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1/2 Penny Warwickshire - Shakespeare / Cornucopia
| Issuer | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Year | 1791 |
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| Shape | Round |
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|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | WARWICKSHIRE. |
| Reverse description | A seated allegorical female figure, representing Plenty or Commerce, is depicted facing left in the central field, her right arm extended and her left arm resting upon a large cornucopia from which fruits and grain spill forth. A caduceus or fasces appears to the left of the figure, reinforcing the commercial allegory. The legend HALFPENNY arcs along the upper periphery in Roman capitals, while the date 1791 is inscribed in the lower exergual area beneath a horizontal ground line. A milled or toothed border encircles the design. |
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| Additional information |
This piece belongs to the great wave of provincial copper tokens that flooded British commerce in the late eighteenth century, filling a void the Royal Mint had catastrophically neglected for decades. By the 1780s, regal halfpennies were so scarce and counterfeits so rampant that manufacturers and merchants across the Midlands began commissioning their own copper — legally tolerated, privately profitable, and often better made than anything coming out of Tower Hill.
The Warwickshire Shakespeare tokens were struck by Westley & Co. of Birmingham, a city that became the de facto engine of the entire provincial token trade. Mathew Boulton's Soho Mint was nearby and its influence on production quality in the region shows.