Ireland. James II. "Gunmoney". Crown. Williamite Wars. June 1690. PCGS AU55. Rare. Horse and rider type Struck over a used and recycled bust styled Half-crown. These extraordinary crowns were minted during the war between the Catholic King James II of Ireland against William of Orange from 1689-1690. They were called "gunmoney" because many common utensils and metals were melted and recycled including old cannons and guns to mint the first series of coins during due resource limitations during the war. Remarkably, whilst Ireland was still in the silver standard, wartime financing saw these currencies issued in base metals with the belief that they can be exchanged with the equivalent of silver if James II won the war (which he never did). In the beginning, denominations of sixpence, shillings and halfcrowns were minted. However in June 1690, it was decided to issue their largest denomination which was a crown. Given the representative fiat nature of these coins, the crown did not result in a matching increase in weight and size. Whilst blank planchets exists, some were overstruck on recycled crudely treated large sized halfcrowns. Perhaps befitting the chaos during the war, sloppy workmanship often saw details or reliefs from the base coin emerging on the new crowns. This specimen is quiet interesting for not just it's grade but by having quiet a lot of the underlying coins details prominent, adding character to the coin. With a recorded limited issue period of 1 month, these crowns are pretty rare especially in top conditions.
Those are beautiful examples! Here are 2 Gunmoney examples that are in the FF collection. Both are ex James Pickering:
Thanks.. I like the fact that the underlying coin details and legends can still be seen on the coin..
As a side issue linked to the coins, James II was called Seamus O’Cacha by the Irish, loosely translated as “James the shit”
Then when they were done minting the gunmoney coins, and James VII sauntered off to exile in France with the Lost Geese, his forlorn supporters were left with a bunch of now useless coins in the city of Limerick - they used the gunmoney shillings as blanks for a halfpenny during the siege in 1691, a curious feature is the reverse N in Hibernia on the reverse.
Here's a shilling I own. I bought a bag of Moroccan falus coins from a junk bin at a coin shop at $10 per pound and this was included among them. Pretty great deal all around.
Very nice coins and an interesting thread. I dug out three gun money coins that I've owned for many years, and took some photos of them today. First is the crown, dated 1690. I believe this coin was struck on a new flan, since I see absolutely no evidence of an under-coin. Next is the half crown, dated June 1690, and quite rough, scratched, cleaned a long time ago and somewhat crusty. As a bonus there's a pretty good sized die break on the obverse. This coin came to me by way of Dale Seppa. This coin is a variety with the spelling error of June as "Jnue" which is quite rare. The third coin came from Karl Stephens. It is a shilling, dated 10 (December) 1689.
The Stacks world auction next month has an example of gunmoney that was struck on a silver blank - a pattern.
Thank you. I have owned them for many years, going back to my crown collecting days, at a time when there were only printed price lists and coin shows to acquire coins from local and nationwide dealers. Of course there were also auctions, but with a few exceptions, such as Harlan Berk's "buy or bid" sales, they were almost all live floor events.
I don't quite agree about the sloppy workmanship comment. Unless the coins are struck with very high pressure or the original planchet which is some old coins is flattened prior to striking, there will always be remnants of the original host coin. This is more predominant on copper / bronze coins due to the hardness of metal. That said, this thread reminded me of a coin that I have. Only purchased it as I have an interest in world overstruck coins
I agree. These coins were necessity coins, token coins produced with the expectation that they would be redeemed for silver coins at a later date. That never happened. As token coins, and produced under less than ideal conditions, the quality of the strikes can vary considerably, and to varying degrees under-coin detail, for those that were overstruck, would show through. This is especially true if the coin was overstruck without sufficient, or no heating of the original coin prior to striking. The dies appear to be, in most cases, of excellent craftsmanship, nicely engraved and with clear, neat lettering. Much of what we encounter today as crudeness can be attributed to the rough lives that many of these coins experienced over the centuries, such as my 1690 "Jnue" half crown.
James II Gunmoney Shilling December 1689 (10r = December, since year started in March under Julian calendar) Limerick issue