Canadian Blacksmith Coppers - Inquiry

@Glyn: Personally, this is only the third example I'm aware of. One is in the collection of the Bank of Canada Museum (Charlton Catalog Plate), and the second in the collection of the ANS Museum.

Certainly a very rare token.

Inquiry: I have a Wood 36. I disagree with your interpretation that this is an imitation of a George II halfpenny. The date is retrograde, i.e. reversed, so the portrait probably reversed too. How many have you actually seen? Charlton BL 56 says "less" presumably means fewer than 5 known. I have a example, illustrated below. I would welcome your comments.

Response:

In the late Bill Anton Collection there is also a specimen so we may have 4-5 known? It was his specimen that Warren Baker desired for years as he felt it was the FINEST KNOWN that he never sold to Baker that I analyzed with SEM/EDS and found its microstructure to be cast. If you are a student of collecting English/Irish George II/III CCC 1/2d we do see that there is a large percentage of George II CCCs which are cast pieces and we could suggest here nearly half of George II CCC English 1/2d are cast and not struck by dies. Once we approach George III issues although CCC dates vary beyond the 1770-1775 regal years there is a consensus among experts that maybe 12-24 GIII English CCC CAST pieces are known of any date within the regal years and beyond - possibly. Its this MAIN reason this piece was considered mid-18thC since it was metallurgically verified as CAST. Furthermore, if you fast forward nearly a century into the future with Pre-Confederation Canadian pieces like Blacksmiths which we generally consider ~c.1820-1840(5) the likelihood that a counterfeiter would risk passing a cast specimen into business THIS LATE IN TIME is very unlikely. We want Wood 36 to be a Blacksmith since its worth is then $5,000 -up but history and its metallurgical assay suggest mid-18thC as with other GII cast issues and not an early 19thC emission so its worth then would be $500-1,000. However once a coin reaches four figures and due to its extreme rarity few people if any will follow the logic in this post. You should realize as more pieces of W36 do get analyzed for their microstructure utilizing SEM/EDS you do have the dilemma as to WHY is Wood 36 the only Blacksmith variety or associated Blacksmith type we see in Charlton that is cast and not struck? John Lorenzo, Numismatist, United States.