1860 recoinage?

[David]

I've read in books about the recoinage of 1860 was this an event like 1971 where new coins were introduced and anything before those dates were taken out of circulation?

Thanks for any help.

Dave.

[Red Riley]

I've read in books about the recoinage of 1860 was this an event like 1971 where new coins were introduced and anything before those dates were taken out of circulation?

Thanks for any help.

Dave.

Yes, but it only applied to copper coins (pennies, halfpennies, fathings and half farthings) which were replaced with the familiar 1860-1970 bronze series. Both sets of coins continued in circulation, with the copper coins gradually dwindling in numbers until they were demonetised in 1869.

[Peckris]

I've read in books about the recoinage of 1860 was this an event like 1971 where new coins were introduced and anything before those dates were taken out of circulation?

Thanks for any help.

Dave.

...and 1860 pales into insignificance compared with the Great Recoinages of 1697-1698, and 1816. You could even say it was less than 1797 when the base metal coinage of Matthew Boulton started to bring a half century of drastic shortages, forgeries, and multitudes of different tokens, to an end. 1860, by comparison, saw a base metal coinage that had been regularised and consistent for 40 years, replaced over a decade by a smaller, redesigned base metal coinage using a different alloy.

[David]

Thanks for all the info. I've now started wondering about the mintage figures in coin books I take it that they will be official mint figures of coins produced for a particular year. This being the case when coins are changed/demonetized most people would probably pay their coins into the bank where the would probably be melted down so this could mean that some of my coins I have for example a 1829 farthing mintage 1,505,280 and a 1956 farthing mintage 1,996,800 these figures could be much lower than we think. I wonder if someone should start The great online database of coins where people could add their coins and it would give a running total of how many coins have been logged/survived for each year.

Dave.

[Red Riley]

Thanks for all the info. I've now started wondering about the mintage figures in coin books I take it that they will be official mint figures of coins produced for a particular year. This being the case when coins are changed/demonetized most people would probably pay their coins into the bank where the would probably be melted down so this could mean that some of my coins I have for example a 1829 farthing mintage 1,505,280 and a 1956 farthing mintage 1,996,800 these figures could be much lower than we think. I wonder if someone should start The great online database of coins where people could add their coins and it would give a running total of how many coins have been logged/survived for each year.

Dave.

There was an earlier thread on here - could be 3 or 4 years ago now, in which somebody pulled out a newspaper article from 1960 which said that of all the bronze farthings minted from 1860 to 1956 only about a third were returned to the mint for melting down. So if this situation were to apply at all times across all denominations (which I guess is unlikely), there would still be a million 1829 farthings kicking around out there. The opinion was expressed that the number of coins simply mislaid or lost was dramatically underestimated by pretty much everybody. With so many coins doing the rounds, I would, in the nicest possible way, suggest that a database is not really a practical proposition and we will always be reliant upon price guides etc. for estimates of rarity.

One further point is that the official mintages simply record the number of coins minted or issued in any one year, many of which will carry the date of the previous or the succeeding year (e.g. 2.5 million pennies were minted in 1869 but it is reckoned that only 400,000 actually carried that date), so unfortunately any figure produced by the Royal Mint must be taken with a massive pinch of salt.

[Peckris]

Thanks for all the info. I've now started wondering about the mintage figures in coin books I take it that they will be official mint figures of coins produced for a particular year. This being the case when coins are changed/demonetized most people would probably pay their coins into the bank where the would probably be melted down so this could mean that some of my coins I have for example a 1829 farthing mintage 1,505,280 and a 1956 farthing mintage 1,996,800 these figures could be much lower than we think. I wonder if someone should start The great online database of coins where people could add their coins and it would give a running total of how many coins have been logged/survived for each year.

Dave.

There was an earlier thread on here - could be 3 or 4 years ago now, in which somebody pulled out a newspaper article from 1960 which said that of all the bronze farthings minted from 1860 to 1956 only about a third were returned to the mint for melting down. So if this situation were to apply at all times across all denominations (which I guess is unlikely), there would still be a million 1829 farthings kicking around out there. The opinion was expressed that the number of coins simply mislaid or lost was dramatically underestimated by pretty much everybody. With so many coins doing the rounds, I would, in the nicest possible way, suggest that a database is not really a practical proposition and we will always be reliant upon price guides etc. for estimates of rarity.

One further point is that the official mintages simply record the number of coins minted or issued in any one year, many of which will carry the date of the previous or the succeeding year (e.g. 2.5 million pennies were minted in 1869 but it is reckoned that only 400,000 actually carried that date), so unfortunately any figure produced by the Royal Mint must be taken with a massive pinch of salt.

And please also bear in mind - the last year of a particular denomination (e.g. 1956 farthings - at least 5 years prior to demonetisation) was very often saved, put aside, bought for "investment", and will be nowhere like as scarce in relation to other dates as the mintage figures would suggest. This was also the fate of the 1951 penny, and most BU coins between 1966 and 1969. Mintage figures - even if accurate for the dated coins of that year, which they aren't - would now be totally unreliable.