1/2 Penny Wicklow - Cronebane / mule rev.

The Cronebane mines in County Wicklow were among the most productive copper operations in late eighteenth-century Ireland, and the Associated Irish Mine Company issued these tokens partly to address the chronic shortage of small change that plagued rural Irish commerce in the 1790s. The "mule" designation here is significant: this piece pairs dies not originally intended for each other, almost certainly the result of a deliberate or opportunistic decision at the striking workshop — possibly Lutwyche's Birmingham operation — rather than a mint error in the conventional sense.

DH#Wicklow 57 is notably scarcer than the standard Cronebane issues.