Pattern coin

A pattern coin is a coin which has not been approved for release, produced for the purpose of evaluating a proposed coin design. They are often off-metal strike, to proof standard or piedforts. They are collected or studied by many coin collectors because of their sometimes highly elaborate designs.

English patterns

The first English coin that can be identified with certainty is a groat, originally worth fourpence. This piece, an example of which was illustrated and sold in the Dodsley Cuff sale of the mid-19th century, had crowns in place of the usual three pellets in each quarter of the reverse.

Patterns are particularly identifiable and exist in larger numbers from the reign of Elizabeth I onwards. The experimental base metal issues of all coinage prior to the mid-18th century have been well preserved.

Boulton's mint in Soho produced prodigious quantities of patterns, which were supplemented by Taylor some fifty or so years later from the same dies.

Early United States patterns