Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1/2 Penny - George IV
| Issuer | Upper Canada |
|---|---|
| Year | 1832 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 8.6 g |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Laureate and draped bust of George IV facing left, rendered in high relief with detailed hair and laurel wreath. The effigy is depicted with a classical Roman aesthetic, showing the king's characteristic features including prominent jaw and flowing drapery at the truncation. The circular legend PROVINCE OF UPPER CANADA surrounds the bust, reading from lower left to upper right along the coin's rim. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Engrailed |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Upper Canada had no official coinage of its own, and the colonial economy relied heavily on a chaotic mixture of British coppers, American cents, and merchant tokens. These halfpennies were struck in Birmingham under contract and shipped across the Atlantic to fill that gap — a private commercial solution to a public monetary problem that the Crown was slow to address. The issue dates to just two years before the influential Currency Act of 1834, which attempted to rationalize the colony's fractured monetary situation.
Breton 732 is well documented among Canadian colonial specialists. Die alignment and edge treatment are the primary points of differentiation between genuine pieces and the contemporary counterfeits that circulated alongside them.