preserved as curiosities, thereby acquiring an imaginary value, which grew rapidly as soon as some sharp fellow saw how useful the figment might be made. But the immediate cause of the popular fallacy concerning the scarcity and great value may be found in the fact, that at the end of the last century a lady of Yorkshire having lost one of these coins, offered a large reward for it. Probably it was valuable to her as a souvenir of some departed friend; but the advertisement, and the comparative scarcity of these farthings, gradually led to the report that there was only one such token in circulation, and that the unique coin was of course of almost priceless value. Long before this, however, advertisements in reference to Anne’s farthings had found their way into the papers. So far as we can discover, the first of these appeared in the General Advertiser of April 19, 1745, and ran as follows:—
WHEREAS about seven years ago an Advertisement was published in some of the Daily Papers offering a Reward for a Queen Anne’s Farthing struct in the year 1714.
This is to inform the Curious
That a Farthing of Queen Anne of that year of a very beautiful dye may be seen at the Bar of the Pensylvania Coffeehouse in Birchin Lane. The impression is no ways defaced but as entire as from the Mint.
This, probably, just at the time when a furor was in existence with regard to the farthings, must have given a fillip to the business at the Pennsylvania Coffee-house; and must have done a great deal to spread the belief that a Queen Anne’s coin was much more desirable than the wonderful lamp of Eastern story, or the more modern but quite as powerful four-leaved shamrock. That in 1802 the fiction was still lively is shown by an advertisement which appeared