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4 Pence - George VI
| Issuer | British Guiana |
|---|---|
| Year | 1944-1945 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Orientation | Medal alignment ↑↑ |
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| Obverse description | Crowned effigy of King George VI facing left, wearing the Imperial State Crown, engraved by Percy Metcalfe whose initials 'PM' appear below the truncation. The portrait is rendered in a restrained, naturalistic style with fine detail on the crown's arches and jewels. The circular legend reads GEORGE VI KING AND EMPEROR OF INDIA, separated by a raised dot, running along the periphery within a beaded border. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Reeded |
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| Additional information |
British Guiana's fourpence survived into the 1940s for one reason: Maundy-adjacent tradition. The coin was used as the annual "Maundy money" equivalent distributed to servants and laborers on the Thursday before Easter, a custom with deeper roots in the colony than in most other British territories. The wartime shift to .500 silver — down from the prewar sterling standard — reflected Britain's broader policy of diluting silver coinage across its colonies to conserve metal for the war effort, a directive applied unevenly and often at short notice to individual colonial mints.