2 Pence - Rosa Americana Pattern

William Wood obtained his patent for the Rosa Americana coinage through court connections — widely suspected to involve bribes to the Duchess of Kendal, a mistress of George I — and began striking copper pieces for American colonial circulation in 1722. The 1733 date is anomalous: Wood died in 1730, and his patent had effectively lapsed. Pieces dated 1733 are almost certainly posthumous pattern strikes, possibly produced from leftover dies or as presentation pieces, and were never intended for colonial circulation.

The series was deeply unpopular in the colonies regardless. Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette ran pointed criticism of the coins' quality and the monopoly arrangement behind them.