Ancient, British and World Coins and Banknotes, to include the Professor Jeffrey P Mass Collection of English Short Cross Coins, 1180-1247 (Part II) and British Medals from the James Spencer Collection (Part III)

18th Century, Lancashire, Halsall, Col. Charles Mordaunt, Penny, arms of the Earls of Peterborough, rev. value, edge engrailed, 17.32g/6h (DH 1). Usual small die flaw in reverse field, good very fine, nicely patinated (£90-120)

Col Charles Lewis Mordaunt (c.1729-1808), a former Guards officer appointed JP in March 1763, came into possession of the Mohun estate at Halsall, near Ormskirk, in the late 1760s. A decade later he had built a cotton mill there and by 1782 was employing 160 women and children. As early as December 1783 John Moon, Mordaunt’s superintendant, was in touch with Boulton & Watt, enquiring about having tokens made; it seems that they were issued shortly after this time and, therefore, they pre-date the pioneering Anglesey series (cf. Dykes, BNJ 2004, p.165)