165, Lot: 299. Estimate $100. Sold for $106. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IRELAND / AMERICA. George I of England. 1714-1727. Æ Halfpenny (26mm, 7.56 g). Dated 1723. No stop before H, small 3. Laureate head right / Hibernia seated left, with harp. SCBC 6601; Breen 155. Fine, rough surfaces.

William Wood, a British mine owner, convinced the British government to authorize the private manufacture of bronze coinage for the North American colonies (Rosa Americana) and Ireland (Hibernia). However, the king’s avaricious mistress, Ehrengarde Melusina, Duchess of Munster and Kendal, aka “The Maypole”, grabbed the patents after George signed them, leaving Wood adrift until he paid her £10000 for the authorizing documents. Wood finally struck his coinage at private mints at the French Change in London and in Bristol, with a low regard for quality control and weight standards (that £10000 would have been put to good use). The new coins were roundly rejected in both Ireland and America, whose colonial governments also objected to their issuance without any input from local officials. Wood got into a bitter public slanging match with the Irish press, goaded on by the satirist Jonathan Swift, which did not help his cause. He abandoned the effort in 1725 upon payment of a stipend to give up the patents. In later years speculators bought up the Hibernia coinage as scrap metal and shipped large quantities to America, where a dire coin shortage eventually lead to their acceptance, no matter how poor quality they were.