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William & Mary Halfcrown 1693/3HalfcrownsChard 24 Carat Home Page
1693/3 Halfcrown Obverse
Second Busts Obverse of William & Mary Halfcrown
William & Mary Halfcrowns
1693/3 Halfcrown Reverse
Reverse of Halfcrown 1693 Over 1692 Overdate
William & Mary
Many people are fascinated when they see their first coin featuring conjoined portraits. I can still remember the novelty of seeing a William and Mary coin for the first time over 35 years ago, and I still retain a soft spot for this attractive design. I presume that it provides an extra level of challenge for the engraver, also, although there were certainly a number of Roman coins featuring conjoined portraits.

Obverse:
Conjoined busts of King William III, and Queen Mary II facing right. Second busts type.
The obverse inscription reads:
GULIELMUS ET MARIA DEI GRATIA

Reverse:
Crowned cruciform shields type. The shields bear three leopards, a harp, three fleurs-de-lys, and a rampant lion for the House of Orange,
Quite what went on at the mint in 1693 is hard to guess. Most of the denominations were struck with date errors. Possibly an inexperienced assistant was given the task of punching the date onto the dies. Most denominations seem to been produced with a variety in which the 3 of the date was struck upside down, others have a normal 3 struck over an inverted 3, while others are completely normal. Halfcrowns dated 1693 were struck in all three types. Our specimen is an overdate, i.e. it was struck with the 3 of the date stamped over an inverted 3 on the die. Overdating dies was quite a common practice, usually quoted as being an economy measure, so that existing dies could be used up after the year end, sometimes so that dies could be prepared in advance, and on other occasions, purely because the die-sinker was concealing an error, and not wanting to waste an expensively produced workable die. Most overdates are simply the last figure of the date being struck over the digit for the preceeding year.
Thanks to a Mr. V. who kindly pointed out our previous error in the information on this page.
The reverse legend reads:
MAG BR FR ET HIB REX ET REGINA

Edge
The edge is inscribed in raised letters:
DECUS ET TUTAMEN ANNO REGNI QUINTO

Price & Availability
DateDescriptionGradeAvailabilityPrice £Price $
1693/2Second busts, third reverse, 3 over 2 overdate3436good FineSold£165$295

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