In these days of increasing frugality a classic penny thread seems appropriate Bought a set of 33 Large Pennies for about $38 recently, Grainy picture but it seemed interesting This was an unexpectedly nice piece: Some other curiosities, the South African coin is what sold me the set and is nicer than expected, most everything is: Couple nice Lizzies: and an otherwise nice George VI with impaired toning:
You make a great point @Jamy Smith and these are all attractive coins. I wonder sometimes if the search for fantastic condition and numbers on lumps of plastic make people overlook the artistry of the engraver and the subject matter. Take your South African penny for example. Great regal portrait showing King George wearing the Tudor Crown and bizarrely the ship is not British but a Dutch Fluyt to celebrate the Dutch East India company landing in the region and its maritime history. On your 1954 British Halfpenny we were taught in school that this was the "Golden Hind". I remember this from 60 years ago when you could buy sweets/candy for a halfpenny and penny. When decimalisation was introduced in 1973 these sweets become "one new penny" which the exchange rate was 2.4 times the old penny so then we had 240% on the old coins overnight, or at least on kids sweets. A couple of years later we had VAT universal sales tax which is now 20% on top of income tax, local tax, road tax and whatever else the government can think of . Your coins represent different times....
I love your pennies! And I love bargain bins! This is not my best Victoria penny, but it is one I like because I found it in circulation while a teenager visiting London. I and another teenager went bank to bank roll searching and collected two complete year sets, 1901-1963, including 1919-H. I still have my set. I thought that was pretty good for an American.
Great coins have character from a personal history, I don’t own any pristine slabs, Mint coins all look the same My favorites are all deep contrast toned with some texture, I’ve got a few poor conditioned, ‘ghost’ coins I call them, that just look great but wouldn’t fetch a penny over junk
Picked up an 11 pound sack of “40s-60s” Canadian small pennies for $86.50, Another fun deal Gone through about 3 pounds and these are the 4 best imho, not familiar with much in the line of key coins; 13 ‘67s so far with the centennial dove (goose?) The silver dollar with the goose is my second only to the ‘49 ship favorite Canadian coin; The dove makes a nice penny though the later pair of maple leaves is a top design of any penny…imho These old George Vs were unexpected and great condition compared to the ‘37 and ‘38 George VIs I’ve found so far; Hard gouge across the lettering of the ‘29, otherwise fine coins
Commonwealth leaves open a lot of possibilities. Here are a few: Isle of Man 1 penny token 1811 Southern Rhodesia 1 Penny 1947 New Guinea 1 Penny 1938 Upper Canada 1852 Penny, 1857 Halfpenny Token South Africa 1940 1 Penny
I found an interesting British 1895 Large Penny (and added to my collection) that was transformed and personalized into a Masonic Penny bearing the makers unique mark. Z
