THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

UNITED KINGDOM
terns which were made by various artists for the
improvement of the coinage, which continued to grow
from the death of George II. to 1816 scantier and
poorer, till tokens and counter-marked foreign specie
were brought into requisition to supply the deficiencies,
while the Brunswick-Liineburg or Hanoverian silver
currency of the King, with well-executed portraits and
in good style, was uninterrupted and profuse. The
scarcity of silver was most severely felt, as the coinage
of gold and copper was carried on more regularly. In
the year just mentioned, however, the deadlock came to
an end, and such a dilemma has never recurred.
The most notable productions of this reign were the
quarter-guinea of 1762, struck for the second and last
time, the seven-shilling piece, the Northumberland shil-
ling of 1763, of which there was a very limited issue
for a special purpose, the spade-guinea with the half,
the Maundy wire money of 1792, the broad-rimmed
copper series of 1797, including the novel twopenny-
piece, the first sovereign, 1817, with the half, and the
five-pound piece of 1820 by Pistrucci, of which it is
said that only twenty were struck.
The shorter administrations of George IV. and
William IV., and the extremely protracted one of
her present Majesty, bring us down to the present day
without enabling us to point to any striking achieve-
ments beyond the admirable works of Wyon and a
few novel types : the rose, shamrock, and thistle
money, of which the shilling of 1820 is rare, the lion
shilling and sixpence, Colonel Fullerton's patterns of
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