New Penny

I have spent all my life thinking that 1p pieces had the word 'One Penny' written on them above the Portcullis, however I just removed one (dated 1981) from my pocket and it actually says 'New Penny'.

Intrigued I looked at my other coins in my pocket and found a 1p piece dated 1999 which does indeed have 'One Penny' written on it.

Anyone else noticed this anomaly that some coins have 'New Penny' written on them instead of 'One Penny'?

I just went and looked it up.. couldn't find much, but apparently when they first came out, they were called "New Penny"... but after you all got used to them they changed it to "One Penny"..

The website didn't say when that was though.. They were first minted in 1971 though.

It's quite interesting, my 1981 says "New Penny" but 1986 says "One Penny" so must have changed in the eighties.

Got an old five pence coin which says "New Pence" as well, dated 1980. I love coins, something interesting about them.

My Grandad would love you.

they were all coke snorting yuppies in the royal mint in the 1980's i bet somewhere is a penny with "duran duran rules" written on it.

I actually love the symbols on them, like how different coins represent different countries (I don't like the new coins lol). Like how each Pound coin would either have the English Three Lions or the Scottish Lion Rampant. Love it.

My Grandad is a proper coin nut. He could talk for months about it.

Hehe awesome. I love it when people have things like that they are really interested in. My Grandad was like that with Trains, knew everything about them. Proper Yorkshireman who would travel to find his trains.

I've got a box of the big old pennies at home, dating back at least as far as 1903 and I think there might be a couple from the 1890s. It's strange to think back about who might have used them and what they bought with them.

At one time or another, every single one of them was used by a syphilitic prostitute to buy heroin.

Just the one syphilitic prostitute that used all of them?

possibly, or possibly hundreds of them dozens of times..

She had a huge habit, and needed lots of medicine.