What is the diameter? We have to determine if it is a halfpenny or a penny, which is difficult without any sense of scale in the photos.
Oops.. sorry about that... I forgot to add that it weighs 18.77g and I dont have a ruler at the moment but here it is compared to a couple dimes. Thank you!!
Thanks. It's a penny, then. There are a bunch of varieties, it turns out. Look for traces of various overdates. I can't really tell from the photos. You'll need a good loupe or magnifying glass, and even then it will be hard to tell, but the last 8 in the date does look like it might have another numeral underneath it. I'd say your coin barely makes Fine (F12) by American standards, so most of the common varieties will be worth $8.00 in the F12 grade, per Krause. The 1858/3 and the 1858/6 are worth $25.00 in that grade. To make things even more confusing, there are also large date and small date varieties. I'm afraid I can't help with pinning down the exact variety, but perhaps some of our UK specialist members can. Try it on the World Coins forum and title your thread something like, "Help with variety on 1858 British penny?". In the meantime, here is the Krause/NGC priceguide page that shows you the list of varieties. Most likely it's a more common variety and thus an $8-ish coin, or perhaps a tiny bit less if one allows for the minor surface issues. That's the assumption I would go with if you can't prove it's one of the better varieties. Regardless of the modest value, I like these early Victoria large pennies. They're just cool coins.
Thank you for your response. Yes it really is a neat coin. I can't believe how heavy it is for it just to be a penny. Such a beautiful penny. Lol. I think the 1858 just has a little dirt around it, but then again I'm no expert. I do have a magnifying tool tho, just not sure what to look for. Maybe this pic will help.. Thanks again. I'll post where you said.
That might help somebody. It's still beyond my ability to figure out. Yeah, you've got old dirt in there, but maybe there's something else going on. Not sure if anybody will be able to tell. (Doesn't make a huge difference anyway.) I do note there's an interesting bit of extra metal at the top of the 1.
That's back in the day when a penny had some real substance, and would buy you something! A British penny was always a more substantial coin than a United States cent, in any event, at least until they switched to a decimal system in 1970.
Then comparing it to this little one.. they're so much alike yet such a huge size difference!! Any idea about this little 1846 four pence coin?
That little silver fourpence (also known as a "groat") is a type which was issued mostly for use in the colonies like British Guiana, but also circulated in the UK itself. The Krause/NGC database lists that year for $20.00 in VF20, but unfortunately yours doesn't even remotely make the VF20 grade- it's more like a G6. Figure it as about a $4-5 coin as such. Makes a nice companion piece to your penny. The size discrepancy had to do with the metal content, of course. The big coin was a penny's worth of copper at the time but the little one had four pence worth of silver. Compare this to the United States during the same period- we had big copper large cents (though they weren't as large as the British pennies of the same era), and little silver 3- and 5-cent (half dime) pieces.
