Posts Tagged ‘1p coin’
The rare penny worth £72,000!
Do you ever pay attention to the pennies in your change? Well, you might want to take a closer look at your coppers in future, because one particular 1p coin could be worth an astonishing sum!
The 1933 George V Penny is one of the rarest and most sought-after coins in British numismatic history. Despite having a face value of just 1p, this elusive coin has fetched staggering prices at auction. In 2016, an example sold for an incredible £72,000! And its value has been climbing for years – with sales recorded at £40,000 in 2004 and £45,000 in 2006.
Image credit: The Royal Mint Museum
Why is this coin so rare?
During the 1930s, there was such an abundance of pennies already in circulation that no new ones needed to be struck, however a few were still produced for ceremonial purposes. According to the Royal Mint, no official records exist confirming how many 1933 pennies were struck, but seven are known to exist.
Of the known 1933 pennies, one is located in the Royal Mint Museum, one belongs to the British Museum, two are in private collections and one was placed under the foundations the Senate House of the University of London by King George. One was placed under the foundation stone of Church of St Cross in Leeds, but was stolen in 1970 during reconstruction, its whereabouts now unknown. To avoid further thefts, the coin placed under St Mary’s Church in Leeds was dug up and sold, however it’s thought the one underneath Senate House remains in place.
Image Credit: philld / Mount St Mary’s Leeds via Wikimedia Commons
This makes the chances of finding a 1933 Penny in your change almost impossible. But don’t worry if you don’t have one in your collection, as there are plenty of other coins that could still be worth a small fortune…
Fetching a fortune
1983 2p
After the 2p coin design was changed in 1982 to read TWO PENCE instead of NEW PENCE, a few coins were mistakenly struck in 1983 using the old reverse die and therefore have the old inscription of NEW PENCE.
Image Credit: RWB Auctions
It’s not known how many of these coins made their way into circulation, but in 2024, one sold for a whopping £1,000!
Undated 20p
In 2008, the reverse of each denomination from 1p to £1 was redesigned by Matthew Dent to feature a different part of the Royal Arms Shield. The 20p had previously included the date on the reverse, but with the entire face of the coin now devoted to the new design, the Royal Mint produced a new die with the date on the obverse (Queen’s head) side.
However, when the new Royal Shield 20p coins were struck for circulation, the old die was accidentally used, meaning a batch was issued with no date on either side of the coin.
Back in 2008 when this ‘error’ was discovered, one lucky seller sold theirs for a colossal £7,100! Nowadays, an undated 20p fetches around £60 on the secondary market, which is still not a bad return on a 20p coin!
Proceed with caution
Before you get too excited, it’s important to remember that a coin’s condition plays a huge role in determining its value. Coins in perfect condition can be worth far more than their well-worn, damaged, and poor-condition counterparts, and sometimes a minor difference in grade translates to hundreds or even thousands in value!
So, next time you’re checking your change, take a closer look! Who knows? You might just discover a hidden gem worth more than you ever imagined!
Kick start your Penny collection
Whether you’ve got a penny collection already or you’re just starting out, you can piece together a fascinating timeline showing the changing face of Her Majesty with the Queen Elizabeth II Portraits Penny Collecting Page.
Is time up for our 2ps? Production of 2p and £2 coins could be halted for the next 10 years!
In March 2015, the UK treasury confirmed that 1p and 2p coins will continue to be used “for years to come”. However, it has recently been suggested that due to a cash usage slump, The Royal Mint is set to go ten years without producing anymore 2p coins!
But it’s not just our coppers at stake.. The same applies for £2 coins, as it has been revealed that in March 2020, The Royal Mint was sitting on 26 times as many £2 coins as it needed to.
According to the National Audit Office’s report into Britain’s cash usage, the number of coins produced each year by The Royal Mint fell by nearly two-thirds between 2011 and this year.
Less than a quarter of all payments were made by cash last year, according to figures released in June by the banking trade body UK Finance.
It’s fair to assume that even less cash has been used since the start of 2020 due to the coronavirus leading to fears of cash usage and a move to more contactless payments.
However, The Mint told Britain’s spending watchdog that there had been ‘sharp increases in demand’ for change ‘as many businesses and consumers hoarded coins in the early months of the pandemic’.
As a result, the Treasury ordered The Royal Mint to strike 60 million additional 1p coins over the summer to meet this new demand. So make sure you keep your eyes peeled for these new 1p coins, especially if you’re collecting dateruns!
The Royal Mint are required to forecast the demand for small change to ensure it keeps enough coins in stock without striking too few or too many, but with significant fluctuations in consumer behaviour in recent years, this has no doubt been a challenge.
In 2017, after the introduction of the new 12-sided £1, The Royal Mint saw a swell in its coin stocks as people rushed to return their round pounds, ending up returning loose change of other denominations at the same time.
According to the NAO, at the end of March, The Royal Mint aimed to hold 700,000 £2 coins, but actually held 18.7million. And rather than holding its target of 15.9million 2p coins, it held 127.1million.
As a result, in March of this year, The NAO said The Royal Mint had estimated ‘it did not envisage producing any new 2p or £2 coins for at least 10 years’.
We haven’t seen a £2 enter circulation since 2016, so, could this mean that those 2016 dated £2s and 2017 dated 2p coins are the last of their kind? We certainly hope not.
But what about our coppers? Do you think we still need 1p and 2p coins in circulation? Have your say by voting in our poll on Facebook.
And what could the future for Britain’s definitive coinage be if the 1p and 2p coins were removed? Currently the definitive coins from 1p to 50p come together to create The Royal Shield, but with two key pieces missing, could this lead to a complete re-design?
We’d love to hear what you think about the use of cash vs card and the demand for our smaller denominations, so leave us a comment below to share your thoughts.
If you’re interested in coin collecting, our Change Checker web app is completely free to use and allows users to:
– Find and identify the coins in their pocket
– Collect and track the coins they have
– Swap their spare coins with other Change Checkers
Sign up today at: www.changechecker.org/app