Quite some time ago (IIRC, the sixties) Great Britain scrapped the ancient pounds-shillings-pence system and “decimalized” its currency. This involved making certain coins obsolete, including the penny (1/240th of a pound) and the threepence (1/120th).
What happened to the (presumably vast) quantities of these coins then in circulation? Were they melted down? Hoarded in expectation of their becoming valuable?
I ask this because I recently was cleaning out the attic of a relative with connections to England, and came across a bag of penny coins. They are truly huge: about 180% of the diameter of a US penny - a few dozen would have strained even the most robust of pockets. Most of the coins I have seem to be from 1905 - 1935 (a few are earlier). Might they be worth anything?
They are the same size as a half dollar (at least the ones I had were), so folks who do coin tricks like them because they can do various tricks that take advantage of the size (e.g. changing a silver coin to a copper coin).
Nope, they’re not worth anything, everyone here’s still got some lying around somewhere. If you’ve got too much time on your hands, you can always look for a 1933 one, but there’s only seven known to exist, and you’re probably more likely to find the Loch Ness Monster than an eighth. Other than that, their best use is as poker chits.
There is a remote possibility they have some collectable value, there are marks which denote where they were minted, usually just at the base of the monarchs neck at the right side, its a letter key.
If they happen to have been minted somewhere that maybe did not start up operations until late that year they might be scarce.
You’ll need a UK coin collector nerd to tell you though look around on the net for more advice.
I happen to have a British penny sitting right in front of me. Looks pretty much like an American penny. Stamped 1987. It probably a little less valuable than my 1 krone coins. I keep them merely for fond memories.
They remained in circulation for years after the event. There were new coins minted and circulated in parallel to the old ones.
When decimalisation happened, one shilling became 5 new pence. The old shilling coins were still used as a 5p piece. Also there were new 5p coins minted that were the same size, colour and weight, but had “5p” stamped on them instead of “one shilling” Same thing with the 2 shilling coin or florin. It was used as a 10p coin, and there was also a new 10p coin minted with the same size weight and colour.
The 1p coin was not actually obsolete. There were still pennies circulating.
I believe the thruppence coin had been abolished years before decimalisation.
That’s presumably worth 1/100 of a pound sterling, i.e. about 2 US cents. The old penny, before decimalisation, was worth 1/240 of a pound sterling, so currently has a face value of about 0.8 of a US cent.
As in all such things, it depends what date they are and what condition they’re in. As one of the other posters intimated, practically everybody has a few of these and other pre-decimal coins lying around somewhere.
I rue the day the UK went decimal. Manufacturers used the transition as an opportunity for disguised price hikes and all the old monarchs represented on the coinage disappeared overnight. I still remember how at school we used to collect bun pennies, ie pennies in which the young Queen Victoria wore her hair in a bun. (They weren’t worth anything, it was just one of those schoolkid things). And all the kids kept an eagle eye open for fabled Edward VIII pennies (the guy who abdicated). Never saw one (I think I found out later that none actually went into circulation but I could be wrong there.)
No one has answered this, even although these are the crucial questions asked by the OP.
People and businesses exchanged their old coins for new ones via banks etc, which then returned them to the Royal Mint for them to be melted down. Of course, this is in essence what happens all the time, with banks returning old coins to the Mint in exchange for equivalent new ones; the only difference in 1971 was that, because the denominations were being changed, all the old coins were being returned at once, or rather over a very short period of time.
Not quite. Both the old penny coins and the thruppence ceased to be legal tender on 31 August 1971, which was just over six months after the new decimal coins had become legal tender.
This was one further reason why there was no doubt that the sensible thing for anyone to do had been to change their old coins into new ones. No one made money by holding on to the old ones. They were almost literally worthless. Not only were most of them not legal tender, there were still enough of them at the bottom of drawers and down the backs of sofas to give them no rarity value either. The exceptions were those, such as the ones mentioned by GorillaMan, which had been rare and valuable even before decimalisation.
Most people you hear getting sentimental about the old decimal system seem to lament the passing of the half crown coin, which came out fractional in the new system (2/6d = 12 1/2 new pence). I would imagine the number of people saving them was quite high, too.
(Cue an updated Van Morrison: “Me and Billy standing there with 12 1/2 p” … just doen’t seem to work)
OK, to answer the question, without answering it …what happened to them? What happens to every old coin, or out-of-date banknote. It goes into a very secure and secretive system. Understandable, given the security implications - would you really want the Bank of England to have a “where we store old money” link on their website? (Don’t forget that they even got to decide where slip roads on the M11 could and could not be, to prevent making robberies of the mint easier.)
I checked. A few from 1912 have a very small “H” just left of the monarch’s neck. From 1918 and 1919, a few have “KN” there. The vast majority have nothing.
…what happened to them? What happens to every old coin, or out-of-date banknote. It goes into a very secure and secretive system. Understandable, given the security implications - would you really want the Bank of England to have a “where we store old money” link on their website? (Don’t forget that they even got to decide where slip roads on the M11 could and could not be, to prevent making robberies of the mint easier.)