2 Pence - George III Maundy issues

Maundy coinage occupied a peculiar administrative corner of the Royal Mint — these pieces were never intended for commerce, struck exclusively for the Royal Maundy ceremony in which the sovereign distributed alms to the poor on Holy Thursday. George III's personal participation in the ceremony had effectively ended long before these were struck; by 1817 he was both blind and irreversibly mad, confined at Windsor. The distributions continued in his name regardless.

The four Maundy denominations were produced as a matched set each year, and the twopence was the second-largest of the four. Dies for these issues were prepared with particular care precisely because the coins were handled, examined, and kept as keepsakes rather than spent.