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Research Coins: Feature Auction

 
Sale: CNG 69, Lot: 2172. Estimate $750. 
Closing Date: Wednesday, 8 June 2005. 
Sold For $850. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

HANOVER. George I. 1714-1727. AR Halfcrown (14.97 gm, 6h). South Sea Company issue. Dated DECIMO and 1723. Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Crowned cruciform coat-of-arms around Garter Star; SS and C in quarters. ESC 592; SCBC 3643. Good VF, rainbow toning. ($750)

The South Sea Company, chartered in 1711, was granted a monopoly on trade with the Pacific region and South America. The Company's initial ventures, primarily dealing in slaves, did not prove adequately profitable, and in 1720 the directors conceived a grand plan- to assume the national debt and issue shares based on assumed revenue. Their stock offering touch off a national mania. Shares reached a high of $1050 in July of that year, and hordes of imitators, most complete frauds, followed in their footsteps. One enterprising gentleman offered shares in "A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is", which promptly sold out. The collapse of the "Bubble" a few months later bankrupted many (even Sir Isaac Newton lost £20,000), and led to revelations of fraud, bribery, duplicitous accounting and a host of other corrupt business practices. The South Sea Company managed to pull through in greatly shrunken form, and in 1723 provided bullion to the Royal Mint for coining into silver coins, the metal probably coming from privateers employed in the Pacific.