Groat (coin) Groat (coin) The groat is the traditional name of a long-defunct English and Irish silver coin worth four pence, and also a Scottish coin originally worth fourpence, with later issues being valued at eightpence and one shilling. The name has also been applied to any thick or large coin, such as the "Groschen" ("grosso"), a silver coin issued by Tyrol in 1271 and Venice in the 13th century, which was the first of this general size to circulate in the Holy Roman Empire and other parts of Europe. The immediate ancestor to the groat was the French "gros tournois" or
Florin (British coin) given to the introduction of other decimal coins. There was much discussion about what the coin should be called—"centum", "decade", and "dime" being among the suggestions—before "florin" was eventually settled upon, not because of the old English coin of that name, but because the Netherlands had a florin, or gulden, of about that size and value. The first florins were struck in 1849. They were in the Gothic style, and featured a portrait of Queen Victoria as a very young woman, with the crowned cruciform shields of the United Kingdom shown on the reverse, and the nations' emblems in the