Found 1797 GB Penny Cartwheel By Happenstance - Did Not Know What It Was

It certainly does help and thank you PaddyB.

That's pretty incredible that the twopence weights twice as much. I did not know that.

Awesome sel_69l and thank you.

I have been reading your posts for years now and you really know your stuff in this arena so you're probably the best person to ask the following question.

In regards to the subject focus of your response was this a precursor and/or a stop-gap measure prior to the Great Recoinage of 1816?

P.S. - Yes. The pun was intended.

The issue of these "cartwheel" coins was a response to the British having a chronic shortage of small-change coinage, or coinage of any kind, due to decades of being on a war footing - they had the American Revolution, then the French Revolution, then the Napoleonic Empire. These coins were an attempt to restore both quality and quantity to British coinage, thanks to the impressive capabilities of the James Watt steam-powered press. Boulton had been lobbying the government for years for permission to use his machines to strike official coins, using token production as one means of convincing people that their product would be more than satisfactory.

Beautiful coin - I would say VF to gVF condition, which makes it fairly scarce.

Agree with others about Great recoinage. Until the 1750s, the coinage of silver and gold at least was fairly regular, but after the 1757/8 era issues of all coins except Fractional guineas for some reason became spasmodic.

For instance in George III's reign, the 6d was only issued in 1787 and then 1816 onwards. A one off issue of shillings came out in 1763 known as the "Northumberland shillings" possibly as the Duke bankrolled it. Then more shillings in 1787 and the scarce Dorien Magens one in 1798.

Even copper was spasmodic with halfpennies only really being issued in 1771/6 and again in 1799, 1806 and 1807. The cartwheels came at a time, when no Crowns or Halfcrowns had been issued since 1750/51. It was the equivalent now of using coins dated no later than 1972!

French revolution, the loss of America and then the threat of Napoleon did not make anything easier for coining. In 1798 and 1804 Spanish pieces of 8 were overstruck with a cameo of King George and so called "Bank Tokens" appeared in 1811 for odd amounts like 5d, 10d (Ireland), 1/6, 3/- and 5/6 value Bank of England dollars and counterstruck Spanish pieces of 8.

Even Maundy coins were affected with them appearing only every 3 to 4 years on average.

Then in 1816 it all changed - Napoleon's threat was gone, the country was expanding and getting wealthy - there was access to silver deposits mostly in Africa and they finally splashed out on new steam coin presses and a new mint at Tower Hill and in the 1816 - 1820 period you had 5 times as many coins issued than in the whole 1760 - 1815 period.

I wish there was a book about this.

Also I notice issues of copper coin before 1860 were not that reliable anyway. I think only a few coppers were issued in most years of KGIV and KWIV and most of the Victorian copper coins I see are 1842 - 1846 and 1853 - 1855. By copper I am not referring to the "Bun head bronze coins of 1860 - 1901 which were incredibly common in comparison"