St Patrick on Wellington Over-strike

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Dan told me when I first saw this token that it wasn't at all unusual for 19th century tokens to evidence over-striking. Still, I like enigmas that have some evidence of their past intact and, with my devotion to the Irish and the underdog (and after having had a fine look at this piece under the camera), decided it was a mystery I couldn't take a pass on.

What I pursue is a feasible explanation for why a nonchronlogical order of strikes should be in evidence on a given early 19th century Dublin Token. Please either bear with me though my discourse and reasoning or leap to the end for a critical look at the specimen.

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During the Napoleonic era there was a great dearth of all denominations of coinage throughout the British Empire. England was desperate for money and metals in its arms race and war against the largest armed forces the world had ever seen; Napoleon's vast Armies of the Republic. Likewise the employment of heavier guns in vastly increased numbers and the drive to re-outfit a massive but sagging navy with cannon, shot and copper-sheathing for hulls soaked domestic base metals off the streets. All this and the fact that Britain was emerging from the loss of it's most profitable North American colonies and being less than certain of the stability of either its Caribbean possessions or it's holdings and trade throughout the rest of the world, England proved more than merely conservative in it's minting and circulation of coins.

Rural trade wasn't so terribly effected as agricultural produce was in high demand and coinage was less prevalent in usage when market ledgers and barter could satisfy the small farmer and privileges, promissory notes, rank, property and bank balance sheets were more than sufficient for securing the worth of more lordly transactions against the unreliable supply of coin. It was in the cities that the shortage of coin made life difficult, especially for the laborer and the merchants to whom a promise of a penny was raw deal or a day of fasting. Promissory notes were worthless and easily forged. Paying the laborer and making change in the form of privately minted tokens made more sense. Because of demand a light penny token still held value and in the absence of other reliable coinage had broad acceptance if it bore the mark of a stable force in commerce or resemblance to an official issuance.

In Ireland, copper and tin were available and, with a cultural acceptance for dodging imperial draughts on key resources, copper tokens quickly filled the purses in urban areas and in markets towns in proximity to mining concerns. Dublin, with it's large population and concentration of merchants, skilled labor and practiced artisans witnessed a plethora of private issuances, many of them produced from skillfully designed die sets. The minting process, however, was not always reflective of the same design skills and many tokens were stuck sleeveless, off-center, light, heavy, on ill-formed or light-weight flans and (of greatest interest here) on pre-existing tokens and coins.

Why strike over a coin or token that already held street value? Often it was for the same reason that any issuing authority will redesign coinage; to counter counterfeiters and to bolster the confidence of the public in the veracity of a given currency. Counterfeiting had long been so prevalent that laws surrounding private coinage and counterfeiting had become a draconian melange, but with teeth that could have a man hung or transported if the offense infringed on the coin of the realm or claimed a sufficient illicit profit against legal commerce. When the First Fleet of convicts sailed for Australia in 1787 they had 736 inmates aboard under lock-down below decks and deprived any basic accouterments of trade or life. By the time they had made their passage as far as Rio de Janeiro John White, a surgeon aboard the transport Charlotte, recorded that a "forgers' ring" had formed "making quarter dollars out of old buckles and pewter spoons."

"The impression, milling, character . . . was so inimitably executed that had their metal been a little better, the fraud, I am convinced, would have passed undetected . . . How they could effect it at all, is a matter of the most inexpressible surprise to me; as they were never suffered to come near a fire; and a centinel was constantly placed over their hatchway, which . . . rendered it impossible for either fire or fused metal to be conveyed to their apartments. Besides, hardly ten minutes ever elapsed, without an officer going down among them. The adroitness, therefore, with which they must have managed, in order to complete a business that required so complicated a process, gave me a high opinion of their ingenuity, cunning, caution and address." (Reference: The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes, 1986; Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.)

With this degree of "ingenuity, cunning, caution and address" it is no wonder why those that minted tokens of any kind would doubt last year's issue and be intent on over-striking any token that came their way. Often times redesigns were slight: The addition or subtraction of a single string on the harp, the number of pearls on a crown, the addition of a superscripted letter to an abbreviated name, the weight of the line used in the composition of the date, a change in orientation of a bust, the angle of the laureate, the slight alteration of seraphs or the kerning or size of letters in a legend. Often an entire redesign occurred and a previous design was was relegated to the dust bin - having become irredeemable prey to the expertise of the counterfeit class.

The token that I am concerned with here bears the traces of one token over-struck at least twice. What the first strike was and when it was committed is unknowable. What's clear is that a minimum of three separate strikes have been made on this copper. An 1816 Isaac Parkes' WELLINGTON & ERIN GO BRAGH obscures all but a fraction of the date of an earlier token. Based upon the apparent mortising of digits and the apparent size and weight of line to the "6" and the likely preceding "0" I'm prone to attribute this remnant to an 1806 St PATRICK die of one variety or another. The 1816 WELLINGTON strike possesses the 8 stringed harp (or clàirseach/clàrsach) and the superscripted "D" in EDWD on the reverse. What has proved perplexing to me though is the final overstrike - the St PATRICK APOS 432 obverse with the 9 string harp and no attribution of the year of issue. Not only that, but the right-facing bust of St Patrick would indicate that this was from an 1806 die set as St Patrick (to the best of my current understanding) was reoriented to face left on the 1815 die varieties. Regardless - why resuscitate a design long corrupted by counterfeiters to obscure a more recent and argualbly more skillful design? Omitting the date certainly wouldn't present even a moment's challenge to a forger with the barest of skills. In trying to answer this question I've learned of a certain regularity in the incidence of St Patrick's being used to overstrike Wellington's and other token types. Such a habit can't be a fad or foil against corruption. Another explanation must exist.

I wrote with this concern to Mr. Barry Woodside, who hosts the site IRISH TOKENS (http://www.irish-tokens.co.uk/batty.htm), a wonderful resource for specifics on Irish tokens and he replied:
"Perhaps tokens were outlawed and the issuer, who's name appeared on them, had them restruck with the "anonymous" St Patrick so that he could continue to use them without the risk of being prosecuted. While this would make sense in the case of Stephens tokens being restruck, overstriking the already anonymous Wellington pieces does not!"

Why overstrike the Wellington then, unless this was a response to some new vigor of enforcement to existing laws or to the introduction of new ones against private currencies?

Evasion coinage had long been at play in the British Isles since the ill-worded ordinances of 1770s and the closing of loopholes at the turn of the century did nothing to ban tokens that lacked resemblance to coins of the realm. The Wellington design, a celebration of Britain's defeat of Napoleon, bore no likeness to legal tender and couldn't affront the Home Office in the way many of the caricatured George IIIs undoubtedly had. The official 1816 George III busts were nearly caricatures in themselves (an less complimentary visage has disputably never graced a coin before or since). I believe Mr. Woodward and George III's pug profile of 1816 both suggest the same condition that sealed the fate of my over-struck Wellington - The Recoinage Act of 1816!

The Recoinage Act of 1816 marked Britain's official financial and numismatic emergence from decades of upheaval in war, blockade, revolution, and unstable trade. The Napoleonic Wars had bled Britain dry of metals, money, labor and produce and suddenly, with Wellington's definitive victory at Waterloo, domestic consumption could be supplied in all the areas where privation had previously taken hold. On the other hand, the very goods that had served so many profitably in barter during war were a flood in a market without the vast siphon of military demand. The relative value of coins over product soared and the unofficial currencies of the day gained appeal beyond the borough and the cobbled street. Reliance upon tokens and other private issuances requires confidence though and the stability of such a currency has little likelihood of extending beyond the close environs in which it is issued and spent. Supplanting such currencies with legal tender was the surest response to the cries of merchants needing change. The 1816 Recoinage Act set out to do just that, but incrementally. The first new coins to be struck were to satisfy the needs of the largest transaction via the largest denominations.

The Gold Sovereign was the first of the issues, followed over time and in hierarchical order by all lesser denominations of coin. Yet action was taken in Britain against the issuance of private tokens soon after the Act was passed. The work houses, pawnbrokers and merchant associations of London, Manchester, Leeds and all were obliged to desist from striking new tokens under the duress of prohibition and enforcement. In Ireland it is doubtful that the letter of the law would have been any different, though in Ireland it was doubtful too that new coinage would arrive in more than a much delayed trickle. What to do with an economy predominated by now illegal coin and script - and what to do without coins to supplant them? A simple solution would be to obscure all reference to the issuer of tokens and to any tokens struck in the year of the ban and subsequently. If this was indeed the logic at play then the omission of the date from the St Patrick over-strike, the very employment of the outdated dies and the obscurance of any reference to the issuer meet all the demands of frugal reason.

What I ask of the reader is to consider the dilemma and this proposed answer and, if evidence outweighs it (counter evidence does exist, especially in the form of later-date token issuances) then please point to a more salient recourse for solution. I would also greatly appreciate any further information on 1806 Dublin die varieties and images of tokens struck from these.

The Token:

Originally listed as an 1816 St PATRICK Penny Token

There is evidence of at least three separate sets of strikes having been meted out to this copper flan.
The last strike in evidence is:
Obverse: ST PATRICK APOS 432 with right-facing laureate St Patrick bust. The area at top of token from the "K" of PATRICK to the "P" of APOS failed to impress on the malformed surface.


Reverse: Ireland (w/o date attribution) with Crowned 9-string harp.



Previous Strike in evidence:
Obverse: I. Parkes' WELLINGTON & ERIN GO BRAGH with left-facing laureated large bust with ribbon terminating at the first seraph of "H" in BRAGH.


Reverse: 1816 EDWD STEPHENS with Crowned 8-string harp.


Underlying Strike:
Obverse: Speculative - malformation of the upper flan suggests an earlier large bust with extending Laureate or crown, overstrikes creating displacement fill/void pattern. The clarity of ERIN from the Wellington die suggests some compensation made during that strike. I know too little about die manufacture in Ireland to know if they were assembled in parts, as mid-18th century English Token dies often were, but this would explain the deep-set ERIN if it were subsequently re-imposed on the overused flan.
Reverse: __06 (likely 1806) date in evidence. The size, spacing and formation of the digits well matches the 1806 St PATRICK reverse, though if dies were assembled from component legends, dates and figures then it could well be any 1806 strike.
Obverse
Reverse