East India Company, Bombay Presidency, European Minting, 1791-4, Soho, a plated copper Trial...

A fascinating and unique Trial for the One-and-a-Half Pice, 1791 East India Company, Bombay Presidency, European Minting, 1791-4, Soho, a plated copper Trial or Pattern One-and-a-Half Pice or 6 Reas, 1791, struck on a flan intended for a Halfpenny token, balemark, rev. scales with long pivot and one hanging loop, further loops behind, no witness marks in field, adil [Justice] between shallow pans, broad toothed borders both sides, edge payable in dublin or london · · · · ·, 10.81g/6h (Prid. – [not in Sale]; cf. Stevens p.338; KM. –). Good very fine, a fascinating piece, UNIQUE [certified by NGC as a Pice, graded PF 62] £2,000-£3,000 --- Provenance: Wolfson Trust Collection, Sotheby Auction (London), 13 February 1986, lot 316. Owner’s ticket and envelope. A white metal splasher of the reverse exists (Stevens Collection, Part IV, lot 2122) where it was described as a double-pice because of its weight, 13.2g. The size of the dies employed on this finished piece might suggest a pice was the intended denomination, a line of thought followed by the 1986 cataloguer; perhaps, though, with the idea in mind that the first coins to be struck for the Company’s order were one-and-a-half pice, to the weight range of +/- 10g, a random halfpenny token blank (not a Soho product, but more likely from the William Lutwyche manufactory) was employed as an approximate weight equivalent in an effort to provide a second stage in the design and approval process in February 1791