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Message:: [QUOTE="Prestoninanus, post: 852081, member: 20205"]I don't believe it was quite as simple as that. George III had no problem with copper coinage bearing his image (after all, he and his predecessors back to Charles II had copper coinage bearing their portraits). The problem was, the Royal Mint had by this point become very decrepit and out of date, and was struggling to mint coins at a profit, even with gold and silver (the latter of which was seldom available). From that point on, Britain had more pressing issues to contend with (the American War and the threat of invasion from France, Spain and Holland) than to worry about the state of England's small change, so the counterfeiters filled the gaps in, along with the conder issuers who were dissatisfied with the counterfeit issues. It wasn't until Boulton and Watt (previously employed on manufacturing said tokens) came along with their steam-produced cartwheel issues that official copper issues could be produced in enough quantities at a profit again, and it wasn't until Boulton and Watt had installed some of their patent coin pressing machinery at the Royal Mint's new premises on Tower Hill that the Royal Mint could handle copper coinage in-house (which it started to do again from 1821, after the once ample supplies of 1799, 1806 and 1807 Soho-Mint issues of pennies and half-pennies started to become inadequate)...[/QUOTE]