The silver Three Farthings (¾d) coin was introduced in Queen Elizabeth I's third and fourth coinages (1561-1582), as part of a plan to produce large quantities of coins of varying denominations and high metal content.
The obverse shows a left-facing bust of the queen, with a rose behind her and the legend -- Elizabeth, by the grace of God a rose without a thorn—while the reverse shows the royal arms with the date above the arms and a mint mark at the beginning of the legend reading -- City of London, the Tower Mint.
The three-farthings coin closely resembles the three-halfpence coin, differing only in the diameter, which is 14 millimetres for an unclipped coin, compared to 16mm for the three-halfpence.
All the coins are hammered, except for the extremely rare milled three-farthings of 1563, of which only three examples are known to exist.
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“In necessary things, unity; in disputed things, liberty; in all things, charity.”
—Variously Ascribed.
The formulation was used as a motto by the English Nonconformist clergyman Richard Baxter (1615-1691)
“The oft-repeated Roman story is written in still legible characters in every quarter of the Old World, and but today, perchance, a new coin is dug up whose inscription repeats and confirms their fame. Some “Judæa Capta,” with a woman mourning under a palm tree, with silent argument and demonstration confirms the pages of history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)