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1/2 Dollar - George III Type I countermark, oval
| Issuer | Bank of England |
|---|---|
| Year | 1754-1792 |
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| Composition | Silver (.896) |
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| Obverse description | Laureate and draped bust of King Carlos IV of Spain facing right, rendered in high relief with elaborately styled hair tied with a ribbon at the nape. The royal effigy occupies the central field, with the circumferential legend reading CAROLUS IIII·DEI·G· flanking the bust and the date 1792 positioned in the lower exergual area. Superimposed upon the king's neck and chest is the Bank of England's Type I oval countermark, struck in intaglio, depicting a small laureate head of King George III facing right — applied by the London Mint to authorise the host coin for circulation as a 4 Shilling 9 Pence piece in Great Britain. The coin's milled border is clearly defined along the entire periphery. |
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| Reverse description | The quartered royal arms of Spain displayed on a baroque shield, surmounted by the Spanish royal crown. The quarters bear alternating castles (Castile) and rampant lions (León), with a central escutcheon depicting the fleur-de-lis of the Bourbon dynasty. The mint mark M (Madrid) appears to the left of the shield and the assayer's initials MF to the right, with the denomination numeral 4 (reales) also flanking the shield. The circumferential legend HISPANIARUM·REX reads around the upper and lateral periphery, completing the royal titulature. |
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| Additional information |
These are Spanish colonial 8 reales — specifically half-dollars cut and weighed down from full pieces — countermarked by the Bank of England beginning in 1797 as an emergency measure when a run on gold reserves forced suspension of cash payments. The small oval punch bearing George III's portrait was applied at the Bank itself, deputizing foreign silver as de facto British currency during the Napoleonic Wars. It was not an elegant solution; contemporaries mocked the coins mercilessly, with one widely circulated quip reading the countermark as "the head of a fool on the neck of an ass."