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 Warwickshire - Birmingham
| Issuer | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Year | 1793 |
| Type | Emergency coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Standing figure of a boy, facing slightly left, holding a spanner in his right hand and resting beside a large screw auger, symbolising Birmingham's industrial trade. A continuous legend encircles the design, with the date inscribed in the exergue below. The composition reflects the provincial trade token aesthetic typical of the late eighteenth-century Conder token series. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
This is one of the Kempson & Russell issues struck at Matthew Boulton's Soho Mint in Birmingham — the same facility that would soon produce the official 1797 Cartwheel coinage for the Crown. By 1793, small change was so chronically short in Britain that merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen were commissioning their own copper tokens in enormous volumes, effectively running a parallel monetary system that the government was either unable or unwilling to replace. Boulton's operation gave provincial issuers access to edge-lettering machinery and die quality that the Royal Mint itself couldn't match at the time.