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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;The Eidolon, post: 5221850, member: 102103&quot;]&quot;It makes little sense to produce a counterfeit of the proper weight, thickness, and diameter.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>I can&#039;t vouch for the authenticity or not, but I could attempt to provide a motivation.&nbsp; The 1797 cartwheel pennies were an attempt to make a &quot;full bodied&quot; copper coin, in which they contained about an penny&#039;s worth of copper.&nbsp; All of the later ones were much lighter, and were produced at a profit on the materials.&nbsp; I believe the weight dropped from 28.35 g for the 1797 to 18.9 g for the 1806-08 series.&nbsp; So even a full weight counterfeit could have been produced at a significant profit.</p><p><br /></p><p>Acting against this, the Napoleonic Wars greatly increased the price of copper as it was in important material for copper sheathing of ships to protect them from barnacles.&nbsp; The price rise was one of the reasons the 1797 pennies and twopence didn&#039;t circulate for long--they were worth more as melt.&nbsp; I don&#039;t know the exact copper price of copper in the UK in 1806 (or if the coin was actually made in 1806, for that matter).&nbsp; But I&#039;m pretty sure the mint was making a profit on the materials for the copper coinage by 1806, so so potentially could counterfeiters.</p><p><br /></p><p>My guess is contemporary counterfeit.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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