The World’s Smallest Coin?

1836 1 1/2 british pence

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:

1 1/2 pence compared to penny

1 1/2 pence compared to dime

1 1/2 pence compared to quarter

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?

Odd

Comments

22 responses to “The World’s Smallest Coin?”

06/09/2014

Brian

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

Reply
1. 06/10/2014
  
  Jay
  
  haha… found it in pocket change!
  
  Reply
  1. 11/17/2014
    
    joseph
    
    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
    
    Reply
    1. 11/18/2014
      
      Jay
      
      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! :)
      
      Reply
06/09/2014

Carlton

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.

Reply
1. 06/10/2014
  
  Jay
  
  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
  
  Reply
08/21/2014

John

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.

Reply
1. 08/21/2014
  
  Jay
  
  Oh wow… that’s pretty interesting!
  
  Reply
12/06/2014

Charles Hodgson

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

Reply
1. 12/09/2014
  
  Jay
  
  Nice!! Beautiful too!
  
  Reply
01/05/2015

Shari

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

Reply
1. 01/07/2015
  
  Jay
  
  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.
  
  Reply
02/24/2016

Keston Bartholomew

My father found one in Trinidad the year behind his is 1835 though…

Reply
1. 02/25/2016
  
  Jay
  
  Rock on!
  
  Reply
03/11/2016

Alex

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.

Reply
1. 03/11/2016
  
  Jay
  
  Fascinating! Thanks for the info man, really enjoyed reading this :)
  
  Reply
06/16/2016

lee

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.

Reply
1. 06/20/2016
  
  Jay
  
  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 :)
  
  Reply
12/12/2016

Aurora Tidgwell

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!

Reply
1. 12/13/2016
  
  Jay
  
  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.)
  
  Reply
06/14/2017

Inky Scrolls

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.

Reply
1. 08/01/2017
  
  Jay
  
  hah – awesome!! love it.
  
  Reply

The World’s Smallest Coin?

Here’s the coin compared to our U.S. change:

Comments

22 responses to “The World’s Smallest Coin?”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply