I’m back in Syracuse NY now. Still going through the LCS junk box finds from Florida Here’s a pair, makes a Penny Fun finds, basically free Lovin it! Who has more fun than people
Those circulated extensively in the colonies, which is one reason you find heavily worn examples in US junk boxes. The upper one appears to be a cast counterfeit, and those occurred frequently enough that an official act had to be passed banning their use - sometime in the 1750's. I'm talking off the top of my head, so I don't recall the particulars.
I agree with you. Pretty rough and there may be casting seam. That’s all good for me, I love ❤️ contemporary counterfeits!
They're important pieces of Colonial monetary history. I have a paper in my office library which gives a few particulars and sources - I'll look it up tomorrow when I go in and give you an update.
An ‘evasion token’ was made that changed the reverse to ‘Britain Rules’ This isn’t it https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces56830.html
Evasion tokens - I think of them as the 18th century version of bitcoin. Here's the blurb from the paper I was talking about. Taken from Oliver Hoover's Coins Of Our Forefathers: The Circulating Coinage Of North America Before 1780... Of course, there's no way to prove that your coins were circulating in the colonies rather than Great Britain. But I like to think that when you find these issues in the US, in highly circulated condition (and particularly the cast forgeries), there's a high probability that they did circulate in early America. (This was the period that gave birth to William Wood's Rosa Americana halfpennies.)
Nice finds. I have yet to find one of these in a world coin bin however I live on the West Coast where these never circulated. These are quite collectible with all the contemporary counterfeit and evasion issues out there. Of course they also circulated extensively. The lower grades are easy to find... but a high grade piece, especially one with smooth surfaces doesn't come around too often.
