My 1st Cartwheel

I really like Conder tokens and the like. I don't know much about them, but I seem to accumulate quite a few. This is my most recent purchase. It's a massive hunk of copper! ...about the size of a Morgan dollar and 3/16th of an inch thick!

 

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It"s not Brutish token. It is a legal one penny.

 

nice

 

Really?! This thing's MASSIVE! I can't see anyone walking around with very many of these in their pockets.

 

However, it"s a legal coin.:smile

 

Thanks! Do you know if these coins are fairly common?

I paid $36 for this one. As a rule, I don't buy coins I don't know anything about...but every once in a while I'll take a chance if I see one I like. :whistle:

 

I like cartwheels. They are fairly common in less than good condition. Your's is in pretty decent shape. Recently, I saw one in AU condition at a coin show and it was really impressive. It was selling for $350 (Can).

Here, in Manitoba, I had found a couple while doing an archaeological survey. They were so smooth that you could barely tell what they were. They were used along with French coinage before the provinces joined Confederation.

 

Thanks for the info! I'm still trying to get over how big it is. I have a Druid token that's about half this size...and I thought that one was big! You can almost play hockey with this thing. :smile

You must come up with some pretty interesting things...doing archaeological surveys. What's the most interesting thing you've found?

I was in the tidewater area of Virginia last week and a guy working on a road widening project showed me a bunch of Civil War bullets and coat buttons he found. One was a Massachusetts Militia button...(worth a couple of hundred dollars, he said).

 

I did this several years ago.

There weren't many coins. Maybe a handful in total.

Most of the finds were Native artifacts. Lots of stone tools, beads, and pottery sherds. Probably the most noteworthy item that I personally found was a carved antler in the shape of a duck's head. Might have been from an early decoy or the top of a staff. Just speculation.

A few other items that stand out in my mind- an obsidian arrowhead (no volcanic activity anywhere around here!) and a decorative item made from shell traded up from the Florida area.

 

If this is 3/16" thick, it is two pence. The exact 'cartwheel' design comes in 1d and 2d. The US silver dollar is midway between the two in diameter so either could be described as about the size of a silver dollar. The coin was an experiment that did not work out and was followed by what we came to accept as the standard large British penny.

 

Florida -> Manitoba...interesting!

I watch Antiques Roadshow and I've seen some of the native artwork appraise for big $$.

 

If that's massive and Brutish, then what would you guys think of a Twopence??

Twopences weighed 56.7 grammes and were the heaviest, largest coins produced for circulation in Great Britian. BTW not bad for $36!

 

On second thoughts I think you do have a Twopence, the portrait of the Penny I think is slightly different.

 

This is the first one of that type that I've seen. You never know what you'll come across and learn about on this site. Very nice coin ya' got there!

 

Very nice! I love old copper coins, the bigger the better!! I'll keep those in mind.

 

Those Cartwheels were made by Matthew Boulton and James Watt, of Birmingham, who also manufactured many of the tokens of that period. Considering their role in practically inventing the modern, industrialised production method of coin minting, those coins are probably some of the most important coin types in the world..

 

That is in really good condition, many of these are really beat up with a lot of rim dings. That seems to happen a lot with large coppers. And at $36.00 I think you got a really good price, I have seen similar condition cartwheels going for double that price. However it does look like it has been cleaned, You could see traces of the orig toning in the incuse lettering around the rim and around the trident and waves. But still a nice coin :thumb:

 

I have a couple of these as well... nowhere near as nice as yours though.

I thought I read somewhere that these were also used as weights in trade, which is why they are so heavy?

 

The reason they are heavy (1 and 2 ounces respectively) is because at that time, that was pretty much the intrinsic worth of the copper in them, and having the coins close to their intrinsic worth was a deterrent to forgery, which was a massive problem in Britain in the late 18th century.
However, Boulton and Watt's steam-driven manufacturing process actually made them cheaper to produce than the Royal Mint (and cheaper to produce than any forger would be able to manage). The only real reason these issues weren't successful in the long-term was the fact that copper prices came to outstrip their face value, although the fact that they were large and unwieldy might also have played a part...

 

Lovely looking coin :bow: The Cartwheel 1d and 2d were made because King George III thought it was good for the people to have a coin that was equal in value to the actual value of copper at that time, I dont think been a King he ever had a need to carry spare change otherwise he might have thought differently LOL.
The front of the coins bears the image of King George III. The reverse bears the image of Britannia seated and looking right.
the penny (1 troy ounce , 36mm – diameter, 3mm - thickness)
two pence (2 troy ounces, 41mm – diameter, 5mm - thickness)
composition is entirely of copper with no added metals to strengthen it, which is why they damage so easily