transportation problems, and the first halfpennies did not appear in circulation until after Christmas (the year did not end until 24 March in those days, so there were still three months before the start of 1673). The ideal of striking coins with a value equal to their production costs was not long maintained, and the coins were given a face value slightly higher than their metal content, so inevitably counterfeits soon began to appear. Charles II's head faces left on the copper coinage, and right on the silver coinage. The copper halfpenny weighed between 10.0 and 12.0 grams and had a diameter of 28–31 millimetres. The inscription on the obverse, around the king's head, reads CAROLVS A CAROLO – Charles, son of Charles – while the reverse shows BRITAN NIA around the left facing seated Britannia, holding a spray and trident, with the date beneath Britannia. Coins were produced dated 1672, 1673, and 1675. The halfpennies of King James II (1685–1688) were made of tin with a small square plug of copper in the centre. The corrosion properties of tin mean that very few coins survive in a good state of preservation, not helped by the electrochemical reaction between copper and tin. The objects of using tin were to produce coins at a profit while at the same time producing a coin which would be difficult to counterfeit, and at the same time to assist the ailing tin-mining industry. The coins weighed between 10.5 and 11.6 grams, with a diameter of 28–30 millimetres. The obverse showed the right-facing effigy of the king with the inscription IACOBVS SECVNDVS – James the Second – while the reverse shows the same Britannia as before. Unusually, the date appears not on the reverse but on the edge of the coin, which has the inscription NVMMORVM FAMVLVS date – an ancillary coinage. The coins were produced in 1685, 1686, and 1687. In the joint reign of King William III and Queen Mary II (1689–1694), the production of bimetallic tin/copper halfpennies continued in 1689, 1690, 1691 and 1692. However the tin coinage was becoming increasingly unpopular because the public did not feel that there was any intrinsic value in the coins and also the corrosion problem had become apparent; even worse, lead counterfeits had started to appear. Just before the queen's death from smallpox in 1694 a copper halfpenny, weighing 9.1–11.7 grams with 28–31 millimetres diameter