Introduction When James II succeeded his father in 1685, he continued to issue copper halfpennies, albeit via a ‘patent’ like his father did before him. This maintained the flow of small change but the same ‘decades old’ problem persisted with the large proportion of under-weight ‘clipped’ silver in circulation. This might have sufficed for transactions…
Introduction On 6th June 1680, the Lord Lieutenant (The Earl of Arran) issued a proclamation that a new table for the calculation of foreign coin values. This was done in response to the large amount of foreign (non-English) coins that were circulating in Ireland at this time but the monetary challenges that faced Charles II…
Introduction Though fresh attempts were being made in the reign of Charles II to strengthen Britain’s currency, these efforts did not prevent the monetary crisis of the 1680s which saw a fast decline of England’s currency on the international exchange markets. The basic unit of account was the pound sterling defined as the equivalent of 240 pennies…
Introduction Amongst the rarest coin issues of the turbulent times that covered the Wars of the Three Kingdoms are the gold pistole and double-pistole of 1646. These are the only gold coins struck and circulated in Ireland. They were produced by Dublin goldsmiths Peter van Eindhoven and Gilbert Tonques, on behalf of the Duke of Ormonde,…
Introduction The Provincial Bank of Ireland was established in 1825, pioneered branch banking in Ireland. The terms, rights and privileges of the Bank of Ireland allowed it to effectively strangle the development of banking in Ireland until the Irish Banking Crisis that followed the post-Napoleonic War Depression. The Bank of Ireland effectively held a monopoly…
Although Armstrong & Legge’s patent to produce copper halfpennies for use in Ireland was confirmed by James II, these coins were actually minted by Sir John Knox, the Lord Mayor of Dublin. On the 17th June 1685, they transferred this patent by deed of appointment to Sir John Knox for the remainder of the time…
The Great Re-coinage of 1696 was an attempt by the English Government under King William III to finally replace the hammered silver that made up most of the coinage in circulation, much of it being clipped and badly worn. This was something that Charles II and James II needed to do but both had failed…
In 1694 Queen Mary II died of smallpox and William continued to rule alone. In 1694 William set up the Bank of England in order to fund his war against Louis XIV The revolution of 1688, which brought William and Mary to the throne, gave England a measure of political stability and commerce flourished, but the…
In 1660, the crown prince (later James II) married Anne Hyde, daughter of Charles II’s chief minister and they had two surviving children, Mary and Anne (both raised as Protestants) but in 1669, Prince James converted to Catholicism and took a stand against a number of anti-Catholic moves, including the Test Act of 1673. This…
Introduction As early as 1971, the Central Bank of Ireland announced its intention to produce new banknotes to replace the long-lived Lady Lavery issue which had been printed by the Bank of England in London and circulating in Ireland since 1928. They sub-contracted the design phase to Servicon – an Irish design company, to design…
The Old Currency Exchange is a specialist dealer and valuer of Irish & GB coins, tokens and banknotes 