1791 Liverpool Halfpenny. Musante GW-19, Baker-17, Breen-1223. Copper. Lettered edge, PAYABLE IN ANGLESEY LONDON OR LIVERPOOL. AU Details--Cleaned (PCGS).

27.4 mm. 141.9 grains. Light steely tan with subtle rose accents in some of the recesses. Faint hairlines can be detected on close study, but the overall color is suggestive of a very light cleaning. Still, the detail is quite sharp, this having been a little handled example that likely entered a collection early on. Struck slightly off center on a flan that was a little too small, as usually seen for the issue, but the date is full and no letters are less than 50% present. Traces of soft luster remain, and the small rough patch from die rust or spalling is clearly evident in the left obverse field, as made. A bit scarcer as the English token variants go, enough so that this issue was sometimes given valuable plate space in 19th-century sales. When the Benjamin Haines collection was sold in 1863, the Liverpool halfpenny was called “extremely rare” with the note that only one other was known to him. It sold to Colin Lightbody for $25, the same amount a C.C. Wright Signing of the Declaration medal would bring just two months later.

From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex the Lawrence R. Stack Collection, November 2006.