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Auction: 17007 - Ancient, British and Foreign Coins and Commemorative Medals
Lot: 197

George III (1760-1820), gold Quarter Guinea, 1762, laureate head right, rev. crowned and garnished shield (S.3741), fashioned into a lover's token, otherwise about very fine

The practice of deforming currency to create a symbolic token of affection for one's sweetheart can be found on examples of coinage circulating in Britain at least as far back as the Tudor period. As most people carried money in a purse hung from their waist, it was thought that the one deformed piece would be easy to recognise as the lover's token and therefore would not simply be spent away. Joseph Addison in his "Adventures of Shilling" in 1710 provided a vividly imagined first hand account of a coin undergoing this unusual tradition:


"This wench bent me, and gave me to her sweetheart, applying more properly than she intended the usual form of, To my love and from my love. This ungenerous gallant, marrying her within a few days after, pawned me for a dram of brandy, and drinking me out next day, I was beaten flat with an hammer, and again set a running"

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