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1 Penny - George IV Maundy issues
| Issuer | Royal Mint |
|---|---|
| Year | 1822-1830 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 0.47 g |
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| Obverse description | Laureate and draped left-facing bust of King George IV, engraved by Benedetto Pistrucci in a refined neoclassical style. The king is depicted with a wreath of laurel bound by a ribbon, its trailing ends visible behind the neck, and curling hair rendered in fine detail. The circular legend reads GEORGIUS IIII D.G. BRITANNIAR. REX F.D., distributed around the entire periphery of the coin. The truncation of the bust is plain and unadorned. The small diameter of this Maundy piece required Pistrucci's design to be executed at a highly reduced scale, yet the portrait retains considerable artistic quality. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Maundy coinage occupied a peculiar administrative space within the Royal Mint — struck not for circulation but for the annual Royal Maundy ceremony, in which the sovereign distributes alms to elderly recipients equal in number to the monarch's age. George IV, increasingly infirm and rarely seen in public by the late 1820s, delegated the ceremony itself while the coins continued to be struck in his name. The Penny is the smallest denomination in the four-piece Maundy set, alongside the Twopence, Threepence, and Fourpence.
Because these pieces were distributed as gifts rather than spent, survivors in high grade are far more common than their mintage figures might suggest.