A question for British coin experts

BillJones

I have become quite interested in the English coinage issued during the time George III (1760 to 1820). I have noted that the British government issued gold coins, especially the guinea and half-guinea on a regular yearly basis until the time when the French revolutionists and Napoleon started trouble in Europe.

The coinage of silver was very spotty. There was a shilling in 1763 and then no more until 1787. There were half shillings coined also coinage in 1787.

Copper coinage was also spotty. There were half pennies from 1770 to 1776 and farthings from 1771 to 1775. After than the counterfeiters took over.

This leaves the 1, 2, 3 and 4 pence silver coins that were issued from 1763 to 1800 with a lot of dates missing during that period. Were these pieces just Maundy coins, or did they have some influence on the economy? Given the start of the Condor tokens to fill in for the shortage of copper coins, where these small silver pieces of any importance?

I would love to have those of you who know more than I weigh in.

Thanks

John Conduitt

They didn't have enough silver (because of various conflicts), which is why the Bank of England countermarked Spanish coins. They also couldn't make bronze coins a size that would properly represent their intrinsic value, which meant they were counterfeited. They eventually made coins the right size, but they were too big to be practical. At that point, people were making use of the loophole in the law that said a forgery was only a forgery if it tried to copy a coin, which the Conders didn't. So in the years after the 1816 reforms they cut the link between coins and their metal value and banned all tokens, which seemed to do the trick.

The Maudy money was indeed meant for Maundy, but they were used in commerce. There just weren't many of them, so they didn't make a difference.

bidask

Surprisingly just made this PCGS RB 65 pop one to boot

Sapyx

Threepences were general circulation issues; the 1, 2 and 4 pence coins were "just made as Maundy coins", though at the time they would have still be regarded as actual money to be spent, rather than purely as ceremonial coins. This, plus the fact that they were just about the only silver coins in change at the time, explains why they are often found in quite worn condition.

Wars make people hoard their money rather than spend it, and the 1700s was a very warlike era. The wars with France in the mid-1700s, the American Revolution, and the various European wars were all quite remote for regular British people, but people living in the more war-relevant areas were still hoarding coins, which drove up the global silver price. For Britain the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were an existential crisis, causing much more coin hoarding in Britain itself.

Copper had become expensive because copper was needed to construct warships for the Navy. Britain was reluctant to produce silver coins during this time because the value of silver came close to, or at times exceeded, the face value and they were reluctant (due to well-remembered historical precedents) to either shrink or debase the coinage. The attitude from the Mint and Treasury seems to have been "better to have no coins at all than poor quality coins" and they seemed to think that if they just waited out the crisis, silver would become plentiful again and full-scale coinage production could resume.

Meanwhile, people made do with whatever came to hand, and the rapid urbanization of the Industrial age had commenced, meaning the economy needed money more than ever - old, battered, worn-slick silver coins from the 1600s, barter, foreign coins, bank tokens, Conder tokens and promissory notes all played a part in the economy. In such circumstances, Maundy money would have been a small but welcome addition.

SilverAge3

@bidask said:
Surprisingly just made this PCGS RB 65 pop one to boot

Oh... my.... i'm stunned by this 1807. I'm quite envious of that beauty. Should you ever tire of it, i hope i know of its whereabouts for sale/auction.