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1723 Wood's Hibernia halfpenny, reverse with seated Hibernia and harp — Ghent University Library's example of the same issue; the tracked Martin-variety PCGS MS63-65 specimen is a different coin
1723 Wood's Hibernia halfpenny, reverse with seated Hibernia and harp — Ghent University Library's example of the same issue; the tracked Martin-variety PCGS MS63-65 specimen is a different coin

1723 Wood's Hibernia Halfpenny

Maker
William Wood (under royal patent, for Ireland/colonies)
Year
1723
Rank
54 of 100
Identifier
1/2d copper, Hibernia, Martin variety, PCGS MS63-65 Brown/Red Brown

1723 Wood's Hibernia Halfpenny

Price-guide value, not a sale: $4,000, dated 2025. This is not a sale. It is what the market was asking, and no transaction is recorded behind it.

What is it, and why is it in the FLOAT 100?

The notorious Wood's patent coinage that provoked Swift's 'Drapier's Letters'; widely collected as colonial American money.

1/2d copper, Hibernia, Martin variety, PCGS MS63-65 Brown/Red Brown

What is the best-sourced number for it?

Figure
$4,000
Kind
Price-guide value, not a sale
Date
2025

A price-guide value is an editorial estimate, not a transaction. Guides lag the market and smooth over grade and condition. It is useful as a floor for how the trade thought about the object, and it should be checked against a realized sale before anything rests on it.

By reference price, 1723 Wood's Hibernia Halfpenny is number 98 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (54 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

How this is made

The figure
One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
Realized or not
A realized price is a completed sale. A market asking price and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
Why no grade ladder
Most FLOAT 100 entries are individual objects. There is one of this, so there is no population and no spread across grades to show.
Archive
2026-08-08

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