Added a wee bit more olde British Tin to the collection, James II Farthing

ambro51

In an effort to learn and understand the American Plantations Token the related Tin coinage of the monarchs of this period becomes relavent. With the "anti counterfeiting" measure of a square copper plug they qualify as a bimetallic coin. Fairly thick it has a lettered edge which was applied on a table with a device that ran the edge of the coin under spring pressure against an iron die. Irregularities in this usually distorted rims. Incredibly soft these coins "wore" in a way best described as "smooshing". Features soften and widen, as you may expect from a piece struck in such soft metal. Tin, on the Mohs mineral hardness scale is 1.5. Talc is 1. Lead is 1.5. Silver/Gold 2.5 and copper 3. So in Any purse of the era, the Tin Farthing was really beat up. The River Thames, the mud of its banks...create an Anerobic environment which substantially aids these fragile coins in avoiding "tin pest". This piece was such a recovery. It may have been lost prior to 1700.... While it may look frumpy dumpy it's got some unquestioned rarity and is indeed a "Survivor" in every sense. Enjoy!

SaorAlba

Thanks for posting about something rather overlooked.

Purportedly it was an ill advised effort to help out the struggling Cornish tin mines - the coinage was so shortlived that I doubt it was consequential to Cornwall. As noted, even in deplorable shape - the tin coins are seldom found as identifiable objects now. In fact I have never seen one in the wilds myself.

ricko

Neat old coin.... the UK sure has some old treasures in the ground...usually a hoard or two are discovered each year.... Thanks for the information, Cheers, RickO

pmac

Send it over to the darkside for them to enjoy, also.

Sonorandesertrat

Thanks for the post, very interesting.

ambro51

A link for more detailed info. To Learn More

JCMhouston

Very nice, people that don't collect in this area often don't understand just how rare these tin pieces are. Even when they aren't buried they often just rot away to dust. Here's my example from my Halfpenny type set, a 1690 William & Mary. These have various edge inscriptions, around 5 varieties known, which Peck lists as ranging from Very Rare to Excessively Rare, this one is currently the only 1690 graded ATS at XF45.

ambro51

Would you have any idea on date and variety attribution on mine? As to Rare , oh Yes I'd say my experience locating one puts it with searches I've done for R6 material.

JCMhouston

Can't say for sure but it appears to be a Type 1, 1684-87, based on the longer tie-riband in the hair. There should be a date on the edge but it may not be readable so you could only know it was this type and date period, not the specific Peck number. So it's probably somewhere between Peck 545-554.

The most common one is the 1685 with a star on either side of the date and a star between NVMMORVM and FAMVLVS shown as NVMMORVM * FAMVLVS * 1685 *, and Peck lists it as Rare, with the others all being Very Rare to Exceedingly Rare. Note the star shape is fairly sharp and with 5 points. Other varieties may have a dot (period) substituted for the stars, or missing a star in any of the locations, or a fat star (for want of a better term) located between FAMVLVS and 1685.