GREAT BRITAIN - SUPERIOR HISTORICAL GEORGE III COPPER TWO PENCE, 1797, KM# 619

Description

Superior historical George III Copper TWO PENCE, dated 1797, AE 40. The coin is identified as KM# 619.
The Obverse features
A right-facing laureated portrait of George III, and incused into the rim are the words GEORGIUS III·D·G·REX. The initial K appears on the lowest fold of the drapery at the base of the effigy, indicating that the design is the work of the German engraver Conrad Heinrich Kuchler.
The Reverse of the coin depicts
Seated Britannia,
facing left, holding an olive branch and trident. There are waves about her feet, with a small ship to the left and a Union Jack shield below and to the right. Date below on border. Soho mint mark (the word 'SOHO' below-right of the shield).
A bit of history. The minting of Silver pennies for general circulation was halted by the British government in 1660, because the cost of silver had risen too high. By the late 1700s this policy had caused a deficiency in the number of circulating pennies, and many merchants and mining companies had taken to issuing their own copper tokens. For example, the Parys Mining Company on Anglesey issued huge numbers of tokens (although their acceptability was strictly limited).  Also, from 1770 until the end of the 18th century the practice of melting down the official copper coins and making lightweight forgeries had become widespread.  To alleviate this coin shortage, in 1797, the government authorized Matthew Boulton to strike copper pennies and twopences - the largest regal coin to circulate in Britain - using a steam powered press  at his Soho Mint, in Birmingham. Boulton proposed that each coin should actually be made to contain its value in copper (two ounces avoirdupois), that the quality should be improved by using a retaining collar during striking (to give a perfectly round coin) and by designing the coins with thick raised borders to prevent them wearing so easily. This requirement meant that the coins were significantly larger than the silver pennies minted previously. The large size of the coins, combined with the thick rim where the inscription was punched into the metal, led to the coins being nicknamed "cartwheels" All "cartwheel" twopences are marked with the date 1797. In total, around 720,000 twopences were minted. At the time of their issue, with one of these Two Pence one could buy enough candles to last two weeks, and for three of them one could buy enough soap for the week. Many surviving cartwheels were used as weights for kitchen scales.
Because of their large size, spies loved Two Pence coins. During the Napoleonic Wars, they would cut cartwheels in half and hollow out their centers. When the halves were put back together, the spy had a secret compartment just the right size for smuggling messages.
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