George VI (1936-1952), Halfpenny, 1943, in nickel-brass, edge plain, 5.57g/12h. From a ‘bar end’, test mark on reverse, otherwise fine, very rare (£50-80)

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

View
Collection

Provenance:
DNW Auction 47, 8 September 2000, lot 253.

In the autumn of 1940 it was decided to move a small section of the Royal Mint away from Tower Hill to avoid enemy bombardment. After a search for a building to house the necessary plant and equipment, officials settled on the Pinewood Studios at Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire where, after extensive refitting, presses and other coining machinery were moved and set up in April and May 1941, coining commencing on 19 June 1941. The Iver ‘branch’ mint, the first auxiliary facility in the Royal Mint’s history, struck only base metal pieces, including brass threepences, pennies and halfpence, as well as Irish pennies and halfpence. Between 1941 and 1945 the mint produced an incredible 432 million coins, shipped back to Tower Hill nightly by the vanload. In the summer of 1945 operations were wound down and the Iver mint closed on 15 October (Foster pp.43-7; Challis pp.579-80; Stride, pp.177-8)