1/2 Penny Wicklow - Cronebane / Miners Arms

The Associated Irish Mining Company operated the Cronebane copper mines in County Wicklow, one of the most productive copper extraction sites in late eighteenth-century Ireland. Like many industrial enterprises of the period, the company issued its own halfpenny tokens to solve a chronic shortage of regal small change — the Royal Mint had produced virtually no copper coinage for general circulation since the 1770s, leaving workers across Britain and Ireland paid in tokens or not at all. Cronebane pieces were struck in Birmingham, almost certainly by the Soho Mint under Boulton's contract work for private issuers.

DH#52 is among the more frequently encountered of the Cronebane varieties, though condition above Fine is uncommon given the rough hands these mining-district tokens passed through.