1 Ackey - George III Mule

The Company of Merchants Trading to Africa was a loose association of British traders operating along the Gold Coast, granted statutory existence by Parliament in 1750 specifically to maintain forts and trading infrastructure without holding a monopoly. Their ackey coinage was struck for use in trade with local populations, denominated in a unit — the ackey — that corresponded to a local weight measure for gold dust. This piece is a mule, meaning the obverse and reverse dies were not originally paired for this denomination, almost certainly the result of a deliberate or accidental die substitution at the Birmingham contractor's workshop, most likely Boulton and Watt's Soho Mint.