Before we set off on holiday, we had the usual rummage through our "tin of funny looking coins which might still be legal tender in foreign parts" and to my amazement I found this:
I remember decimalisation quite vividly, but for the life of me I can't remember farthings. It's about the same size as a decimal one penny coin but a bit thinner. As I don't visit junk shops or antique coin fairs, I can only assume that it was fobbed off on me as a one penny coin as change for something. Which begs the question, how on earth did such a coin manage to stay in circulation for thirty nine years after decimalisation?
Monday, 9 August 2010
1948 Farthing
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17 comments:
Technically it's been circulating for 50 years after withdrawal; they weren't legal tender after end 1960 (yes, had to check Google for the date, but I remembered they'd been withdrawn well before decimalisation).
It'll have been hiding in someone's drawer of junk for years, I suspect. Funny, though; who, on finding one, could be arsed to go and palm it off on some unsuspecting shopkeeper for a gain of 1p? Surely it has more value as a curiosity?
ft, having recently cleared the house of an elderly relative, I can testify to the fact that you're quite likely to absentmindedly pocket any loose coins found on the floor while dismantling furniture.
It's only when an indignant (and observant) shopkeeper hands it back that you realise you've tried to palm off some obsolete currency.
(W/V outsydr - my 16-year-old thinks it's a great name for his new band)
I've got a whole album of shit like that, cartwheel pennies the lot. I keep kidding myself it'll be worth something one day.
Remember the thru'penny bit? These will not get passed on!
I think this post is a really cool thought about money. The penny still served its purpose... in vastly improving the ability to exchange things of Real Wealth
The forgery was more helpful to the whole than it was helpful to the forger and will go further simply if you re-circulate it yourself.
Thats the principle reason money should be made common property. (the goodness goes to those who create the value in it, not interest/rent to private bwankers)
FT, thanks for that, which explains why I never saw one as a child.
McH, SL, I'm keeping it now. It's only worth 0.1042 new pence so no great loss.
RS, yes I do remember the old 3d. I wouldn't go romanticising forgers if I were you, what they are doing is still theft, it is just that the losses are shared out between millions of people so nobody actually feels it.
MW
Point is that it don't matter who creates the money, they are all forgers!!!
Just that if the benefit falls into private pockets the whole NEVER gets the benefit. If used for public purposes we can see what a powerful and wonderful gift of nature that is.
Get it? Romance is what life is all about.
It looks to be in bloody good nick as well. Try a coin collector.
Although there are many around, I have had them given me here in changes within the last five years,(Yes in GERMANY!) few are in so good condition.
MW - '...worth 0.1042 new pence..."? Hmmm.
I was 8 in 1960. At one time I could buy four boxes of caps for my cap gun for 1d. Thanks to State sanctioned theft of value I doubt that I could buy a single box of caps for 1p these days.
IMHO your farthing is absolute evidence of the failure (deliberate) of State monopoly money.
Thanks to State sanctioned theft of value I doubt that I could buy a single box of caps for 1p these days.
Thanks to State sanctions, do I not recall that you could not buy "caps" any way, as they now count as an explosive?
(A report last year about shops and christmas crackers)
You can't remember farthings?
Oh, the innocence of youth.
I used to be given one of those every day to spend in the sweetshop on the way to my primary school.
I know it sounds like the Four Yorkshiremen, but honestly you could buy something good enough for breaktime with that, back in the late fifties.
It's just another chapter in the endless state debauchment of our currency.
My father used to show his disdain for our depreciating currency by drilling holes in the old ha'pennies and using them as washers.
(He used to Invent Things in the garden shed and so would occasionally have an urgent need for washers.)
A couple of friends of mine paint and wargame with these lead soldiers. To buy the bases is about 3 cents per base. But a 2 cent piece is EXACTLY the same size and weight.
The choice is easy.
Also in India, where the back street factory's are making razor blades out of Rupees. Can not remember EXACT details, but for a five rupee piece, or whatever, they can get enough razor blades to sell for ten rupees.
Lola: A pack of caps retails at £1.25 on average.
Bill Quango MP
WHAT? You mean those little cardboard boxes with a role of about 100 like a ticker tape?
Or do you mean these new fangled red plastic ring things?
New fangled red plastic things.
Pack of 12 x 6 shots = £1.25 RRP
Cap guns are fairly low sellers but Snapits, those paper twist cap bangers, are still popular.
45p-99p a box rrp
RS, no they are not. Legal tender is exactly what you think it is.
Furor, I checked, if in mint condition worth £4, mine is in medium condition and not worth enough to go through the hassle of selling.
L, Furor, BQ, when I was small those rolls of caps (black spots on a red strip) were six pence or so (but I can't remember whether that was pre- or post-decimalisation, or possibly both).
The red rings were expensive then and are still expensive now. Plus you can't unravel a whole strip and set fire to one end.
WY, no I can't. Thanks to former tory's fine input I can confirm they went out of circulation five years before I was born. I do remember getting one or two old pence for my cup of milk and biscuit at school break time though.
D, Furor, tales abound of coins that cost more to make than their face value, or where even the raw materials are worth more than face value. I am constantly amazed that any government is that stupid.
MW
Oh yes they are... here we go!
Even legal tender has a seiniorage attached to it. Look it up. It simply gets collected by govt, for us, rather the the Bwankers
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