Rare Penny 1860, Unsure Of Worth

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John1

to the Community!

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from Kent, England!
In that condition, most coin dealers would put the coin into their junk tray - my local dealer has plenty of bun pennies like that in a tray marked '4 coins for £1'. 1860 is a very common date as it's the year when these bronze pennies (which remained current until Decimalisation in 1971) were introduced to replace the even bigger and heavier copper pennies!

Sorry, but 1860 is not a "rare" date. As NumisRob noted above, it's the first date of issue of the new bronze pennies that replaced the pure copper pennies, so they made an awful lot of them that year.

There are a dozen or more different varieties, though I doubt any variety could be determined on a coin this heavily worn.

You don't often see pennies from the 1800s this badly worn in Britain itself - the English banks tended to withdraw them for remelting once they got this bad - though it is relatively common to find them in this condition in Australia and the other colonies.

As for value, I frankly doubt if anyone would give more than a few pence for it.

I agree with all the above, the coin is not rare though, 5 million minted and it was introduced late in 1860, some 50 million more came out in 1861.

However your coin is very interesting, because its the first year of that particular type of penny! 1860 saw the copper penny (Below) and the bronze penny like you have.

There is also the 1860 Copper penny, which is rare. This coin is 34mm in size and weighs 18 grams, the coin you show is the first date of bronze bun penny from 1860 which weighs 9.45grams when new and is 30.2mm in size.

There are 2 types though, beaded border which is beads inside the outer ring on the edge and toothed border. The latter is more common and was used for subsequent pennies of this type issued until 1894.

But to answer your question, the coin is worth around 5 pence or the melt value of the copper.


Slightly better 1860 pennies, beaded on left and toothed on right, these would be in VG condition which is around £1 - £2 per coin.

I think Becca22 you should start collecting these pennies as they are very interesting, there are lots of types, they are old and even better is they are mostly cheap next to silver and gold coins.

Plus these are "Peoples coins" everyone was using these in the British Empire!

I got my introduction into coins through a worn penny similar to yours, a lady down the road had a jar full of old coins and told me to pick one when I was 8 and the coin that caught my eye was an 1899 penny, in which you could barely see the date - it set me on a journey I am still on!