ANGLESEY AMLWCH 1/2d token 1788 Parys Mine Co. ex HAMER Start Price GBP 95.00 Current Price GBP 95.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Thursday, November 27, 2008 End Time Saturday, December 27, 2008 Location London See more about 'ANGLESEY AMLWCH 1/2d token 1788 Parys Mine Co. ex HAMER' Description ANGLESEY AMLWCH 1/2d token 1788 Parys Mine Co. ex HAMER Description 18th. century copper halfpenny dated 1788 of the Parys Mine Company at Amlwch in Anglesey.  Obverse : Cowled Druid's head left in an oaken wreath.  Reverse :  PMCo. cypher.  Edge : 'PAYABLE IN ANGLESEY LONDON OR BRISTOL'.    Diesinker - Hancock.  manufacturer - PMCo. The Parys Mine Company was formed in 1778 and was jointly owned by the Rev. Edward Hughes of Amlwch and Greenfield Hall Holywell in Flintshire,  Thomas Williams a lawyer at Llanidan and MP for Marlow and eventually Anglesey and John Dawes a London stockbroker.  It was Thomas Williams (1737-1802) who was the prime mover of the mining enterprise and this whole token issue.  His mining, smelting and manufacturing empire stretched the breadth of North Wales and beyond into Lancashire and Cornwall.  The Parys Mine Company had large smelting works in South Wales and manufactured copper at Holywell. Parys Mine was about two miles from the small port of Amlwch.  In 1768 rich deposits were found a few feet beneath the ground surface of the Mountain.  Through his wife, the Rev Hughes owned this mountainside  and soon two thousand men were being employed to mine between twenty and forty thousand tons of copper per annum !   With the copper to hand these tokens were initially made to ease the situation of little small change amongst the miners  however, soon these Druid halfpennies were being made to provide respected copper change throughout the whole country.    D&H . Anglesey 279        29mm.         Ex Hamer col. 1904, (as in Dalton & Hamer, bought for 3/- in 1904),  ex Cockayne 1940s.  Sold with Baldwin's and his original  tickets.  Almost UNCIRCULATED, bright bronzed-like toning with traces of original lustre in wreath and legend. Place a Bid!