Important British and World Coins

Miscellaneous, Ralph Heaton & Son, Birmingham: Copper check, 1851, ralph heaton & son birmingham around general coiners, rev. crown above a counter in wreath, date below, edge plain, 23mm, 5.55g/12h (Sweeny 10; Hawkins pl.16, 2; cf. Noble II, 1153). Extremely fine, toned (£30-40)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Joanna Tansley Collection of Patterns, Proofs and Coining Trials.

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This is probably the first advertising check for Ralph Heaton & Son, brassfounders, diesinkers, stampers and piercers, Bath street, Birmingham, the business so styled in 1848 when, at the age of 21, Ralph Heaton III (1827-91) joined his father, Ralph Heaton II (1794-1862) in it. Following their purchase of some of the coining presses from the auction of the Soho Mint machinery in April 1850, Heaton’s received their first coinage order from Chile in 1851. The check shown above, its reverse styled on the then current Imperial shilling and sixpence, was obviously made with an eye on a future British coinage contract. It wasn’t long in coming; early in 1853 Ralph Heaton III, then domiciled in Marseille where he was running the re-equipped French mint, learnt that the Master of the Mint in London wished to outsource all that year’s production of Imperial copper coins, from the penny to the quarter-farthing. Ralph III tendered for the business, won it and the Heaton mint at Shadwell street had turned out 500 tons of copper coins, at a rate of up to 80,000 coins per day, by August 1853; the company’s big copper contract with the Royal Mint was completed in 1855. As a result of this success, the style of the Bath street business changed to Ralph Heaton & Sons in 1854, reflecting the management changes wrought by Ralph III, the effective head of the business by that time