Irish Coinage
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Catalog
Milled III

Catalog of Irish Coin Prices

Milled Irish Coins 1692 -1760

Index

© 2002 - Copyright
John_Stafford-Langan
Version 1.11
7 February, 2003

William and Mary Halfpennies 1692-1694

These coins are difficult to find in EF or better.
The legends are often weak in places.
The prices are for pieces with even striking and no problems.
Coins with porous surfaces or old corosion are worth significantly less than coins with good copper surfaces.

There is a variety of the 1692 issue where the As in 'GRATIA' in the obverse legend are unbarred (made with an upsidedown V punch).

The normal edge on these halfpence is an oblique milling, there is a variety of the 1693 issue with a plain edge.
There is a veriety of 1694 with a pellet in the queen's name : MA.RIA

There is a 1693 proof striking in silver known for this coinage - but there are no pattrens known

Notes:
The 1692 and 1694 dates are more difficult to find than the small difference in values suggests.
The GRLTIL variety of 1692 is very difficult to find.
The plain edge variety of 1693 is also very difficult to find.
Specimens in better than EF with traces of original lustre and very clean surfaces are rarely offered.
Normally the best grade regularly available is Good Very Fine.

Willian III Halfpennies 1696

There are two types of William III halfpence - both dated 1696.

The first type has a well executed bust and an obverse legend which ends GRA.
This type has two varieties with 'BR.' or 'BRI.' on the reverse legend.
The 'BRI' variety is scarcer than its catalog price indicates this is because these coins are sufficiently difficult to find that collectors tend not to collect the two varieties but tend to settle for a single example of either variety.
Both varieties are listed in silver proofs in most sources, but Nelson lists only the BRI variety.

Coincraft's recent catalog lists a obverse spelling error of GVVLIELMUS associated with the BR reverse. I had not previously seen a listing for this variety

The second type has a poorly executed bust and the obverse legend ends with 'GRATIA', but the reverse is from a well made die. The reverse die always reads 'BR.'
There are no varieties of this second type. .

These coins are very difficult to find in GVF or better, the second variety is very difficult to find even in VF.

The silver proofs of the first type are rare and are usually found with light gilding and in EF rather than UNC. Four of these silver proofs (all with light gilding and all showing light wear through the gilding to the underlying silver on the high points) appeared at a Baldwin's auction in London in 1995 - a couple of these have since reappeared on dealers lists - Prior to these four appearing I had only seen one example outside the public collections.

William Wood's Coinage for George I 1722-1724

This coinage has two major types:

The first type struck in 1722 has a reverse design with a harp left of Hibernia. The second type struck from 1722 until 1724 has a harp to the right of Hibernia. The obverses of both type are similar.

1725 - There is a die flaw which occurs on one variety of the 1723 halfpenny which makes it look like the date is 1725

These coins are available in much better condition than the earlier regal copper issues and uncirculated coins with considerable red mint lustre are available albeit scarce and expensive.

There are a number of varieties of these coins.

There are proof strikings in both copper and silver and there are a number of patterns which are all rare.

These coins are also actively collected as part of the American colonial series so there are listings of their values in the 'Red Book', 'Blue Book' and many other US sources. There are also a number of Web Sites which include details of this coinage as part of the American series.

The 1722 first type farthing is a very difficult coin to find - in the past few years I have seen more examples in silver of 1723 farthings than normal 1722 farthings. There is some confusion between the sarce D: G: REX 1722 farthing which is very scarce and the more common D: G: REX variety of 1723 - Some publications have indicated that the D: G: REX type is rare and probably a pattern, whereas what I believe was intended was that the 1722 D: G: REX is rare and probably a pattern. Again I have seen a number of 1723 D: G: REX farthings on offer compared to almost no 1722 farthings. Note that the farthing does not occur dated 1722 with the seconf type reverse - unlike the halfpenny which occurs dated 1722 for both reverse types.- which strengthens the arguement that the 1722 farthing is a pattern and that the D: G: REX type of 1723 is a normal issue probably struck using the available obvese dies from the 1722 coins but with the second type reverse - it is however still markedly scarcer than the DEI GRATIA REX tyep of 1723.

George II Halfpence and Farthings 1736-1760

This coinage was produced in the London mint for use in Ireland.
The quality is similar to that of the contemporary English halfpence and farthings

There are two minor changes in legend style in 1741 and 1747 and a change in the portrait for the 1760 issues.

These coins are not as common as the preceeding Wood's coinage and with the exception of the 1760 issue they are difficult to obtain in much better than Very Fine condition. However as they were not officially sanctioned for use in the American colony they are not as widely collected.

The existing catalogs of values for Irish coins do not agree about the relative scarcity of the coins in this series. In my opinion 1743 and 1748 are the scarcest dates and 1760 by far the most common. None of the dates is particularly rare, but the market is slow and assembling the complete series in VF or better grade would take a some time. Many listings include 1755 as a legitimate date - John Rainey and Graham Dyer have shown quite conclusively in a recent paper that this date was not produced and that the specimens of this date listed in several collections are all contemprorary counterfeits. In addition to their work, there was one listed in the 'Millennial' sale of Irish coins in 2000. This coins was actually a 1775 coin of George III and was a result of a typing error.

These coins are quite common in worse than Fine (european grading) and coins in Fair or Good condition often with porous surfaces and corrosion are often offered.

Proofs exist in silver for the first year of each denomination and in Copper for these and several other years.

There is a pattern dated 1742 which has much less tidy hair than the regular issue - the pattern is rare and appears to only occur struck from badly cracked reverse dies.