Introduction The 1642 ‘Lords Justices’ issues were followed in 1643 by a larger (fourth) emergency issue of better made, but still crude, silver coins. These are collectively known as ‘Ormonde Money’ since they were issued by the Lord Justice, the Earl of Ormonde (James Butler) some time between 1643-1644. Ormonde’s active career began in Ireland had begun…
Introduction Many people think of the Great Rebellion as a two-sided fight – the Irish Catholics versus the Anglo-Irish Protestants … but it was a lot more complicated than that. There were at least five opposing parties during the rebellion, which have been described by Carlyle as follows :- the Catholics of the Pale demanding…
Introduction These pieces are nearly all rare, usually worn, and illustrations are hard to find – so, similar to my other Irish token guides, this is a “work in progress” and additional images will be added as and when I find them. They differ from the previous 17th C Tradesmens’ Farthings series insofar are they…
The new Irish coin designs, first minted in 1928 attracted a lot of media attention at home. This is well documented and most Irish coin collectors have read the various contemporary and more recent articles on this topic. What is less well known is how we influenced coin design abroad. The much deserved winner 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…
The five pence (5p) coin (Irish: cúig phingin) was a sub-division of the Irish pound. It was introduced in Ireland on Decimal Day, 15th February 1971 and re-used the design on the shilling coin first produced for the Irish Free State in 1928. Due to the similarity in size and weight, many of the old shillings…
Kosovo is a fertile region lying just to the northeast of Albania, in central former Yugoslavia. It is one of the earliest settlements by the Slavic people who later became the Serb nation – one of the reasons the hard-line nationalists in Serbia were so determined to include it as part of a Greater Serbia during…
The Kingdom of Montenegro (Serbian: Краљевина Црнa Горa / Kraljevina Crna Gora), was a monarchy in southeastern Europe during the tumultuous years on the Balkan Peninsula leading up to and during The Great War (WW1). Legally it was a constitutional monarchy, but absolutist in practice Prince Nicholas of Montenegro, in 1906, issued coins in denominations…
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