Georgius III Dei Gratia 1797

26mm, brass

About this token:

• July 2006 - following information was from an eBay auction:
  IMITATION SPADE GUINEAS
  There is an extensive series of Advertising and Standard Imitation Spade Guineas, issued in brass and not gold, mostly in the 1800’s during the reign of Queen Victoria although to avoid the Counterfeit Laws they have the bust of King George III, mainly, and the reverse is usually the spade shield, – hence the name “spade guinea”. Many are also dated in the 1700’s and not in the 1800’s. Their purpose was as gaming gambling counters, to look like sovereigns and half sovereigns, also to show off the expertise of the engravers and manufacturers many of whom were named on the piece – mainly from Birmingham, UK – and as advertising tokens for many types of business, as “give away’s” or promotional items. Many were pierced at manufacture for suspension purposes and it is perfectly acceptable to collect coins in that condition. There are over 1,000 different types to collect and this is a growing sector of Numismatic interest. Whilst some pieces – such as the “In Memory of the good old days” are extremely common, some of the advertising pieces are excessively rare and command prices of well over £100. The work of reference for the whole series is “A Thousand Guineas” by W Bryce Neilson, published in 2003 and covering 70 pages. Cost £16. [The book "A Thousand Guineas" is available from Galata for about $37 US including shipping (price subject to change)]
• April 2006 - Another box of these tokens on eBay: 133 george 111 gaming token in original box dated 1788. Sold for $41 plus shipping (from England)
  
• Dec. 2004 - I just spotted an interesting auction on eBay: "JETONS. 144 Spade Half Guineas in Original Box." No information about age, but had the following picture:
  
• An article about these tokens appeared in "Coin News", Oct. 1983, p. 46-7.
• Very often in the old English and French 18th century there was a shortage of hard currecy. People would mint there own coinage. Fake or real looking was purportatdly in circulation of up to 80% of the copper during that time period. As a result these midnite minters would use the equipment to provide gaming tokens for the wealthy to use in their gambling areas. Either at home or in casinos. These jeton like pieces are pretty common and you can pick them up here and there for anywhere between 2 and 20 dollars each.
• As you rightly say the imatation spade guineas dated 1797 (and many other dates) were used as gaming counters. They are fairly common and are to be found with various ledgends. They were produced prolifically during the Victorian and Edwardian periods and used more by families in homes for playing cards than in gaming houses. I recently bought a box of junk and in it was small box containing about 100 of the spade guinea type and 30 smaller silver coloured ones, which I have never seen before.
• An imitation Guinea (imitation of a George III Guinea). There are many different type of these and sizes do vary. Many piece though have the ". Good old days" legend. These were used as gaming counters a LONG time ago.
• I have seen this before. All I can say for sure is it is not from 1797. It is not listed in Dalton & Hamer, the definitive reference for British tokens of this period.

Know anything about this token? Please send me a note: pineconeforge(at)gmail.com

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