1/2 Dollar - George IV

The British West Indies fractional coinage of 1821–22 was not a colonial initiative but a direct response to the chronic shortage of small silver circulating in the Caribbean trade economy, where Spanish milled dollars had long served by default. Parliament authorized this issue specifically to displace that reliance. Production was limited across both years, and the series was never extended — making survivors in any grade genuinely scarce rather than artificially so.