(1795) Washington North Wales halfpenny. Lettered edge. Baker-34a, Musante GW-51, W-11160. VF-30 (PCGS).148.0 grains. A rarity among the circulating Washington issues, dozens of times more elusive than the usually encountered plain edge. Glossy medium brown with the usual fatigued texture of both obverse and reverse. With little wear and relatively fresh surfaces, this coin could just as easily be considered a technical EF or AU, as it shows essentially the same detail today as when it was struck. Relatively bold for one of these, with good definition opposite the portrait at the central reverse. Only a short old scratch in front of the portrait’s nose requires mention. While these fit neatly into the Washington coin series of the 1790s, they belong even more to the British evasion halfpenny series of the same era. Would-be counterfeiters made “commemorative medalets” of the precise size of a halfpenny, but severely underweight to ensure a suitable profit, with fanciful legends that closely imitate the statutory GEORGIUS III REX obverse with a BRITANNIA or HIBERNIA reverse. In this case, GEORGIVS WASHINGTON works quite nicely, as does a harp that is a near duplicate of those found on contemporary Irish halfpence. The greatest profits were made with the skimpiest planchets, so the vast majority of the pieces made from these dies were on thin, plain-edged planchets. These chunkier lettered edge pieces are rare exceptions, and they remain very elusive today.PCGS Population: 2; 9 finer.From the Archangel Collection. Earlier, from Stack’s, privately, June 1982.
