paleomaxx
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- Aug 14, 2016
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- Upstate, NY
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When I first pulled this out of the ground I thought it was a standard KGII half penny. Always a welcome find, but it wasn't until I stated cleaning it up that I noticed it was a little underweight and the date looked odd. The relief on the coin isn't too great and I lost some of the patina on the raised sections, but there is still enough detail to see that KGII face is way off:
For comparison, here's what a regal 1747 half penny would look like:
Counterfeits are pretty common, but if it isn't a KGIII I usually assume they're British made. However there is exactly one known Machin's Mills KGII variety and I went to check it against it and sure enough:
It's a Vlack 1-47A which is an R5, only 35-75 known!
It's believed that this die variety was struck in 1787 and released alongside the more plentiful counterfeit KGIII half pennies of Machin's Mills. It's unclear why they didn't strike more KGII types, but perhaps they weren't as readily accepted since KGII half pennies still in circulation would have been pretty worn at that point and these newly struck ones would have been particularly suspicious.
Oddly this was the only colonial find in the spot, but the property is quite old. I'll have to scour the yard a bit more and see if there's any other coppers hiding deep down, but for now this is an excellent find that I'm very happy about!
For comparison, here's what a regal 1747 half penny would look like:
Counterfeits are pretty common, but if it isn't a KGIII I usually assume they're British made. However there is exactly one known Machin's Mills KGII variety and I went to check it against it and sure enough:
It's a Vlack 1-47A which is an R5, only 35-75 known!
It's believed that this die variety was struck in 1787 and released alongside the more plentiful counterfeit KGIII half pennies of Machin's Mills. It's unclear why they didn't strike more KGII types, but perhaps they weren't as readily accepted since KGII half pennies still in circulation would have been pretty worn at that point and these newly struck ones would have been particularly suspicious.
Oddly this was the only colonial find in the spot, but the property is quite old. I'll have to scour the yard a bit more and see if there's any other coppers hiding deep down, but for now this is an excellent find that I'm very happy about!
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