1/2 Penny Dublin - Cornwell's

Cornwell's halfpenny is one of dozens of Irish provincial tokens struck in the 1790s to fill a chronic shortage of regal copper that the British government had largely neglected to address. The Royal Mint had not produced halfpennies for general circulation since 1775, leaving merchants across Ireland and Britain to commission their own pieces from private diesinkers — a practice tolerated, then briefly suppressed, then tolerated again before Boulton's Soho Mint finally began remedying the shortage with the 1797 cartwheel coinage.

Dalton and Hamer's reference number 307 places this squarely within the documented Dublin merchant token sequence.