1775 farthing

I was able to complete a date set of British George III farthings by the purchase of this piece, which has more red than the 1774 posted the other day.

One thing I look for in pre 1816 British pieces is the quality of the strike, as the production process did not have steam or any other power involved, and merely used weighted pulley systems to produce the strike. They often came out incompletely or flat as a result. The upper classes who controlled the country at the time often did not consider copper pieces to be real money, with the result that copper pieces were often of poor quality.

After the Napoleonic Wars and the introduction of steam powered coin presses in the early 1800s, production quality improved at the Royal Mint. Steam powered coins were produced earlier for Britain , not at the Royal Mint, but under license by the Soho Mint of Birmingham England, the first steam powered factory for mass production in the world.

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