The COINEX Sale: Important British, Italian and World Coins

BRITISH COINS FROM OTHER PROPERTIES, Miscellaneous Trials and Proving Pieces, Press set-up piece [in conjunction with Cincinnati Inc], in bronze, Britannia seated right, hand-striking a coin, britannia moneta, rev. from Cincinnati’s advertising check, if a cincinnati salesman can’t match this coin he’ll buy you a beer, edge plain, 20.5mm, 4.50g/12h. Extremely fine and extremely rare (£80-100)

Provenance:
Joanna Tansley Collection, DNW Auction 67, 28 September 2005, lot 480.

This piece was struck on one of the Cincinnati presses installed at Llantrisant and set up for the initial striking of the New Penny. The only possible time the die-pairing could have existed is at the Royal Mint, as the ‘Britannia Moneta’ dies are never allowed to leave the facility; the Cincinnati die would have been brought in to the Mint, used to set up the press and demonstrate that the die was correctly set, as part of the commissioning process, then removed from the site when Cincinnati’s engineers left