(Ex "Catalogue of Irish Coin Prices") James II landed in Ireland in 1689 in the hope of gaining sufficient support in Ireland to use it as a launching pad for his ambitions of regaining his English Crown. His campaign was not well funded. His initial attempts to improve his financial position was based on revaluing the French coin relative to English as his funds were mainly in French coin. This was a short lived measure and he quickly came to the conclusion that he would have to issue a token currency which was effectively made up of promissory notes to be redeemed in silver when he regained the English throne. It is mostly with this redemption in mind that the coins (except the crown) carry the month as well as the year of their issue. The representation of the month is the main area where the varieties differ and it appears that this feature was used by the mints to distinguish the different batches of output. The coinage was initially issued in Dublin using the two coining presses which had been used for the regal halfpence issues between 1685 and 1688 under the patent he had granted to Sir John Knox in 1685. A mint was later established in Limerick and coining continued there after Dublin had fallen - indeed it continued after James had fled to France and had given up all hope of success in his campaign. In the period of April - May 1690 the supply of metal was running short and the earlier issues were withdrawn and either directly restruck to a higher denomination (as in halfcrowns to crowns) or melted and re coined at a lower weight than the earlier issue. The sixpence was discontinued from this time. As already noted on related pages the year ended on March 25th - so a coin dated March could be ambigous in this period. Fortunately there was only one March in the period of issue of Gunmoney and it is clear that coins dated March 1689 were struck in the first part of March and the coins dated March 1690 were struck in the later part of the same month. In modern terms the coins dated January through March 1689 were all struck in the year 1690. (My) 1689 Sixpence (dated 6th Jan.) 1689 Sixpence (Ex "Catalogue of Irish Coin Prices") As mentioned in the article, the Half-Crowns were withdrawn and were 're-struck' as Crowns, so This Half Crown: Became this Crown: My 'Crown' must be a 'mistrike' as it clearly has James on horseback, sword raised on the obverse but what we can read of the reverse shows the legend "IACOB" (7-8 o'clock) which was on the original 'Half-Crown' but NOT on the restruck 'Crown'. Does anyone have any thoughts on this, please?
I can't help. I need to dig out my gunmoney noe and look through it. The only one I have an image of to hand came in a mixed world tin I bought to try and get my son into coins a few years back.
I have a September 1689 shilling I bought for my birthday two years back. I always keep an eye open for March 1690 coins, because New Year’s Day was on March 25 back then. Thus, March 1690 lasted a week! Also, March 25 is my birthday, so it’s fun to imagine that it was struck on my birthday 200-something years back.
Gun money were the first Irish coins I collected, then I went to the 1928-68 £-s-d issues, which is usually done the other way round.
Also, it could just be that the side they overstruck the reverse on was the side with his head, so some of the legend showed through on the reverse.
Ooops! I only had my Sixpence and Crown to compare and (in the absence of size) I was going by the neckline. Sorry. (I was forgetting the other denominations.)
