the last year copper pennies were made was 1857.
the last year copper pennies were made was 1857.
when was the last year copper pennies were made?
1857
on 1 april 1850 the auction was announced of equipment from the defunct soho mint, created by matthew boulton around 1788. at the auction on 29 april ralph heaton ii bought the four steam-powered screw presses and six planchet presses for making blanks from strip metal. these were installed at the bath street works, and in that year trade tokens were struck for use in australia. in 1851 coins were struck for chile using the letter "h" as a mintmark. the same year copper planchets were made for the royal mint to make into pennies, halfpennies, farthings, half-farthings and quarter-farthings. in 1852 the mint won a contract to produce a new series of coins for france. in this the mint pioneered the minting of bronze. ralph heaton iii (son of ralph ii) took key workers to marseilles to equip and operate the french mint there, staying to fulfil the contract, and producing 750 tons of napoléon iii bronze coins from 1853 to 1857.
birmingham mint
the pennies of queen victoria (1837–1901) form one of the most intricate denominations of british coinage, both before and after the transition from copper to bronze pennies in 1860. a number of specialist books have been published on the many varieties of victorian pennies. the final years of the copper penny, from 1839 to 1860, saw a portrait of the queen by william wyon, usually dubbed the "young head". it had a reverse largely unchanged from king william's but for changing an x to a g, thus became , short for regina (queen), denoting the fact that the monarch was now a woman. thus, the legend on victorian copper pennies was . copper pennies were issued for all years between 1839 and 1860 except 1840, 1842, 1850, and 1852. the heaton mint, of birmingham, had been founded with equipment from the wound-up soho mint. beginning in the early 1850s, it supplied large quantities of blanks for pennies to the royal mint, and at times was called upon to strike pennies, though its mint mark h would not appear on pennies until 1874. these contracts were because of the needs of ireland (where counterfeits and tokens were common) and the colonies; the large quantities struck between 1797 and 1807 by boulton ensured there were no shortages in england, scotland and wales.
history of the british penny (1714–1901)