Although manufactured and used over 350 years ago, many of these tokens were issued with pretty much the same form of English as we use nowadays, with a few notable exceptions to their alphabet and spelling, e.g. The letter “U” is always represented by the letter “V”, e.g. DVBLIN There was no letter “J” in…
Dublin in the 1650’s Dublin City in the 1650’s was a very different place to that we all know and love today. It was a walled city – with heavily fortified gates at intervals along its perimeter. In 1649, with a Royalist army encamped in the grassy expanse surrounding Rathmines Castle, the Parliamentary commander of…
The St Patrick Halfpenny is thought to have been a ‘milled coin’ minted in the 17th century for use in Ireland, although there is evidence that later versions were minted in the American Colonies. Two sizes are available to collectors – large and small. Contrary to popular belief, the smaller coin is not a farthing…
![17th century Irish tradesmens' tokens - Dublin, Lazey Hill, Nic[holas] Delone, Penny](https://oldcurrencyexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/dublin-lazey-hill-nicholas-delone-penny.jpg?w=220&h=126&crop=1)
Although manufactured and used over 350 years ago, many of these tokens were issued with pretty much the same form of English as we use nowadays, with a few notable exceptions to their alphabet and spelling, e.g. The letter “U” is always represented by the letter “V”, e.g. DVBLIN There was no letter “J” in…
By the first half of the 17th C, the copper coinage in both Britain and Ireland was in complete disarray. Neither James I nor his son, Charles I, took much interest in providing small denominations and ‘farmed out’ the Royal prerogative of minting copper coins to ‘favourite’ courtiers as patentees – Lords Harington, Richmond, Lennox and Maltravers were the principal…
Introduction The late 18th century is a complicated time from the perspective of collecting tokens insofar as several dealers began to manufacture their own tokens for collectors, i.e. these did not circulate. They doubled and tripled their profits by deliberately producing mules, i.e. mis-matching obverse and reverse dies. They then increased their profits further by…
By 1760 small copper coins were scarce in Ireland. No royal Irish farthings had been issued since 1744 No royal Irish halfpennies had been issued since 1755 Issues of both denominations were scheduled to be minted in 1760 but apparently they did not arrive in Ireland until 1762. It has been speculated this was partly due…
Abrasions Area(s) of a coin where a foreign object or another coin has displaced metal in an abraded fashion. Similar to a bag mark but usually on the high points or open fields but not as deep or acute as the former. Accumulation A miscellaneous grouping of coins, often as a monetary hoard. Opposite of…
Background From medieval to early modern times, the value of a coin was based on its precious metal content – usually silver. With Ireland split into numerous petty kingdoms, the local ruler would have his own mint with a local moneyer to produce coinage. If a moneyer used less precious metal than was required so…
The Old Currency Exchange is a specialist dealer and valuer of Irish & GB coins, tokens and banknotes 