Introduction: The Elizabethan series of Anglo-Irish coinage is a somewhat neglected space in terms of numismatic research since many of her issues were relatively small and their survival rate poor. As such, the availability of suitable study material is limited. The British Museum’s holdings are relatively modest The National Museum of Ireland only has a…
Date: c.1804 Few people had silver or gold coins, and those who did, hoarded them and did not use them unless they really had to. Most of the smaller change in circulation was unofficial, illegal tokens. In short, there was a local currency crisis. The solution was small notes (an IOU) like the one below…
Date: 1804 Many people scoff at the thought of towns being so bereft of coinage for small change that they had to issue notes for very small amounts in Weimar Germany, Austria and France after the first world war, but a similar situation existed throughout Ireland in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Few people…
This was never going to be enough and the answer to James’s financial predicament came from a Protestant – William Bromfield, an English Quaker and one time surgeon who invented the world’s first ‘fiat’ currency based upon a promise to pay at a later date
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…
The Old Currency Exchange is a specialist dealer and valuer of Irish & GB coins, tokens and banknotes 