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1887 British Penny

Started by Prosit, May 11, 2012, 02:19:05 AM

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Prosit

This is my new acquisition.  Decided to collect the British Pennies by date some months ago.  This coin has some color issues I would rather it didn't have but after studying it under high magnification (40X), low magnification (2X) and several stages in between, and considering what I gave for it, I have decided to keep it.  It is in pretty good shape wear-wise.

Dale

FosseWay

Notwithstanding the colour, that's in much better condition than most Victorian Bun pennies you come across. Bear in mind that they circulated for the best part of 100 years (111 at the extreme, 1860-1971) and saw proper use in circulation (unlike, say, US cents or modern UK bronze).

The UK penny series from 1860 to 1967 was the first series of coins that were current immediately before the currency change that I completed* as a kid, so carries some fond memories for me.  :)

* The definition of 'complete' is difficult, however. I have all the dates and mintmarks that (a) are obtainable by people with normal incomes and (b) don't involve a lot of counting of edge beads or determining of other minor die varieties. I am still missing the 1922/26 mule, which just about comes into category (a) above, as well as obviously 1933 and 1954, which definitely don't.

Depending on how detailed you want to be, in addition to simply having one coin from each year in which pennies were minted, you may want to look out for:

- H (Heaton) and KN (King's Norton) mintmarks on pennies of 1912, 1918 and 1919, plus some Victorian H pennies in the 1870s and 80s
- the mule I mentioned above, where the 1922 reverse is matched with the 1926 modified head of George V
- the 'low tide' version of 1902, where the sea level is noticeably lower in relation to Britannia's legs than usual
- any number of die variants, especially in the first issue (1860-1894)

Oh, and good luck getting 1869 in decent condition -- mine is virtually worn flat apart from the area where the date is, luckily.

villa66

Quote from: FosseWay on May 11, 2012, 08:42:07 AM
Notwithstanding the colour, that's in much better condition than most Victorian Bun pennies you come across. Bear in mind that they circulated for the best part of 100 years (111 at the extreme, 1860-1971) and saw proper use in circulation (unlike, say, US cents or modern UK bronze).

The big British pennies are indeed fascinating, and it amazed me when I learned they had remained in circulation so long. I just couldn't imagine people being such clots that they'd leave such cool things "unharvested." Of course date collecting had a more difficult time becoming established in Britain than in America, or so I've read.

But don't underestimate the degree to which the American cents contemporary to these British pennies circulated. The U.S. cents of 1860-1971 also saw quite "proper use in circulation." There were, however, more folks hunting them for their coin albums. Despite that, the bronze Indian cents of 1864 and later remained in circulation through the '40s and even lingered into the '50s, and the Wheat-ear Lincolns of 1909 and later lasted more than a decade in circulation after the introduction of the new reverse in '59.

And I mean that they really circulated. (Anyone who has tried to collect them knows how thoroughly they were chewed up.) Of course it's true that there are plenty of nice ones too, but that isn't a reflection of how much they circulated so much as it is of the roll craze that swept the U.S. coin hobby beginning around 1934 (with intermittent flare-ups thereafter, and expanding in scope to bags).

All that said--and by a partisan of American cents--there may not be a cooler series of coppers than the big British pennies.

:) v.

Prosit

I started by making a basic list of the years Copper/Bronze pennies were minted, marked off any I thought I could  or would not want to aford and added the H and KN types. That is my list. It has 166 examples and I have 70 so far not counting modern decimal coins. I think it very achievable althought some years will definitely be low grade.

Dale

Prosit

I can remember still getting a few Indians in change as late as 1964.  When people starting pulling Silver from circulation, the older coins, Including Indian cents quickly disappeared as well.
Dale

Quote from: villa66 on May 11, 2012, 09:31:54 AM
Despite that, the bronze Indian cents of 1864 and later remained in circulation through the '40s and even lingered into the '50s......, :) v.

FosseWay

Yes, true -- my comment about US cents was in relation to modern ones, where they seem simply to accumulate in jars.

I think part of the problem with the condition of UK pennies is due to their size. A coin that size tends to be handled with finger and thumb on the faces of the coin, whereas smaller coins may well be carried in the palm of the hand and tipped into the palm of the recipient's hand, with less wear caused to the faces of the coin. This is certainly true of the tiny UK 5p and must have been even more so with the 10-denomination in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, which were all microscopic. In fact, thinking about it, most of my Swedish 10 öre coins are in pretty good condition, whereas I have many more iffy 5 öre pieces, which are closer in size to the old UK pennies.

malj1

I don't think any younger people can imagine how much the coins circulated in the those days; there was very little paper money used then. When I was a teenager I used to fetch the weeks grocery shopping on my bike, no packaging then, only bags, with the bag of eggs on top. the whole lot came to about 15 or 16/-. the pennies were right back to 1860 and worn flat in most cases.

As an aside here is one from 1906 I spotted on eBay that I should have bought in hindsight.
Malcolm
Have a look at  my tokens and my banknotes.

Prosit

If I were only collecting them by type, I would send this one back.  Collecting a series; my criteria for each piece is much more relaxed, usually any example will do.
Dale



Quote from: FosseWay on May 11, 2012, 08:42:07 AM
Notwithstanding the colour, that's in much better condition than most Victorian Bun pennies you come across.

villa66

Quote from: malj1 on May 11, 2012, 09:44:00 AM
...As an aside here is one from 1906 I spotted on eBay that I should have bought in hindsight.

Absolutely yes!

:) v.

villa66

Quote from: FosseWay on May 11, 2012, 09:41:23 AM
....I think part of the problem with the condition of UK pennies is due to their size. A coin that size tends to be handled with finger and thumb on the faces of the coin, whereas smaller coins may well be carried in the palm of the hand and tipped into the palm of the recipient's hand, with less wear caused to the faces of the coin. This is certainly true of the tiny UK 5p and must have been even more so with the 10-denomination in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, which were all microscopic. In fact, thinking about it, most of my Swedish 10 öre coins are in pretty good condition, whereas I have many more iffy 5 öre pieces, which are closer in size to the old UK pennies.

I think there's a lot of truth in the "size increases contact/wear" thing. But I think velocity has a lot to with it also, especially for the British pennies of, say, before 1925 or so. They were were a very useful amount of money then (as everyone here knows very well), and worked extremely hard. The half-pennies of those days too, which are also found so often in terrible shape. But to the size issue--British farthings, especially those beginning with Victoria's veiled head, generally seem to be very lightly used. Was that the case? Or were they used as intensively as their larger siblings, but were protected by their relatively small size?

:) v.

FosseWay

I don't think you could ever buy anything useful for a farthing, at least not since the 1860 resizing. There never was a farthing stamp, for example, whereas a halfpenny would send a postcard within the UK in the pre-WW1 days. Farthings were 'change coins' to make transactions involving goods priced by weight more accurate, much as modern UK bronze is. As a result, single farthings were probably only tendered in around half the number of transactions compared to those where single pennies were tendered. As a customer you would get a farthing in change when appropriate, but you probably would not spend a farthing on its own. You might use a single farthing as part of a larger payment (say 2¼d) but equally you might not, preferring to tender a threepence and get the change. You would therefore accumulate, say, four of them and tender them as payment of a penny, carrying them in the palm of your hand or as a pile between finger and thumb, only touching the edges.

malj1

#11
Around 1950 you could buy blackjacks in the sweet shop just outside my school gate for one farthing, they were four for a ¼d.

One other use that I can remember; we kept a farthing on the window-sill by the front door for the baker which was given to the baker as part of the payment for a loaf of bread, the next day he gave it back in change and it resumed its place on the window-sill.
Malcolm
Have a look at  my tokens and my banknotes.

<k>

#12
Quote from: malj1 on May 11, 2012, 11:48:50 AM
Around 1950 you could buy a blackjack in the sweet shop just outside my school gate for one farthing, they were four for a 1d.

At one point in the mid-1960s we schoolboys could get 8 blackjacks for a penny. They were advertised as such in the shop, so nobody got 4 for a ha'penny. The wrappers had a picture of a golly - very politically incorrect these days, but since I'd never seen any black people in real life in those days, I regarded gollies are mere story-book creatures, like elves and goblins.

Looking at  Dale's image, I was reminded of the phrase,  "I bet THAT cost a pretty penny!"
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

malj1

Edited my post - I intended to say four for a ¼d  8) so by the time you got to school inflation had doubled the price!
Malcolm
Have a look at  my tokens and my banknotes.

tonyclayton

My local sweet shop had five chews for a halfpenny.  I had a farthing, and was given two.

The next time I went in I got three for another farthing, after a sharp exchange of words!

The main use for farthings in the later years up to 1956 was for a small loaf of bread. A full size loaf was fixed in value by law, and was something and a half pence, so the smaller loaf required the farthing. Later the price of bread went up in whole pence, so there was no longer any need for the farthing, and demand dropped, resulting in eventual demonetisation.

As to wear, it is interesting that the silver threepence lost a greater percentage of its weight than larger coins because they stayed together in the pocket more.