Owner Comments:
Please note the introductory text is the same between the 1822 and 1823 halfpennies. An erroneous claim has been made for both.
In doing a little research on this coin, I noticed that several publications erroneously suggest that this coin would have been struck at the Soho Mint by Matthew Boulton. There are several issues with this statement. First, Matthew Boulton, who founded the Soho Mint, died in 1809, and his son Matthew Robinson Boulton took over the mint a short period before his death, so he and not his father would have struck these coins. Second, the Soho Mint never received another order for Irish coins after the first contract had been delivered in March of 1806. These facts make me think that what the authors were trying to say is that these coins were struck by the Royal Mint using the machinery purchased from the Soho Mint owner in 1805 and completely assembled at the new Royal Mint location of Little Tower Hill in the summer of 1807. This seems like a reasonable conclusion, but I would be very interested in hearing what others have to say.
Obverse: The obverse portrays George IV facing left. His hair is adorned with a laurel wreath of 13 leaves and no berries. The individual stems, as well as the midveins of most leaves, are visible. The wreath is tied together behind the neck with a ribbon with one bow and two loose ends, which droop down toward the shoulder. The bust is draped in cloth, which is caught by a round brooch with some indiscernible interior design on the left shoulder. The legend
GEORGIUS IV occurs to the left of the primary device, and the remaining portion
D : G : REX. occurs on the right. The rim is thin and raised with a toothed inner border. The entire legend is what one would expect from a proof strike with crisp details and no flaws.
Reverse: The reverse portrays a crowned harp with ten strings. The left side of the harp consists of a half-clad woman; her lower half is adorned with what I describe at a mermaid-like fin. Her top half is exposed with her arms depicted as wings that make up the top part of the harp where the crown rests. The bottom band of the crown is decorated with a pattern of precious stones that appears as the following: (◊ : · : · : ◊ : · : · : о : · : ·: ◊ : · : ·: ◊). It should be noted that the lozenge-shaped gems should be rotated 180 degrees, and the · : · pattern should be closer together to form a cross, but I did not know how to do that in word. The band immediately above the band decorated in gems has a Maltese cross at its center flanked by a fleur-de-Lis on either side with a vertically striated cushion-like design in the background. The outer bands of the crown are decorated with an undiscernible number of beads and converge in the middle of the inner centered Maltese cross, which is mounted by an orb and cross. The legend
HIBERNIA. occurs above the primary device with the date “1823” occurring at the bottom below the harp. The rim is thin and raised with a toothed inner border.
Edge: Plain
Notes: Holy smokes! I never would have imagined that a mate to the neon blue-toned 1822 proof halfpenny existed. My mind was blown when I stumbled upon this example for sale at auction. In an instant I made my mind up – I had to pair these two together. I bid live and ended up paying what I thought was an incredibly fair price. I now oddly completed the George IV proof Irish Halfpenny series even though I was not trying to do so. This coin and its perfectly matched counterpart are two of my favorite pieces and they will forever have a home in my collection.