Miniature Coin

[Guest Andrew]

I have a miniture Victorian Penny that looks exactly like the real thing but is 1/2" in diameter. The Obverse has Victoria's Head (looks early to me) and the legend L.CHR.LAUER NURNBERG. The reverse has a seated Brittania and the legend "One Penny" but in the date box it again says "Lauer" The Word Lauer is indistinct and could say something else. It intrigues me, I assume it is a toy penny of some sort. Does it have any value?

[Chris Perkins 223]

Dear Andrew,

I have a few of those myself. it's a jeton made by Lauer of Nuremberg, Germany.

Jetons were counters first used in Europe for doing sums, basically as an alternative to the abacus and Nuremberg was one of the centres of european jeton manuafacture. They were used mostly I think in the 16 and 1700's but remained popular until within the last 100 years.

I think some of these smaller coins were used as toy money, for dolls houses and the like. Also perhaps they were made to show off, because the detail and likeness to the original coins are superb!

They are collectable and I'm sure just like with real coins the value will be hinged more on the closeness to as new condition than on age, but I'm afraid I don't know of their exact values.

I'm sure a few search engine searches will bring in lots of info if you use the phrase 'Lauer Jeton'....In fact I just found this:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/gcates/jetons/

Enjoy!

Chris Perkins

www.predecimal.com