i have a bank of england three shilling token 1815 george 111 in bronze if a forgery how did they hope to pass it in the wrong metal ? what does anyone know about these
Hi Phil, Good to see you posting at last! I have often wondered the same thing on these - I have always assumed that they were silvered originally to pass off, but this has gone over time. As Silver plating would still be evident in the gaps, I assume they used Mercury, or some other very transient silvering effect, which has lon gone. I would be interested to see if anyone else has any views. Paddy
No Licence or Act of Parliament was ever sanctioned for the manufacture of these tokens and they did not contain their full value of metal. However the Bank of England did strike £4,457,649 worth of tokens between 1804 and 1815. There are forgeries out there and at the time one could be hung for making, passing or uttering forged coinage so the trick was to make them similar to the real thing a bit like the George III gambling tokens that looked like Guineas. If caught with these you only did jail time and your neck was saved. Having said that many proofs and patterns of these bank tokens were made in silver, gold, copper, white metal, copper gilt, pewter and brass.
I think with these kind of fakes they used what we call a silver wash. It basically entails dipping the coin in an acidic solution with silver in it. When you remove the copper coin the silver sticks to it leaving a very thin silver coating. What you have to realize is that in order to be effective, the counterfeiter only has to pass the coin once, the first time. Once he has done that he has his money and he could care less if the silvering comes off.
So why is this a forgery as opposed to a token? There are a slew of British tokens from this time period and I haven't heard them referred to as forgeries. This doesn't look like it's imitating a proper coin.
The distinction is fairly simple. The Bank of England issued these tokens in Silver (even if occasionally lower grade silver than might be expected) and as such they were a respected and acceptable currency in the years before the "new" coinage of 1816. The example that OP has listed is in Bronze and would have been made to fraudulently deceive someone. The Bank Of England tokens have a full listing in the Spinks Annual "Coins of England" and as such are part of the mainstream of British coinage. Most other tokens are listed separately in other publications, and were issued by private companies or individuals. Paddy
