British Tokens, Tickets and Passes

19th Century Tokens, Warwickshire, The largest copper coin ever issued in Great Britain:

Birmingham, Workhouse, Sixpence, 1813, elevation of Workhouse, rev. arms, edge plain, 166.30g/6h (W 375). Two large incisions on obverse, reverse with marks in field most likely caused by the manufacturing process, otherwise about very fine and extremely rare, believed about 10 specimens now known £1,200-1,500

Provenance: Baldwin Auction 61, 26 May 2009, lot 443.

Illustration reduced. Although referred to in the latest literature as patterns never released for circulation, it seems likely, from the wear on the surviving specimens (of which several have appeared on the market over the years, this being the third example auctioned by DNW since 2007), that these coins did enter circulation for a limited time. Weighing five and a half ounces each, they owe their probable existence to the temporary low price of copper relative to silver at the time (cf. Noble I, lot 1921, note)