1943 Three Pence

It is a cool coin! Here're some interesting facts about it:

The reverse features a thrift plant, and the original design had a word THRIFT under the plant.

The brass threepence coins were produced to replace unpopular (because of their small size) silver coins, but since the government wasn't sure if people would accept the new coin silver 3d coins were issued along till 1945 (although 1942-44 were not for use in the UK, and 1945 batch was melted down).

The coin originally was supposed to be thinner but they discovered that thin trial pieces could work some coin machines designed to take 6d and shilling coins, so eventually they went with thick coins which wouldn't fit in the slots.

The 12-sided design used to have sharp corners but that proved to be wearing out steel collars rather quickly because of high stress at those points. During WW2 steel was in high demand, so in 1941 they rounded the corners a little to prolong the life of collars. After 1949 the corners were sharp again.

Funnily enough, a 1943 thruppence was the first coin I bought off ebay and it turned me from a 'occasionally check the pocket change' kind of collector into a more serious hobbyist. Here's the notes I have recorded for it. Apologies to whichever website(s) I plagarized these from :-).

The threepence or thrupenny bit was a denomination of currency used by various jurisdictions in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, until decimalisation of the pound sterling and Irish pound in 1971 when the coin was demonetised on 31 August. It was also used in some parts of the British Empire (later known as the Commonwealth), notably Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The reverse shows three oak sprigs with three acorns and the inscription THREE PENCE date.

The obverse inscription means "George VI by the Grace of God, King of all the British territories, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India".

In 1937 a new brass threepence was introduced using an alloy of 79% copper, 20% zinc and 1% nickel being produced in all years between 1937 and 1952 except 1947. It was 12 sided to make it more distinguishable to the touch, and weighed 6.8g. It measures 21mm across between the flat edges, almost exactly the same as later used for the Canadian 5c.

The 12-sided design and thickness made the coin easy to identify, and it became very popular - the silver threepence being considered too small, a lesson not learnt when it came to introducing the present small fivepence piece.

At first the coins had sharp corners, but during 1941 a more rounded collar was used, as failure of the collars was occurring too frequently. In 1948, and from 1950, sharp edged collars were used again. Both types are known for 1949.

No threepence coins were minted in 1947, and the mintages of 1946 and 1949 are particularly low.

From 1949 the obverse legend was modified to remove the IND IMP.