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<p>[QUOTE="John Conduitt, post: 4931435, member: 109923"]With the news that production of 2 penny coins is being paused, it’s tempting to think the humble penny’s time might be up soon. Its purchasing power is half that of the halfpenny when it was withdrawn. But it would be hasty to condemn it – it’s been England’s most resilient and long-lived coin.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>The penny’s predecessors</u></b></p><p><br /></p><p>The story begins, as it often does, with the Romans. When they invaded Britain in 34AD they put a stop to British coin production and brought their own coins. They also brought the ‘pound’ with them, although as a weight standard rather than a coin. Indeed, the ‘£’ sign is based on the Latin word for pound – ‘libra’ – which also provided ‘lb’ for the pound weight. The abbreviations for shillings and pence were also Roman, so that ‘l. s. d.’ stood for ‘librae, solidi and denarii’. These were used in Britain all the way to decimalisation in 1971.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185972[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Trajan, silver denarius, 98-117AD, Rome. 19mm, 3.1g. IMP TRAIANO AVG GER DAC PM TRP COS V P P. SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI. From the Westbury Sub Mendip Hoard, Somerset, England, buried in 193AD (RIC 226; RSC 571)</b>. The denarius (‘containing ten’, as it was worth 10 assēs) was the ‘standard’ Roman coin and provided the symbol for the pre-decimal British penny.</p><p><br /></p><p>When the Romans left, the Saxons arrived. Their coinage was initially gold (scillingas), but within a hundred years it consisted of small, thick silver coins now known as sceattas. Scillingas and sceattas might have been measures of weight rather than coins – the Saxons probably referred to ‘sceattas’ as denarii or the Germanic ‘pennings’. These were around 1.1 to 1.3g – the weight of the penny for the next 700 years.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185973[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Series C1 silver primary sceatta (or ‘penning’), 690-710, mint in Kent. 11.5mm, 1.27g (Abramson 4.10; North 41).</b></p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>Offa’s penny</u></b></p><p><br /></p><p>Further inspiration came from the continent when Offa, King of Mercia, created a slimmer, broader coin based on those of the Carolingians in France. This was the ‘penny’, pretty much the only denomination until Edward I’s reforms 500 years later. It featured the monarch’s name and the moneyer, as would all pennies for the next 500 years.</p><p><br /></p><p>Offa also made the Roman ‘pound’ popular as a unit of account. The Romans had divided a ‘libra’ into 12 uncias (ounces) but their system had been reformed so many times it ended a confused mess (much like the Roman Empire). Instead, it was Charlemagne who reformed the Roman system and it was his division of librae into 20 solidi and solidi into 12 denarii (1l. = 20s. = 240d.) that Offa imported.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185974[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Offa, cut halfpenny, light coinage. 780-792, London. 16mm, 0.43g. Moneyer Aethelweald (S 904).</b></p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>Edgar’s standardisation</u></b></p><p><br /></p><p>Æthelstan first unified England in 927 but on his death the Vikings took control of the north. When Edgar reunified England in 973, he standardised the penny across England’s 70 or so mints. From that point all pennies featured the king's portrait on the obverse, with the moneyer and mint around a small cross on the reverse.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185975[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Left: Burgred, King of Mercia, silver penny, 868-874, London. 19mm, 1.3g. BURGREDREX+. +BEAGZTA [N]MON | ETA (Beagstan moneyer) (S 938).</b> <b>Right: Eadmund silver penny, 939-946, uncertain southern mint. 20mm, 1.21g. EΛDMVИD REX. EADRED MO (S 1105). </b>Pre-unification: Burgred’s has a portrait but no cross. Eadmund’s has the small cross but no portrait. Neither name the mint.</p><p><br /></p><p>Despite being the only denomination, a penny was high value – perhaps £10-30 today. Alfred the Great of Wessex and Ceolwulf II of Mercia produced a few halfpennies, but small change was mostly created by cutting pennies in quarters or halves (as with the Offa coin above). This was done at the mint or could be done as needed, but it was difficult to be sure you’d got the right amount. The cross on the reverse became a guide to cutting in the correct proportions.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185976[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Cnut the Great silver short-cross penny. 1029-1035, London. 18mm, 1.12g. CNVT RECX. GODINC ON LVND (S. 1159).</b></p><p><br /></p><p>The penny persisted largely unchanged through the Viking and Norman invasions. Henry III lengthened the ‘short cross’ on the reverse to prevent clipping and was the first to include his regnal number, but his successors didn’t copy the idea until Henry VII (which would’ve been useful given they included 3 more Henrys, 2 more Richards and 5 Edwards).</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185977[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Henry III silver voided long-cross penny, 1216-1272 London. 17mm, 1.35g. HENRICVS REX III. NIC-OLE-ON L-VND (SCBC 1364).</b></p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>Edward I’s reforms</u></b></p><p><br /></p><p>It wasn’t until Edward I’s reforms in 1279 that round farthings, halfpennies and groats were successfully introduced. He also reformed the mints, so that responsibility for weight and fineness was centralised and coins named the mint rather than the moneyer (who had long ceased to be the person who actually struck the coin).</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185978[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Edward III silver penny, 1344-1351, London. 18.5mm, 1.28g. 3rd Coinage, Class 2, Reverse I. +EDWA R ANGL DNS HYB. CIVI-TAS LON-DON (S 1544). </b>The mint is named rather than the moneyer.</p><p><br /></p><p>Pennies remained much the same – only numismatists can distinguish the coins of many medieval monarchs – until the Tudors. Henry VII, fresh from victory in the Wars of the Roses, introduced new denominations. These included the testoon (12 pence), a coin that would become better known as the shilling (from the Saxon scillinga), and the gold sovereign (worth a pound). These were the ‘l’ and ‘s’ in ‘l. s. d.’, which, unlike the penny, had gone 700 years without coins to represent them.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>Tudor debasement</u></b></p><p><br /></p><p>Henry VII was the first to feature a realistic portrait on his coins since the Romans, although that didn’t stop Henry VIII using the same portrait. It also did not extend to the penny, which was shrinking and becoming less significant. By Edward VI’s reign, there were no less than 10 denominations (excluding gold), which is probably why his were the first English coins marked with a value.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185979[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Philip and Mary base issue silver penny, 1554-1558, London. 15mm, 0.65g. Tudor rose, P Z M D G ROSA SINE SPINE (Philip and Mary, by the Grace of God, a rose without thorns). Shield of arms, CIVI-TAS LON-DON (S 510A). </b>The Tudors were the first to stop using portraits on pennies since Edgar’s reforms 600 years before.</p><p><br /></p><p>Elizabeth I recalled the coinage (which had been debased by her father) and replaced it with coins with a higher silver content. This reduced their size, and since the Mint refused to stoop to producing coins in copper, her silver halfpenny was the lightest coin ever (officially) produced in England. The penny too was the smallest it had ever been at half a gram.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185980[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Left: Elizabeth I silver halfpenny, 1582-1584, London. 9mm, 0.24g. 6th coinage (S 2581, N 2017).</b> <b>Right: Elizabeth II bronze penny, 1984, Llantrisant. 20.3mm, 3.56g (S B2). </b>Elizabeth I’s portcullis design (the Badge of Henry VII, also used on coins by Henry VIII) was used for Elizabeth II's decimal penny nearly 400 years later.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>The Great Recoinage</u></b></p><p><br /></p><p>James I’s introduction of copper farthings and Charles II’s successful reintroduction of milled coinage pointed to a brighter future for the penny, but an epidemic of forgery and the continuing refusal of the Royal Mint to produce copper coins eventually left England with a serious shortage of small change. By the reign of George III things had got so desperate private companies were producing their own copper pennies. (More about that here: <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/george-iiis-numismatic-menagerie-part-i.366092/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/george-iiis-numismatic-menagerie-part-i.366092/">https://www.cointalk.com/threads/george-iiis-numismatic-menagerie-part-i.366092/</a>).</p><p><br /></p><p>It was only when Matthew Boulton at the Soho mint persuaded the authorities that copper coins were the way forward that they regained any sort of control. Since the face value of a coin had to correspond to the value of the metal, the penny went from being one of the smallest coins to the one of the largest – Boulton’s 1797 penny weighed 28.4g. This made the coins unpopular, so the Great Recoinage of 1816 broke the link between a coin’s intrinsic value and its face value, paving the way for the coins we know today.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1185981[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Victoria, bronze penny, 1865, London. 31mm, 9.40g. VICTORIA D G BRITT REG F D. ONE PENNY (S 3954). </b>What feels like a huge coin to us was less than a third of the weight of a 1797 penny.</p><p><br /></p><p>The current bronze penny (20.3mm, 3.56g) is similar in size to the silver denarius (19mm, 3.1g), the coin that perhaps started it all 2000 years earlier.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Sources:</b></p><p><i>Introduction to medieval coins and identification guide for archaeologists, Guide 37</i>, BAJR <a href="http://www.bajr.org/BAJRGuides/37.%20Coin%20Identification/37Coins_I.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.bajr.org/BAJRGuides/37.%20Coin%20Identification/37Coins_I.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.bajr.org/BAJRGuides/37. Coin Identification/37Coins_I.pdf</a></p><p><i>A Short History of English Coins,</i> Barry Sharples <a href="http://www.bsswebsite.me.uk/A%20Short%20History%20of/coins.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.bsswebsite.me.uk/A%20Short%20History%20of/coins.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.bsswebsite.me.uk/A Short History of/coins.html</a>.</p><p><i>Early Edwardian Pennies (1279-1344)</i>, Rod Blunt <a href="https://www.ukdfd.co.uk/pages/edwardian-Pennies/Edwardian%20Pennies%20P1.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.ukdfd.co.uk/pages/edwardian-Pennies/Edwardian%20Pennies%20P1.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.ukdfd.co.uk/pages/edwardian-Pennies/Edwardian Pennies P1.htm</a></p><p><i>Numismatic History of the Reigns of Edward I, II and III</i>, HB Earle Fox and Shirley Fox <a href="https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/pdfs/1909_BNJ_6_11.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/pdfs/1909_BNJ_6_11.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital BNJ/pdfs/1909_BNJ_6_11.pdf</a></p><p><i>The History of the English Penny</i>, Wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_penny_(c._600_%E2%80%93_1066)" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_penny_(c._600_%E2%80%93_1066)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_penny_(c._600_–_1066)</a></p><p><i>The Anglo-Saxon Pound</i>, Wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_pound" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_pound" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_pound</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="John Conduitt, post: 4931435, member: 109923"]With the news that production of 2 penny coins is being paused, it’s tempting to think the humble penny’s time might be up soon. Its purchasing power is half that of the halfpenny when it was withdrawn. But it would be hasty to condemn it – it’s been England’s most resilient and long-lived coin. [B][U]The penny’s predecessors[/U][/B] The story begins, as it often does, with the Romans. When they invaded Britain in 34AD they put a stop to British coin production and brought their own coins. They also brought the ‘pound’ with them, although as a weight standard rather than a coin. Indeed, the ‘£’ sign is based on the Latin word for pound – ‘libra’ – which also provided ‘lb’ for the pound weight. The abbreviations for shillings and pence were also Roman, so that ‘l. s. d.’ stood for ‘librae, solidi and denarii’. These were used in Britain all the way to decimalisation in 1971. [ATTACH=full]1185972[/ATTACH] [B]Trajan, silver denarius, 98-117AD, Rome. 19mm, 3.1g. IMP TRAIANO AVG GER DAC PM TRP COS V P P. SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI. From the Westbury Sub Mendip Hoard, Somerset, England, buried in 193AD (RIC 226; RSC 571)[/B]. The denarius (‘containing ten’, as it was worth 10 assēs) was the ‘standard’ Roman coin and provided the symbol for the pre-decimal British penny. When the Romans left, the Saxons arrived. Their coinage was initially gold (scillingas), but within a hundred years it consisted of small, thick silver coins now known as sceattas. Scillingas and sceattas might have been measures of weight rather than coins – the Saxons probably referred to ‘sceattas’ as denarii or the Germanic ‘pennings’. These were around 1.1 to 1.3g – the weight of the penny for the next 700 years. [ATTACH=full]1185973[/ATTACH] [B]Series C1 silver primary sceatta (or ‘penning’), 690-710, mint in Kent. 11.5mm, 1.27g (Abramson 4.10; North 41).[/B] [B][U]Offa’s penny[/U][/B] Further inspiration came from the continent when Offa, King of Mercia, created a slimmer, broader coin based on those of the Carolingians in France. This was the ‘penny’, pretty much the only denomination until Edward I’s reforms 500 years later. It featured the monarch’s name and the moneyer, as would all pennies for the next 500 years. Offa also made the Roman ‘pound’ popular as a unit of account. The Romans had divided a ‘libra’ into 12 uncias (ounces) but their system had been reformed so many times it ended a confused mess (much like the Roman Empire). Instead, it was Charlemagne who reformed the Roman system and it was his division of librae into 20 solidi and solidi into 12 denarii (1l. = 20s. = 240d.) that Offa imported. [ATTACH=full]1185974[/ATTACH] [B]Offa, cut halfpenny, light coinage. 780-792, London. 16mm, 0.43g. Moneyer Aethelweald (S 904).[/B] [B][U]Edgar’s standardisation[/U][/B] Æthelstan first unified England in 927 but on his death the Vikings took control of the north. When Edgar reunified England in 973, he standardised the penny across England’s 70 or so mints. From that point all pennies featured the king's portrait on the obverse, with the moneyer and mint around a small cross on the reverse. [ATTACH=full]1185975[/ATTACH] [B]Left: Burgred, King of Mercia, silver penny, 868-874, London. 19mm, 1.3g. BURGREDREX+. +BEAGZTA [N]MON | ETA (Beagstan moneyer) (S 938).[/B] [B]Right: Eadmund silver penny, 939-946, uncertain southern mint. 20mm, 1.21g. EΛDMVИD REX. EADRED MO (S 1105). [/B]Pre-unification: Burgred’s has a portrait but no cross. Eadmund’s has the small cross but no portrait. Neither name the mint. Despite being the only denomination, a penny was high value – perhaps £10-30 today. Alfred the Great of Wessex and Ceolwulf II of Mercia produced a few halfpennies, but small change was mostly created by cutting pennies in quarters or halves (as with the Offa coin above). This was done at the mint or could be done as needed, but it was difficult to be sure you’d got the right amount. The cross on the reverse became a guide to cutting in the correct proportions. [ATTACH=full]1185976[/ATTACH] [B]Cnut the Great silver short-cross penny. 1029-1035, London. 18mm, 1.12g. CNVT RECX. GODINC ON LVND (S. 1159).[/B] The penny persisted largely unchanged through the Viking and Norman invasions. Henry III lengthened the ‘short cross’ on the reverse to prevent clipping and was the first to include his regnal number, but his successors didn’t copy the idea until Henry VII (which would’ve been useful given they included 3 more Henrys, 2 more Richards and 5 Edwards). [ATTACH=full]1185977[/ATTACH] [B]Henry III silver voided long-cross penny, 1216-1272 London. 17mm, 1.35g. HENRICVS REX III. NIC-OLE-ON L-VND (SCBC 1364).[/B] [B][U]Edward I’s reforms[/U][/B] It wasn’t until Edward I’s reforms in 1279 that round farthings, halfpennies and groats were successfully introduced. He also reformed the mints, so that responsibility for weight and fineness was centralised and coins named the mint rather than the moneyer (who had long ceased to be the person who actually struck the coin). [ATTACH=full]1185978[/ATTACH] [B]Edward III silver penny, 1344-1351, London. 18.5mm, 1.28g. 3rd Coinage, Class 2, Reverse I. +EDWA R ANGL DNS HYB. CIVI-TAS LON-DON (S 1544). [/B]The mint is named rather than the moneyer. Pennies remained much the same – only numismatists can distinguish the coins of many medieval monarchs – until the Tudors. Henry VII, fresh from victory in the Wars of the Roses, introduced new denominations. These included the testoon (12 pence), a coin that would become better known as the shilling (from the Saxon scillinga), and the gold sovereign (worth a pound). These were the ‘l’ and ‘s’ in ‘l. s. d.’, which, unlike the penny, had gone 700 years without coins to represent them. [B][U]Tudor debasement[/U][/B] Henry VII was the first to feature a realistic portrait on his coins since the Romans, although that didn’t stop Henry VIII using the same portrait. It also did not extend to the penny, which was shrinking and becoming less significant. By Edward VI’s reign, there were no less than 10 denominations (excluding gold), which is probably why his were the first English coins marked with a value. [ATTACH=full]1185979[/ATTACH] [B]Philip and Mary base issue silver penny, 1554-1558, London. 15mm, 0.65g. Tudor rose, P Z M D G ROSA SINE SPINE (Philip and Mary, by the Grace of God, a rose without thorns). Shield of arms, CIVI-TAS LON-DON (S 510A). [/B]The Tudors were the first to stop using portraits on pennies since Edgar’s reforms 600 years before. Elizabeth I recalled the coinage (which had been debased by her father) and replaced it with coins with a higher silver content. This reduced their size, and since the Mint refused to stoop to producing coins in copper, her silver halfpenny was the lightest coin ever (officially) produced in England. The penny too was the smallest it had ever been at half a gram. [ATTACH=full]1185980[/ATTACH] [B]Left: Elizabeth I silver halfpenny, 1582-1584, London. 9mm, 0.24g. 6th coinage (S 2581, N 2017).[/B] [B]Right: Elizabeth II bronze penny, 1984, Llantrisant. 20.3mm, 3.56g (S B2). [/B]Elizabeth I’s portcullis design (the Badge of Henry VII, also used on coins by Henry VIII) was used for Elizabeth II's decimal penny nearly 400 years later. [B][U]The Great Recoinage[/U][/B] James I’s introduction of copper farthings and Charles II’s successful reintroduction of milled coinage pointed to a brighter future for the penny, but an epidemic of forgery and the continuing refusal of the Royal Mint to produce copper coins eventually left England with a serious shortage of small change. By the reign of George III things had got so desperate private companies were producing their own copper pennies. (More about that here: [URL]https://www.cointalk.com/threads/george-iiis-numismatic-menagerie-part-i.366092/[/URL]). It was only when Matthew Boulton at the Soho mint persuaded the authorities that copper coins were the way forward that they regained any sort of control. Since the face value of a coin had to correspond to the value of the metal, the penny went from being one of the smallest coins to the one of the largest – Boulton’s 1797 penny weighed 28.4g. This made the coins unpopular, so the Great Recoinage of 1816 broke the link between a coin’s intrinsic value and its face value, paving the way for the coins we know today. [ATTACH=full]1185981[/ATTACH] [B]Victoria, bronze penny, 1865, London. 31mm, 9.40g. VICTORIA D G BRITT REG F D. ONE PENNY (S 3954). [/B]What feels like a huge coin to us was less than a third of the weight of a 1797 penny. The current bronze penny (20.3mm, 3.56g) is similar in size to the silver denarius (19mm, 3.1g), the coin that perhaps started it all 2000 years earlier. [B]Sources:[/B] [I]Introduction to medieval coins and identification guide for archaeologists, Guide 37[/I], BAJR [URL='http://www.bajr.org/BAJRGuides/37.%20Coin%20Identification/37Coins_I.pdf']http://www.bajr.org/BAJRGuides/37. Coin Identification/37Coins_I.pdf[/URL] [I]A Short History of English Coins,[/I] Barry Sharples [URL='http://www.bsswebsite.me.uk/A%20Short%20History%20of/coins.html']http://www.bsswebsite.me.uk/A Short History of/coins.html[/URL]. [I]Early Edwardian Pennies (1279-1344)[/I], Rod Blunt [URL='https://www.ukdfd.co.uk/pages/edwardian-Pennies/Edwardian%20Pennies%20P1.htm']https://www.ukdfd.co.uk/pages/edwardian-Pennies/Edwardian Pennies P1.htm[/URL] [I]Numismatic History of the Reigns of Edward I, II and III[/I], HB Earle Fox and Shirley Fox [URL='https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/pdfs/1909_BNJ_6_11.pdf']https://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital BNJ/pdfs/1909_BNJ_6_11.pdf[/URL] [I]The History of the English Penny[/I], Wikipedia [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_penny_(c._600_%E2%80%93_1066)']https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_penny_(c._600_–_1066)[/URL] [I]The Anglo-Saxon Pound[/I], Wikipedia [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_pound[/URL][/QUOTE]
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