George II Gold Five Guineas: Design, Heraldry, and the 1746 Lima Bullion Issues

Historical Context

The gold five-guinea piece struck under King George II (reigned 1727–1760) represents the largest circulating denomination of the British milled gold coinage and stands as the final substantive series of its denomination ever produced for general circulation in Great Britain.

Following Sir Isaac Newton's Treasury report during his tenure as Master of the Mint, a Royal Proclamation and Order in Council dated 22 December 1717 permanently set the value of the guinea at 21 silver shillings. Consequently, the five-guinea piece possessed an official statutory valuation of 105 shillings, or five pounds and five shillings (£5 5s). Under George II, striking of five-guinea pieces took place at the Tower of London across eight separate dates: 1729, 1731, 1735, 1738, 1741, 1746, 1748, and 1753. The 1753 emission concluded the regular currency life of the denomination, although later five-pound issues belong to a distinct denomination and must be classified separately.

The historical background of the 1746 issue is intimately linked to the maritime conflicts of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and the War of Jenkins' Ear (1739–1748). Under a formal Royal Mint warrant, captured Spanish colonial bullion sent to the Mint was ordered to bear the hallmark provenance stamp LIMA below the truncation of the King's bust on both gold and silver issues. The 1746 LIMA five guineas was the sole date and the largest gold denomination in the entire provenance-marked emission, produced to advertise British naval and privateering victories across the Atlantic and Pacific spheres.

Obverse Iconographic Composition

The obverse composition of the George II five-guinea series reflects two major stylistic periods in eighteenth-century British royal portraiture. The earlier strikings (1729 through 1741) employ the "Young Head" portrait designed by Chief Engraver John Croker, depicting the monarch with smooth facial planes and youthful classical contours.

Beginning on gold coinage in 1746, the Mint introduced the mature "Old Head" portrait, designed and engraved by Croker's successor as Chief Engraver, John Sigismund Tanner. King George II is depicted facing left in the classical Roman manner, with a bare, undraped neck and truncation. He wears a laurel wreath tied at the occiput with prominent ribbons that terminate in dual loops and flowing ends. The King's hair is rendered in deeply cut baroque curls that cascade past the laurel garland over the nape of the neck and down toward the back of the shoulder.

On the 1746 LIMA issue, the provenance mark LIMA. is punched directly into the lower field beneath the truncation curve of the bust. A raised outer rim enclosed by a continuous border of uniform denticles borders the entire obverse design field.

Obverse Epigraphy and Inscriptions

The obverse legends on the series are struck in formal Latin lapidary capitals, interrupted by punctuation stops.

• Primary Legend: GEORGIVS·II· DEI·GRATIA·
• Exergual Provenance Mark (1746 issue): LIMA.
• Script: Latin capital lettering.
• Language: Latin, with the geographic colonial designation in Spanish/Latin form.
• Transliteration: GEORGIVS II DEI GRATIA / LIMA.
• Translation: "George II, by the Grace of God / Lima."

Epigraphic Arrangement: The primary royal name and titular phrase form a peripheral legend that arches clockwise around the bust, divided at the apex by the central leaf points of the King's laurel wreath. On the provenance issues, the word LIMA. appears horizontally centered in the lower exergual space, nestled between the baseline curve of the neck truncation and the lower denticulated border.

Reverse Iconographic Composition

The reverse features an ornate, baroque-garnished single royal shield of arms. This unified armorial layout replaced the cruciform four-shield design that had characterized English gold coin reverses under Charles II, James II, William and Mary, and Anne. The baroque garnished frame and shield composition used across the George II guinea series was designed and modeled by Mint engraver John Ochs.

The shield displays the complex quartered heraldic achievements of the combined British and Hanoverian crowns:

1. First Quarter (upper left): The impaled arms of England and Scotland (three lions passant guardant in pale for England, impaling a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counterflory for Scotland).
2. Second Quarter (upper right): The royal arms of France (three fleurs-de-lis, representing the traditional English royal claim to the French throne).
3. Third Quarter (lower left): The arms of Ireland (an Irish harp with scrolled pillar).
4. Fourth Quarter (lower right): The Electoral Arms of Hanover (Brunswick-Lüneburg), arranged tierced-in-pairle-reversed: two lions passant guardant for Brunswick; a semé of hearts surrounding a lion rampant for Lüneburg; and a running horse for Westphalia (Saxony). At the heraldic center of this fourth quarter sits an inescutcheon of pretence bearing the Imperial Crown of Charlemagne, designating the King's hereditary office as Arch-Treasurer (Archi-Thesaurarius) of the Holy Roman Empire.

The entire composition is ensigned by the Royal Crown of Great Britain, whose cross pattee and upper arches break through the outer inscription circle and split the date numerals, with the century digits positioned to the left and the year digits to the right.

Reverse Epigraphy and Inscriptions

The reverse perimeter bears an extended abbreviated Latin legend reciting the monarch's imperial, sovereign, and dynastic titles.

• Full Verified Inscription: ·M·B·F·ET·H·REX·F·D·B·ET·L·D·S·R·I·A·T·ET·E·17 46·
• Script: Latin capital lettering with raised pellet or interpunct stops.
• Language: Latin.
• Transliteration: Magnae Britanniae Franciae et Hiberniae Rex, Fidei Defensor, Brunsvicensis et Luneburgensis Dux, Sacri Romani Imperii Archi-Thesaurarius et Elector, 1746.
• Translation: "King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg, Arch-Treasurer and Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, 1746."

Epigraphic Arrangement: The legend reads continuously clockwise around the inner rim denticulation. The inscription opens at the upper right with the British and French titles, moves around the bottom edge through the German ducal and imperial offices, and concludes at the upper left. The split calendar year (17 and 46) flanks the upper cross of the royal crown.

Typology and Documented Variants

The George II five-guinea series falls into two major portrait families across eight recorded minting years, further segregated by provenance stamps, edge regnal years, and reverse die variations:

Typological Summary Matrix

Die Studies and Metrological Evidence

In Herbert Schneider's foundational die study of the series, the 1746 LIMA five-guinea issue was cataloged as deriving from a single die pairing, identified as Dies 8/8. This classification is preserved in the British Academy catalog of the Schneider Collection (SCBI 57, entry 564).

Statutory mint specifications under the Crown standard set the five-guinea piece at a target weight of 647.4 grains (approximately 41.964 grams) in 22-carat gold (.9167 fine) with a diameter of approximately 37 mm. Surviving institutional comparison specimens confirm adherence to this standard: the Cleveland Museum of Art specimen (CMA 1969.208) registers 41.907 grams and a diameter of 3.7 cm, while the Fitzwilliam Museum specimen (CM.5.1538-1933) records 41.90 grams with a 180° die axis.

Scholarly Debates and Attribution Limitations

Bullion Provenance: Anson vs. the Bristol Privateers

A long-standing tradition in popular numismatics attributed all George II coinage carrying the LIMA mark exclusively to the treasure brought home by Commodore George Anson following his circumnavigation aboard HMS Centurion (1740–1744). Anson's notable acquisitions included the looting of the Peruvian port of Paita in 1741 and the capture of the Manila-Acapulco galleon Nuestra Señora de Covadonga in 1743.

However, documentary re-examinations by Harry Apling (1970) demonstrated that the vast influx of Lima-stamped bullion delivered to the Tower Mint in late 1745 arrived from a different naval engagement. In July 1745, two Bristol privateering vessels, the Duke and the Prince Frederick (commanded by Captains Thomas Talbot and John Morecock), intercepted and captured two French merchant ships off the Azores: the Louis Érasme and the Marquis d'Antin. These vessels carried Peruvian silver and gold loaded at Callao (the port of Lima). In October 1745, forty-five wagonloads of this captured treasure were escorted through London to the Tower Mint under armed naval guard.

The Royal Mint Museum favours the Duke and Prince Frederick privateer explanation. That institutional interpretation is stronger than assigning all LIMA coinage to Anson, but the mark does not establish the gold of this individual specimen as the cargo of a particular ship. A specific mixed-melt history is not independently demonstrated here.

Limitations of Two-Dimensional Physical Inspection

The edge of the 1746 five-guinea piece was struck in raised lettering using the Castaing machine, reading DECVS ET TVTAMEN ANNO REGNI DECIMO NONO ("An ornament and a safeguard, in the nineteenth year of the reign"). While standard institutional catalogs record this text, standard two-dimensional planar photographs published in open-access museum portals (such as the online record for CMA 1969.208) depict only the obverse and reverse faces. Direct physical handling or edge photogrammetry remains necessary to observe edge stop varieties, lettering alignments, or potential collar slippage. Furthermore, uninspected specimens cannot have minting conditions or sub-varieties determined without direct physical verification.

References

1. The Gold Coins of England Arranged and Described Being a Sequel to Mr. Hawkins' Silver Coins of England. pp. 186, 190, 192
2. Cleveland Museum of Art: Five Guineas: George II, 1746 (Accession 1969.208). Accession record 1969.208, Norweb Collection
3. Fitzwilliam Museum Collection Database: George II 'LIMA' Gold 5 Guineas, 1746. Accession CM.5.1538-1933
4. The Royal Mint Museum: George II Monarchy Profile. Biographical and currency overview
5. The Lima Coinage of George II. Seaby's Coin and Medal Bulletin, no. 619 (March 1970), pp. 80–84
6. Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles 57: The Herbert Schneider Collection, Part II: English Gold Coins 1603–20th Century. Entry 564 (1746 LIMA 5 Guineas, dies 8/8)
7. The five guinea and two guinea pieces of George II, listed by dies. Spink Numismatic Circular 65, no. 1 (1957), pp. 8–12; no. 2 (1957), pp. 43–55