Old King George III Token (1790)

The spade guinea is a gold coin of King George III, so-called because its crown over pointed shield looks like a garden spade. It was minted from 1787 to 1799, and after the laps of a few years, the sovereign became the standard British gold coin.

In later years, the old spade guineas and half spade guineas were copied extensively and used as advertisement tokens, card counters, commemorative medals, and as parts of badges when holed for suspension.

Most are anonymous, but a small portion had their legends changed to indicate their issuer or their purpose. R. N. P. Hawkins published an important series of articles on them in the 'British Numismatic Journal' from 1960 to 1968, and there has been increased collector interest in the series recently because of the publication of two books: David Magnay's “A Catalogue of Advertising Imitation Spade Guineas and Half Guineas'”(1997) and Bryce Nelson's '”One Thousand Guineas” (2004).

This one is dated 1790. Please see following picture…

Please note that all my auctions start at R1 with a ZERO reserve.

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