Quarter farthing Quarter farthing The British quarter farthing (d) coin was a unit of currency equaling one sixteenth of a penny ( of a pound sterling). It was produced for circulation in Ceylon in various years between 1839 and 1853, with proof coins being produced in 1868. It is the smallest denomination of pound sterling coin ever minted. The coin is considered to be part of British coinage because it has no indication of what country it was minted for, being made in the same style as the contemporary half-farthing which was legal tender in Britain between 1842 and 1869. Before Decimal
Aachen penny of Charlemagne centre, with the v-shaped execution line. In the monetary reform of 792/794 it was determined that a pound would contain twenty shillings or 240 pennies. The introduction of the new monetary system with broadly unified coinage types ("novi denarii") in the Frankish realm was decreed at the Council of Frankfurt in 794. On this coinage type, the relevant mint is named on the reverse inscription - in the case of the Aachen penny found in 2008, the inscription is "METVLLO." The silver penny was, therefore, minted in the period after 794 in the city of Melle, in Poitou-Charentes (modern-day France).