Great Britain 1815 3 shillings
This specimen was lot 24906 in Heritage sale 3026 (Long Beach, October 2013), where it sold for $763.75. The catalog description[1] noted, "George III 3 Shillings 1815, so-called Bare Head, MS65 NGC, a beautiful specimen possessing smooth satiny luster and delicately sheathed golden gray toning. Among the finest graded, and very difficult to find in this condition. Minted during the Napoleonic Wars, when the Royal Mint was not producing Crown coinage but rather pieces issued under the authority of the Bank of England, thus technically a token albeit its purity of metal caused it to be accepted as money. The era would end the year after this coin was made, when the New Coinage began to appear. Sometimes this last type is called the Bare Head style but as may be clearly observed the king wears a laurel around his head." The 1790's and early 1800's saw one of the recurring shortages of coin in England as she engaged in her titanic struggle with Napoleon. The Bank of England attempted to alleviate this by countermarking Spanish colonial pesos with a punch bearing the head of George III. When this countermark was enthusiastically counterfeited, the bank resorted to counterstamping the entire coin. This token, issued 1812-16, was most likely made from melted down Spanish American dollars.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: 14.7 g, 0.891 fine silver, 34 mm diameter.
Catalog reference: S-3770, KM-Tn5.
- [1]Bierrenbach, Cristiano, Warren Tucker and Scott Cordry, Heritage Signature Auction 3026, World & Ancient Coins, featuring the RLM Collection, Part Two, the Nogales Collection and the Goetz Medals Die Archive, Dallas, TX: Heritage Auction Galleries, 2013.
- Lobel, Richard, Mark Davidson, Allan Hailstone and Eleni Calligas, Coincraft's Standard Catalogue of English and UK Coins, 1066 to Date, London: Coincraft, 1995.
- Rayner, P. Alan, and Maurice Bull, English Silver Coinage from 1649, 6th Ed., London: Spink & Son, 2015.
- Skingley, Philip, ed., Standard Catalogue of British Coins: Coins of England & the United Kingdom, 46th edition, London: Spink & Son, 2011.
- Michael, Thomas, and Tracy L. Schmidt, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1801-1900, 9th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2019.
Link to:
- Great Britain 1804 Bank of England dollar
- Bank of England 1811 18 pence
- Bank of England 1812 18 pence token
- Bank of England 1812 3 shilling token, uniformed bust
- Bank of England 1814 3 shilling token
- Bank of England 1816 18 pence token
- 1819 crown
- Coins and currency dated 1815
- return to coins of Great Britain