Woods Hibernian 1723 colonial Halfpenny

[dooly]

Hi all not been finding much of late but just picked a little collection up and found this little belter

 

 

I am about to send it off for conservation and have been trying to pin its KM number .. which is proving complicated

 

I think i can say that it is Obv: type 2 and seems to be the 3rd type of the ones listed for the type 2 reverse as it has no dot before HIBERNIA on the reverse but the Nose points to the top of the I in GRATIA and the top of the bows tail points to the top of the G in GEORGIUS.

this is confusing as Type 1 Obv: Nose points to Top of I and bow tail points to I

Type 2.1 nose points to Gap between T & I and bow to between I & U

Type 2.2 Nose points to Gap between I & A and bow to bottom of G (GEO much higher below bust)

Type 2.3 nose points to Gap between I & A and bow to bottom of G

So as you can see from this picture there is no match

 

 

it then gets even more confusing as the variety listed for "Without dot

 

 

As you can see from this 23 the position of the "leaf" is between the N & I

 

but on the 24 it is between the R & N which is like my 23 example but still not in exactly the same position

 

also i cannot see any evidence of altered B's to form R's

 

[ldhair]

Nice find dooly.

[Conder101]

Frankly the pictures in Krause don't look like altered B's either. I think they would probably consider it to be KM 117.4 but you would actually have to get a specific reference to actually determine which variety it is.

[dooly]

Frankly the pictures in Krause don't look like altered B's either. I think they would probably consider it to be KM 117.4 but you would actually have to get a specific reference to actually determine which variety it is.

 

cheers conder101 .. yep its kind of where i was heading with it .. I have the spinks Scottish Irish and islands book which also is of little help .. ? anyone know of a better book on them ?

[dooly]

http://www.colonialcoins.org/Martin_Hibernia_book_toc.htm

 

found this link ? anyone know if the book is any good ?

[Conder101]

Well that book just came out. It was published by the Colonial Coin Collectors Club (C4). The author is a recognized expert on colonial coins. It has 130 pages of obv dies and 118 pages of rev dies. If it is anything like the other books that C4 has published ir will be a scholarly work with plenty of references, with a quality hard bound binding, heavy but not glossy paper stock, and will quite likely become the standard reference for the series.

 

A second possibility would be Dave Bowers book on colonial coins (Published by Whitman), No where near as much depth but it has decent attribution guides an photos of all or almost all of the varieties of all the colonial series (I assume it has the Woods coinage as well.) The pictures are disturbing at first because they all have the golden look of scrubbed copper, but the coins are high enough grade to let you see the diagnostics easily. The down side is the images are not much larger than actual size. I;m betting the C4 book will have three inch or larger images that will make it easier to see.

 

The Bowers book may have the advantage of having been out longer maybe being available locally. The postage on the C4 book for you would be a bit of a killer.