Middlesex-Spence’s D&H-827, Plain Edge.

An interesting extremely late die state example of this issue with a Rock of Gibraltar-sized cud on the obverse.

Here married to the curious PANDORA’S BREECHES reverse depicting the pair of burning trousers (‘breeches’) stuffed with straw that were planted above a lavatory in the House of Commons in May of 1792. 

The motto PANDORA’S BREECHES was coined as a warning against political activism at that time, as Pandora’s box had become a common image for the French Revolution.

Linking Pandora to those breeches (though Thomas Paine was believed responsible) implied something as disruptive and unnatural as a woman wearing trousers at that time.

The piece itself is a lovely, lustrous medium brown with some fiery original red clinging to the lettering and devices on the obverse and reverse.

$1,350

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