Owner Comments:
If you have not already done so, I highly recommend reading the introduction of this set before continuing to the entry below. The former provides the historical context that will serve to enrich the information specific to this piece. Within this entry, I share a fair amount of contemporary documentation, both from letters and newspapers. In each instance, I have done my best to adhere to the original spelling, format, and emphasis.
“
I took up the subject because I thought it would be a publick good, and because Mr. Pitt had express'd a wish to me of seeing something done to put an end to the counterfeiting of copper coin”
- Matthew Boulton to Sir Joseph Banks, 1789
Throughout his lobbying efforts, Boulton made many bold claims. Some of which were clearly aspirational even by his assessment of his mint’s capability. Chief among these claims was that his new method of coining would render counterfeiting much more difficult, if not impossible. He argued that his application of steam power, among other things, would enable him to consistently produce perfectly round coins of a standard weight, diameter, thickness, and strike. Although it would play no part in the 1797 coinage, his business relationship with Jean Pierre Droz led him to propose the application of edge lettering to further dissuade counterfeiting (Peck, 1964; Doty, 1998; Selgin, 2011). By the time Boulton received a contract to produce regal copper coinage for England on March 3rd, 1797, Droz was far removed, and no significant progress had been made on the edge lettering apparatus (Doty, 1998). The terms of the coinage contract mandated Boulton to produce Pence and Twopence pieces, which were far larger and thicker than anything the mint had produced thus far. Fraught with technical difficulties, it was a small miracle that the contract did not specify a lettered edge, as this would have certainly been the straw that broke the camel's back.
Despite the lack of a lettered edge, Boulton’s new copper coinage met the specifications of his proposal. Although slight variance is unavoidable in any process, the standard of quality control was far above that of any other mint at the time. The quality of the strike was consistent thanks to the steam presses, and the industrialized process of creating the planchets ensured they were of uniform weight, diameter, and thickness. Perhaps even more impressive is the size of these coins, with the Pence (36 mm; one ounce) being dwarfed by the Twopence (41mm; 2 ounces). The large size of these coins allowed for a novel design of broad raised rims paired with an incuse legend. The idea being that the raised rims would help protect the primary devices from excessive wear. Likewise, the incuse legend would ensure it remained legible even after extensive circulation. Taken together, the assumption is that both features would make counterfeiting much more difficult, as even a heavily circulated genuine example would still be of far superior quality relative to the forgeries of the Tower Mint pieces from the 1770s. This point is well made in a brief report within The Reading Mercury & Oxford Gazette dated August 28, 1797:
NEW PENNY PIECES.
They have the appearance of a fine medal. - The words round the rim are indented, to prevent being easily counterfeited. The head is a likeness of his Majesty, at the bottom of which is the letter K. for king, but so small as to be scarce visible without the application of a magnifying glass. On the exergue is the figure of Britannia seated on a rock, with her Trident and Olive Branch; and, at a Distance, a ship in full sail, and the waves of the sea are emblematically delineated. At the bottom of the shield is the word Soho, in small letters, signifying the manufactory. The whole is well executed, and from there being full weight, and good copper, base ones will not be easily manufactured, from the great expense of engraving the dies.
No less than 25l. worth of the new copper coin can be had from Somerset-house. The Two-penny pieces are not expected to be ready till next week.
Although unintentional, the best deterrent to counterfeiting the Twopence pieces came from their unpopularity (Selgin, 2011). Public opinion rendered these coins impractical because of their size and weight. As a result, they did not circulate extensively. Instead, they tended to accumulate in storekeepers’ drawers, who in turn had no real way of exchanging them for paper or silver. However, the Pennies were very well received and circulated without hesitation. It is perhaps for this reason that the counterfeiters sought them as an opportunity to make a profit while inadvertently defying Boulton’s claims. While the earlier pieces could be easily identified as poor-quality casts (see page 317 of Doty for an illustration), as time went on, the counterfeits became quite sophisticated. As noted by Clay and Tungate (2009) and further substantiated by Selgin (2011), the shallow designs proved to be much easier to reproduce than Boulton thought. Soon, counterfeiters were engraving dies that were close replications of the actual design and producing relatively high-quality counterfeits with hand-operated presses.
Having no faith in the local law enforcement, Boulton took pursuing these operations into his own hands. It is clear from his correspondence that he understood this would not be an easy task. These clandestine operations were built around tight-knit communities. Information would be costly, but Boulton had little other option. After all, his reputation and thus the success of his business were on the line. Acting on this plan, he took out an advertisement published in the Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, which appeared on Monday, September 4, 1797:
NEW COPPER COIN.
INFORMATION Having been received, that the COPPER COIN legalized by Act of Parliament and his Majesty's Proclamation, Which is issued from SOHO MINT, has been COUNTERFEITED - I hereby offer a Reward of ONE HUNDRED GUINEAS, over and above the Sum allowed by Government, upon Conviction of any Person or Persons who shall have been concerned in making or issuing such Counterfeits.
MATTHEW BOULTON.
Soho, September 2, 1797.
Despite Boulton’s early action, it wouldn’t be until 1799 before he was able to make any progress towards stopping the counterfeit operations. Dickerson (1936) gives a full, unabridged replication of the letter Boulton sent to the Lords of the Committee on Coin, which details his simultaneous raid on three separate counterfeiting facilities (pages 152-154). In this letter, Boulton mentions that at one of the facilities they found “
a coining press with Dies fixt on it for striking counterfeit peny pieces, of which I send your Lordships a specimen, there were a number of Blanks as well as money ready coined out of the sd Dies (…)”. Interestingly, Boulton notes in his letter that the copper used to strike these counterfeits was purchased in October when prices were lower. This implies that he did not consider the possibility that the raw material may have been provided by melting down genuine examples, which was a method largely employed in past decades with the Tower Mint coinage. The result of these raids was published in the Northampton Mercury on February 9th, 1799:
Birmingham, February 4.
On Wednesday Richard Barber, button-maker, of Navigation-street, in this town, was apprehended and examined before our Magistrates, on a charge of counterfeiting the coin of this realm. A quantity of coining implements, and of counterfeit Soho Pennies, and common half-pence, were found in his possession. Butler (who remains in our prison) and his employers, must have had a lucrative trade, as 16 of Mr. Boulton's pieces weigh exactly one pound: whereas it required to make that weight of the counterfeit pence 21, and of the half pence 54.
At the same time Thomas Nicholls, Plater, of Fleet-street, in this town, was also charged with coining. He appears to have been Barber's principal, and a considerable quantity of base Half Crowns and Shillings were found in his shop, through a Trap Door in which he escaped at the moment of the Officers of Justice were upon the point of apprehending him.
John Hoosen, of this town, a character well known, has been apprehended at Chester for circulating counterfeit Guineas and Half Guineas in that city, and counties of Denbigh and Flint.
The most important piece of information we learn from the above excerpt is that Richard Barder was producing counterfeit 1797 Pence weighing around 21.59 grams, which is roughly two-thirds of what a genuine example weighs. This information pairs nicely with that provided by Peck (1964) in his entry classified as P-1110, which he suggests is a contemporary counterfeit struck using genuine dies stolen from the Soho Mint. Peck (1964) provides no additional information to support the claim that counterfeits were struck from stolen dies and even notes that the origin of these pieces remains a mystery. An interesting possibility is that Richard Barber and presumably his accomplice, Thomas Nicholls, are the ones responsible for striking these counterfeits from the stolen dies.
Taking Peck’s (1964) claim at face value, it is reasonable to conclude that contemporary documentation of such a theft may never have existed. Contemporary sources make it a painfully obvious fact that Boulton was under constant scrutiny from Royal Mint officials, which, paired with the growing financial burden of his mint, dictated that he could afford no mistakes. Under these circumstances, it seems unlikely that a pair of dies for the new coinage would have been stolen without notice. For obvious reasons, it is unlikely Boulton would make a spectacle of such a theft if it did arise, as doing so could jeopardize any future coinage contracts. To this end, it would be illogical to note that the dies found during the raid were genuine. We may never know the exact details, but it is interesting to note that the dies for the 1797 coinage were supposed to be destroyed under the careful supervision of Mr. Sage, a Royal Mint official, on July 26th, 1799 (Doty, 1998). This timing has left some to speculate that one event was related to the other; however, the Pence and Twopence coins were struck well into the early months of 1799. The destruction of the working dies is most likely the natural end of production, given the lack of additional need, and is thus nothing more than a coincidence.
References
Dickerson, H. W. (1936). Matthew Boulton. Cambridge: Babcock and Wilcox, LTD. At the University Press.
Doty, R. (1998). The Soho Mint and the Industrialisation of Money. London: National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution.
Peck, C. W. (1964). English Copper, Tin, and Bronze Coins in the British Museum 1558-1958. London: The trustees of the British Museum.
Selgin, G. (2011). Good Money Birmingham Button Makers, The Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775-1821. Oakland, California: The Independent Institute.