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Hong Kong Victoria Type I

1866 Proof Fifty Cent reverse 1866 Proof Fifty Cent obverse

1866 Proof Fifty Cent

Mint:Hong Kong Monarch:Victoria Reverse Designer:William Wyon Obverse Designer:Leonard Wyon Size:32mm Weight:13.52g Edge:Reeded Composition:90% Silver
10% Copper

Values

Sales History

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The Hong Kong fifty cent was first struck at the new Hong Kong mint in 1866. The mint only produced the coin for two years before closing with great losses. The obverse features the Leonard Wyon effigy of Queen Victoria along with the legend QUEEN VICTORIA interspersed with a scroll pattern border. The reverse has a Chinese labyrinth centre, based on the Chinese character SHOU which translates to long life. Beyond the centre a four leaf clover containing Chinese characters depicting the date, denomination and country of origin. The legend reads HONG KONG ONE DOLLAR and there is a scroll pattern border on the edge. There is an overdate of 1867/6 which is the most difficult of the four fifty cent productions 1866, 1867, 1868 and 1867/6.

The official currency of Hong Kong was the British Pound although it was not well received by the population as the traders were used to the Chinese system of using the weight of silver for their transactions. It was the policy of the British Government to introduce sterling silver coinage to their colonies since 1825 and the Spanish and Mexican eight Reales became legal tender and set at a value of four shillings two pence. The Government eventually concluded that their efforts to introduce the sterling coinage was unsuccessful in overcoming the strong local support of the Spanish silver dollar. The British Government made the decision, as it had also done in Canada, that it could not displace the local currency and the Royal Mint in London commenced the issue of special subsidiary coinage to run alongside the local dollar currency.

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