1839 Victorian Penny

[Dave Everitt]

I maintain spreadsheets for all my collection (specifically predecimal bronze and brass from 1860) but recently offered to look through some early Vic pennies, among which is one dated 1838. I keep the mintage figures in my spreadsheet, but cannot find a figure for the 1838 penny from my usual sources, although there appear to be a few examples around.

Can anyone point me to an authoritative mintage figure for the English 1838 copper penny?

Some other scarce dates in this batch of 10 seem to have overprinting (or have been tampered with) so I might come back with more queries.

Edited yesterday at 01:00 PM by Dave Everitt
spelling error

[Paddy]

Something is wrong here I think. There shouldn't be any 1838 pennies? 

Are you perhaps looking at a halfpenny instead? Both farthings and halfpennies for 1838 exist. (The changeover from Copper to Bronze means the copper halfpenny is larger than the corresponding bronze halfpenny, so an easy mistake to make.)

Check the dimensions and weight of your coin.

 

[PWA 1967]

Yes your spot on Paddy, although what about this one 😂

[secret santa]

Yes, the legend spacing is quite different between pennies and halfpennies.

See my websites below for pictures.

 

[Martinminerva]

7 hours ago, Dave Everitt said:

offered to look through some early Vic pennies, among which is one dated 1838

It's a farthing. You are probably being misled by the size which is only a bit bigger than decimal pennies today. Victorian copper pennies were huge!

[Dave Everitt]

23 hours ago, Paddy said:

Something is wrong here I think. There shouldn't be any 1838 pennies? 

Are you perhaps looking at a halfpenny instead? Both farthings and halfpennies for 1838 exist. (The changeover from Copper to Bronze means the copper halfpenny is larger than the corresponding bronze halfpenny, so an easy mistake to make.)

 

Yes, I realise this now, thanks! Problem was two fold:

1. it’s not my usual era;

2. I was working from a photograph with no size reference of 10 coins I offered to check for someone.

AND… I now need make some new Vic pre-1860 copper spreadsheets and check the coins from that era I that do have!

[Dave Everitt]

17 hours ago, Martinminerva said:

It's a farthing. You are probably being misled by the size which is only a bit bigger than decimal pennies today. Victorian copper pennies were huge!

Indeed, thanks - see reply below explaining how I made the mistake 😞

[Dave Everitt]

23 hours ago, PWA 1967 said:

Yes your spot on Paddy, although what about this one 😂

I see everyone laughing! But to be totally clear, please bear with me and help correct my Cu-era Vic coinage ignorance LOL - I presume that’s a ’38 halfpenny?

[Peckris 2]

23 hours ago, Paddy said:

Something is wrong here I think. There shouldn't be any 1838 pennies? 

Are you perhaps looking at a halfpenny instead? Both farthings and halfpennies for 1838 exist. (The changeover from Copper to Bronze means the copper halfpenny is larger than the corresponding bronze halfpenny, so an easy mistake to make.

 

Definitely a halfpenny. The easy way to tell is to look at the size of the legend characters in relation to Victoria's bust - on the halfpenny they're proportionately much bigger than on the penny.

[Peckris 2]

1 minute ago, Dave Everitt said:

I see everyone laughing! But to be totally clear, please bear with me and help correct my Cu-era Vic coinage ignorance LOL - I presume that’s a ’38 halfpenny?

Looking at the size of the legend characters I would say it's a farthing (though not so easy to tell from an angled picture) . A halfpenny is just a bit smaller than the later florin, the farthing is roughly the size of a 6d.