English Three Farthing coin

The silver three-farthing ( 3⁄4d) coin was introduced in Queen Elizabeth I's third and fourth coinages (1561-1582), as part of a plan to produce large quantities of coins of varying denominations and high metal content.

The obverse shows a left-facing bust of the queen, with a rose behind her and the legend E D G ROSA SINE SPINA – Elizabeth, by the grace of God a rose without a thorn – while the reverse shows the royal arms with the date above the arms and a mint mark at the beginning of the legend reading CIVITAS LONDON – City of London, the Tower Mint.

The three-farthings coin closely resembles the three-halfpence coin, differing only in the diameter, which is 14 millimetres for an unclipped coin, compared to 16 mm for the three-halfpence.

All the coins are hammered, except for the extremely rare milled three-farthings of 1563, of which only three examples are known to exist.

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