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Feb 3, 2024 · The war ended in July and the Mint quickly reordered copper planchets, but no copper coins were struck with an 1815 mintage year. Changes in 1857 The US Mint’s production of American coins caught up to foreign coin demand around the 1850s, thanks to developments like steam-powered coining machines and other mint branches opening.
In 1613 he gave authority to Lord Harington to issue some more or less experimental copper farthings; but the first real British copper currency dates from 1672, when a halfpenny and a farthing were minted. These were made of pure Swedish copper, with 175 grs. to the halfpenny and 87 1 /2 grs. to the farthing. All these coins were produced by ...
Nov 30, 2013 · Official copper halfpennies were struck only in 1770-75, while farthings were struck in 1771 and again in 1773-75. All featured the cuirassed bust of George III and the seated Britannia. This imagery ultimately became more familiar in the form of circulating counterfeits and American imitations struck by the former British colonies.
- “Parva Ne Pereant”
- Adventures in Greek Metrology
- Electrum Fractions
- The Littlest Romans
- The Widow’s Mite
- Collecting The Tiniest Ancient Coins
- Notes
- References
IN 2014, THE British Royal Mint issued a gold proof 50p coin only eight mm in diameter*, weighing in at 1/40 Troy ounce (0.8 grams.) This is the smallest coin the UK has ever struck and surely one of the smallest modern coins. For comparison, the smallest coin the United States Mint has ever produced–the U.S. gold dollar, struck in several designs ...
Metrology is the study of weights and measures. With relentlessly logical minds, but lacking the advantage of decimal notation, ancient Greeks created systems of weights based on simple fractions. These became the basis of their coinage denominations. Let’s start with the silver drachma of the Athenian or “Attic” standard, weighing 4.3 grams. For c...
To find the tiniest ancients we have to go even further back in time, to the electrum coinage of Lydia and the Greek cities of Asia Minor. Like most questions in classical numismatics, the dating of these coins is controversial, but circa 650 BCE is the earliest guess for unmarked types and ca. 630-620 for types stamped with designs. The weight sta...
The practical Romans had little use for impractically tiny coins. The smallest regular imperial denomination until the mid-second century CE was the copper quadrans, worth 1/16 of a silver denarius. At 15 mm diameter and about two grams, it is roughly comparable to the modern euro cent (16.25 mm, 2.27 g). In the King James Bible (1611), the English...
Any discussion of tiny ancient coins would be woefully incomplete without mentioning the Biblical “Widow’s Mite.” As told in the Gospel of Luke: And He looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And He said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow...
In 1964 the British numismatist Colin Kraay(1918-1982) wrote: “Unless there was a supply of low value coins sufficient for the needs of daily retail trade, coinage cannot have been used in anything like the way with which we are familiar today. …the great majority of ancient coins reach us through hoards, which represent deliberate accumulations of...
In The Wasps (lines 790-1), Philocleon puts fish scales into his mouth, thinking they are coins. When he goes home with his jury pay under his tongue, his daughter (lines 608-9) manages to get it away from him with a welcoming kiss! Uelpides (The Birds, 503) swallows an obol when he is startled.
Gardner, Percy. “Coinage of the Athenian Empire”, Journal of Hellenic Studies33. (1913) Hendin, David. Guide to Biblical Coins, 5th edition. New York, (2010) Kraay. Colin M. “Hoards, Small Change and the Origin of Coinage”, Journal of Hellenic Studies84. (1964) Linzalone, Joseph. Electrum and the Invention of Coinage. Dennis McMillan (2011) Weather...
- Mike Markowitz
In 1693 the monarchs reinstituted copper farthings and in 1694 produced copper halfpence and farthings. An act of April 17, 1694 stopped all production of tin coins and offered to exchange the less valuable tin coins for new copper coins. Within a month, by May 16, 1694, the government had recieved £40,000 in tin coins from this exchange ...
Aug 24, 2012 · The first Swedish copper coins were minted as petty coins. One copper öre was set equal to one silver öre, and one daler in copper coins (32 copper öre) to one daler in silver coins (four silver marks or 32 silver öre). However, the mint equivalent of the copper coins was set too high in the 1620s, based on unrealistic expectation of ...
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What happened to tin coins in 1694?
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The Government would not accept copper coinage for taxes, and the small merchants who accumulated large stocks of real and dubious copper coin sought relief. Areas of the country not near the capital were sometimes short of coppers, since new issues could only be purchased at the Mint's office at the Tower of London, in packets of 5 or 10 shillings.
