Howdy fellow coin peeps, :thumb: Although the April 10, 1609 charter for the Virginia Plantation included the authority to mint coins the colony did not choose to exercise this privilege until May 20, 1773, when the Virginia Assembly authorized the coining of a halfpenny at the Tower mint in London. The coin, engraved by Richard Yeo, was made of copper at a weight of sixty halfpence to the pound. Five tons of halfpence (about 670,000 pieces) arrived in New York aboard the ship "Virginia" on February 14, 1774 but were not distributed until written royal permission was obtained about a year later. The Virginia treasurer, Robert Nicholas, published a notice bearing the date February 27, 1775 in all issues of the Virginia Gazette printed between March 2-16, explaining that "copper money is now ready to be issued in Exchange either for Gold, Silver or any Treasury Notes." Soon after the initial disbursement of the coins commenced, the Revolutionary war broke out in Massachusetts at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Consequently Virginians hoarded the new halfpenny, along with all other copper coins, until the end of the war. Although the halfpenny contained the portrait of the king of England, it is clear these coins were used in Revolutionary and post war Virginia, for out of fifty-nine coins found during the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, forty were Virginia halfpence. At some point during the Nineteenth century, Colonel Medes Cohen (1796-1879) of Baltimore acquired a large quantity of uncirculated specimens which he slowly sold off over a period of years. In 1952 Breen suggested Cohen found the halfpence in a government office in Annapolis then, later, in his Encyclopedia Breen stated Cohen had found a keg of the coins in Richmond sometime after the Civil War. In fact, nothing is known as to the quantity, location or date of the acquisition of these coins. We do know that in 1929 his descendants auctioned off all that remained of the find, some 2,200 coins. Several were in red mint condition but were either spotted or stained. Many of the halfpence were acquired by the dealer Waite Raymond and later resold. For additional information see the discussion by Q. David Bowers (who suspects the hoard was found in the 1870's) in his work cited below on coin hoards. The halfpenny displays the bust of George III on the obverse with the shield of Virginia on the reverse. There are several variants listed by Newman. He lists 13 obverse varieties with no stop after GEORGIVS (1-13) and 9 obverses with a stop (15 and 20-27). Two reverses have a harp with six strings (A-B), 15 varieties have seven harp strings (D-T, with no variety assigned to the letters I or L) and 5 varieties with eight harp strings (V Z). These 22 obverses and 22 reverses are found in 28 different combinations. There is also a nine harp strings reverse die that survives in the royal mint collection but does not appear to have been used for production as no examples have been found with that reverse. There is also a very rare larger size proof prototype, sometimes referred to as a "penny," and an extremely rare silver proof pattern dated 1774 that was engraved by Thomas Pingo, often referred to as a "shilling". Breen knew of six examples of this latter variety. The matrixes and device punches for the halfpenny still exist in the Royal Mint collection in London. Attached below is another one of my latest acquisitions for my Colonial Collection and it has been described as follows: "1773 Virginia Halfpenny. Newman 2-D, No Stop After GEORGIVS, Seven Harpstrings. Rarity-8 per Newman, probably High Rarity-6 today. 117.1 grains. Very Fine, high in that grade, but with surface problems. Fully struck, with the legends and design details sharp, which aids in the attribution of this rare variety. Dark olive brown, the obverse with light corrosion visible in front of the king’s face; not active and probably removable, no other real damage or defect and overall the eye appeal is nice for a circulated coin – especially so for the scarcer No Period type, which generally comes in lower grades than the With Period varieties. This variety is unlisted in the Newman reference, but is actually the same as the Newman 2-E listed there – reverses D and E proved to be identical (and obverses 2 and 11 were found to be the same as well), causing both Newman 2-E and 11-D to be dropped from the variety listing, and Newman 2-D being added to it. In his 1962 update, Newman gave the "2-E" variety a Rarity-8 rating, making it one of the toughest of all the No Period varieties; in the 45 years since that was written, those numbers clearly changed." Ribbit Ps: The write-up in the beginning is by Louis Jordan, used with his permission, and can be seen here (with noted references thereto): http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinIntros/VA-halfd.intro.html The Notre Dame collection and website is very educational and loaded with colonial coinage information. :thumb: The variety designation write-up is by the seller I bought this from. :thumb: Pps: I have two more Virginia Halfpennies but they are dug pieces and not in great shape, like this one. I'll take photos later and post them also.
I have a couple of well worn dug pieces, finds from 25¢ junk boxes. A few years ago you could buy restrikes of these in Williamsburg. They have the distinction of being the only 18th century Colony issued token that had all sanction.
I acquired another Virginia Halfpenny-Halfpence recently and figured I stick it with this post (seller's pics). I still have two more that were dug pieces and not in as good of shape as this one or the OP coin, and one is still in transit so once I get it in and clean it up a bit, I'll take pics of both my dug ones and post them too. Also, I'm not sure what variety this one is, so if someone wants to try and "type" it, go for it. Ribbit
I just noticed what you said and I wondered if the seller of this is who you think they are, because this didn't come from a US seller, it came from France. I did buy another one from a seller in the US (California) so maybe that's who you were referring to and I also buy from him. He's got a nice selection of colonial coins for sale. :thumb: Ribbit Ps: The first coin in this post did come from the seller in California. I just noticed that was the one you were referring to. My bad!
