was reintroduced. The contract for the new coins stipulated that the copper used should be English and the blanks struck at the Mint. It is noticeable that Charles II's Swedish copper halfpennies have toned to a dark red colour, while the William and Mary halfpennies tone to black, presumably because of different impurities in the copper. The obverse inscription read GVLIELMVS ET MARIA, while the reverse reads BRITANNIA (with the date beneath Britannia in 1694). The 1689–1692 coins have the edge inscription NVMMORVM FAMVLVS with the date. For the widowed King William III, the production of halfpennies continued under the contract granted during the previous reign. However it soon became apparent that the manufacturers were in breach of contract – to save costs, not only were some of the blanks being cast rather than struck, but some of the coins were themselves being cast in one operation. There were other ways in which the manufacturers were economising on expenses – cheap labour was being used, including foreigners some of whom could not spell or punctuate the words they were engraving on the dies. Towards the end of the reign both the workmanship and the design and production of the dies for the copper coinage had sunk to a nadir, which is curious as simultaneously the mint was producing the highest quality work in the five and two guinea pieces which were being produced. By 1698 there was a glut of copper coinage and an Act was passed to stop the coining for one year; this seems to have had little effect and the proliferation continued. There were further Parliamentary attempts to control the glut of coinage later. The William III halfpenny appears with various distinct types of engraving of the king's head, Britannia, and the inscriptions, with the quality getting worse as the reign wore on. The coins were copper, weighing 8.9 to 11.5 grams, with a diameter of 28–29 millimetres. The king's effigy on the obverse faced right, with the inscription GVLIELMVS TERTIVS – William the Third. Britannia appears on the reverse with the inscription BRITANNIA and the date normally in the exergue beneath Britannia. Coins were produced each year between 1695 and 1701. Due to the glut of copper coinage, there was no need to produce any copper halfpennies during the reign of Queen Anne (1701–1714). The United Kingdom Soon after the accession of King George I (1714–1727)