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1 Farthing - Charles I 'Maltravers' issue

Issuer Ireland
Year 1634-1636
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Value 1 Farthing (1⁄960)
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Obverse script Latin
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Reverse description Within an inner beaded circle, a crowned Irish harp occupies the central field, the crown rendered with characteristic early seventeenth-century stylisation and the harp strings clearly delineated. The device is contained within a dotted inner border, with the Latin royal titulary legend disposed around the outer margin of the coin. The harp, as the heraldic symbol of Ireland, underscores the coin's specific circulation territory under the Maltravers patent.
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Additional information

The Maltravers farthing takes its name from John Mowbray, Lord Maltravers, who purchased the patent for copper coinage in Ireland from Lord Ormonde in 1634. These were private enterprise coins — the Crown licensed the right to profit from small denomination copper, a common arrangement when the royal treasury saw little incentive to manage low-value coinage directly. Maltravers held the patent until the political climate shifted with the approach of civil war.

Counterfeiting of these pieces was rampant almost immediately, a persistent problem across all the Irish farthing patents of the period.