in the February of that year. This was disguised so as to appear like an ordinary paragraph:—
The Queen Anne’s farthing, advertised to be disposed of in Pall Mall, proves to be an original. There were only two coined in that Queen’s reign, and not three as has been erroneously stated. That which was sold by the sergeant from Chatham for £400, was purchased by a noble viscount, curious in his selection of coins, &c. Seven Hundred guineas was the price asked for the one advertised last week. Five hundred was offered for it and refused. The owner lives at Lynn, in Norfolk. The offer was made by the son of a baronet, who wants to complete his collection.
Attention and credulity were so excited by the above paragraph, and many others of the same tendency, that no one thought of doubting that a Queen Anne’s farthing was worth more than a Jew’s eye; nor was it till some time after that the whole was discovered to be a fabrication, intended either to impose upon the credulity of the public, or, what is more likely, to enhance the value of such a coin to the holder, who was quietly waiting to realise. Whether he did so or not does not appear, but it is more than likely that he did not allow his opportunity to slip, but hooked one of those unconsciously greedy people who are always falling victims to their own selfishness as much as to the sharpers, and who, as soon as they are deluded, look for sympathy and redress to those very laws they were prepared to outrage when anything was apparently to be got by so doing. The belief that Queen Anne’s farthings are very valuable still obtains among the vulgar, notwithstanding the many times its absurdity has been exposed; and there is no particular reason for imagining that