The World’s Smallest Coin?
Say hello to my new little friend! A 1 and 1/2 Pence piece from Great Britain, circa 1836! And, quite frankly, the tiniest coin I’ve ever seen before… Look how cute she is! (Yes, she’s a “she” :))
I picked it up for $27 worth of trade (it’s worth about $33 in “VF” grade), and I haven’t been able to stop playing with it since. I’m on a mission to find a coin that’s smaller from my collection but so far I’ve failed miserably.
Here’s the coin compared to our U.S. change:
I didn’t have any spare change laying around, so I plucked some of these guys from my “renegades” bowl I’ve collected over the years… The coins that aren’t worth anything more than face value, but that have weird things going on like paint on them, crazy mutilations, edges that are way thicker than others, etc. I can’t seem to put them back into circulation! :)
Anyways, as you can tell this coin is teeny tiny. And what an interesting denomination too! 1 and 1/2??? It would be interesting to see how much that would be worth in today’s dollars if it were around… Maybe it was like a 50 cent piece? The thing’s almost 200 years old! Pretty incredible you can still see most of the markings pretty well too.
Here’s some details on this 1 and 1/2 Pence from NGC:
- Composition: Silver
- Weight: 0.7069g
- ASW: 0.0210 oz (2% of an ounce of silver – hah!)
- Melt Value: $0.40 ( as of 6/7/2014)
- Guy on the front: William IV
Anyone else add any interesting coins to their collection lately?
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About The Author
Jay
I love coins, beer, and my kids. Not particularly in that order :) You can check out all of my online projects here: jmoney.biz.
That thing is silly! How many of those were lost in pockets over the year?
What the heck did you do to beat up that 1977 quarter? Your 1.5 pence is in better shape than that
haha… found it in pocket change!
Hey bud I just found an 1876 dollar about the size of a nail head I have no clue what its worth mabe u no im on facebook u can see pics there
Interesting! Is it a U.S. coin or foreign? I’ve seen some shrunken coins that are just for novelty so it could be that, but happy to check it out if you want to send me the link to your FB posting or email me some pics: j @ coin thrill .com
Who knows what you have in your hands! :)
Check out the wire coinage that came from czarist Russia. They would literally take a piece of wire, hammer it with the stamp for the denomination, clip it off and then do the next coin. These things are itty bitty, like you can fit four on a modern cent! The last time they were made was by Peter the Great in 1725.
oh wow – you’re not kidding! here’s a cool link for those reading who’s interested:
http://metaldetectingworld.com/hammered_wire_silver_coins.shtml
Incredibly small coins that are still used in circulation are the Sentimos of the Philippine Piso. 1 Sentimo is only worth about .00023 USD, and so the coins have to be extremely small to avoid people melting them. The Philippines have had many different versions of them, but some sentimo coins are 1 centimeter in diameter.
Oh wow… that’s pretty interesting!
Try an 1893 Maundy Silver 1 Pence Coin. 11mm and a whopping .5 grams. The detail on these is amazing! The 2 Pence is 13mm and .9 grams.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MNS-GREAT-BRITAIN-Victoria-1893-Proof-Maundy-1-2-amp-3-Pence-Proof-Nicely-toned-/201225323721?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=jRctqI9Jv6vKF6wvt5ybxf6kr%252Fc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
Nice!! Beautiful too!
You seem like a man in the know & I just want to know if there are any odd/renegades you may recommend to make jewelry from. I know it sounds a bit sacrilegious because I’ve been a collector in the past, but a client wants a bracelet with different small coins that are or once were the real deal. Any ideas? Please give me a shout out if you have any ideas.
Thank you so much & good luck in your searches. :)
Shari
Fun idea!
I’m not that versed in foreign coins, which you could probably find cheaper out there, but there are some pretty cool “odd” old US coins that would be pretty sweet in jewelry. Particularly any of the 3 cent pieces whether made of silver or not (“not” will be cheaper :) of course). And all 3 cent pieces are relatively small… Same with half -dimes too! not to be confused with a nickel, haha… Those are your best bet probably…
If your client has a lot of money, you can grab old $1 gold coins too which are super tiny ;)
Hope this helps.
My father found one in Trinidad the year behind his is 1835 though…
Rock on!
That coin would probably have been called a penny-ha’penny, where “ha’penny” is pronounced like hape-ny. A penny and a half was one eighth (1/8) of a shilling. There was probably a threepenny (“threp-ny”) bit (worth “threppence”) twice its weight and a sixpenny bit (worth sixpence) twice the weight of that, a shilling bit twice the weight of that, and a two-shilling bit (a florin) twice the weight of that, all five coins being made of the same alloy and having the same proportions. That being the case, the shilling piece would have been twice the diameter and thickness of the penny-ha’penny, and the florin would have been twice the diameter and thickness of the threepenny bit.
Fascinating! Thanks for the info man, really enjoyed reading this :)
i can’t find any information on a miniature coins in a packet. in the packet are a nickle,one cent,quarter and half stamped with Kennedy face. they are pretty clear on these tiny coins.
Sounds like a novelty item made by a 3rd party somewhere – it’s not from the U.S. Mint.
Probably not worth anything but I’d check eBay to see if you can find it and see what they’re going for :)
I have a coin about half that size very old and primitive I have never found another! I’ve seen one simular in India but this is older more primitive! But that is definitely not the world’s smallest coin!
oooh nice!
let me know if you ever find out what it is – would be cool to see :)
(have you tried taking it to a coin show? I guarantee one of the dealers there would know more.)
In case you’re still interested, some quick fiddling around with an inflation calculator tells me that a penny-ha’penny would’ve been worth approximately £6.55 in today’s money in 1836, which is roughly $8.37 at the current (14th June 2017) conversion rate.
hah – awesome!! love it.