it is only worth copper value. But the story behind them is of interest :

No regal base metal coins were struck after 1775 and there was a dire shortage of small change. To get round this, copper tokens were struck by different manufacturers and companies, mostly for the value of a halfpenny, though there are some pennies, farthings and other values.

Some of these tokens were struck by Matthew Boulton using machinery he'd developed with James Watt. These were of superior quality and he eventually won a government contract to strike the 1797 regal base metal coins. However, they had to contain their own value of copper, hence the size and why they became known as Cartwheels - the raised rim makes them very distinctive. As copper increased in price, so later strikings (halfpennies, farthings 1799; pennies, halfpennies, farthings 1806-7) reduced in size. Eventually - in the Great Recoinage of 1816 it was decreed that the coinage would be 'token', i.e. didn't have to contain its own value of metal.

From 1820 (again, no base metal coins between 1807-1820), a standard size for coppers was introduced and persisted until the change-over to bronze in 1860.

My avatar is the reverse of a 1797 twopence, rather dramatised - including inverting - in Photoshop!

Edited September 4, 2011 by Peckris

[davetoo 0]

Thanks Peckris

Looks like a match to me.

That just solved a long term mystery.

Dave

[TomGoodheart 403]

Glad you got your answer dave. Oh, and I've deleted your duplicate thread in case you wondered!