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Message:: [QUOTE="akeady, post: 3950050, member: 83175"]Re. the George III coin - it's obviously not ancient, but is interesting - an overstruck Spanish 8 reales coins - the Bank Of England struck these as 5s coins, the Bank Of Ireland as 6s coins (the Irish and British coinages had different values at this stage). From Edward Colgan's book "For Want of Good Money": "In addition to the circulation coins, Boulton decided to produce 1000 proof 'dollars', writing on 17th May 1804 that he was 'persuaded the Irish dollar will be thought a more beautiful coin than the English one... I am desirous that every cabinet of coins in the kingdom should have one and therefore I propose to coin a few hundreds, put them into proper preserving cases and offer them to sale in some other shops about Charing Cross or Pall Mall or St James Street'.   The proof dollars were to be sold at 8s 6d." This is one of the 1,000 proofs (there were 790,509 regular issue 6s coins). Interestingly, Albemarle St. in London, the home of the painted Miss Stuart, is close to where Boulton proposed to sell his proof coins (Albemarle St. becomes St. James St. on crossing Piccadilly and the other places are nearby also), so perhaps Mr Iles spotted these coins on his way to pay a visit <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> ATB,Aidan.[/QUOTE]