2016-05-17 Tue

On 4th May, an extremely rare 1933 pattern penny from Great Britain designed by French artist Andre Lavrillier fetched a whopping £86,400 at the A.H. Baldwin & Sons’ Auctions. Only four such coins exist today and this was a record price for a bronze or copper penny. The Royal Mint Museum owns one of the four examples of Lavrillier’s pattern while the other four are with private hands.

During the global depression in 1933, England has large stocks of pennies which were not at all used and hence its production was halted. Also, the Standing Committee on Coins Medals and Decorations rejected Lavrillier’s pattern in December 1932.

From 1911 onwards, coins of Britain were subject to a phenomenon called “ghosting”. When one side of the coin bears a portrait but the other side is rather plain, due to the high relief, the portrait is faintly visible on the other side as well. This is known as “ghosting”. The 1933 coins were minted to combat this problem. Initially smaller bust of King George V were introduced in 1928 but the results were not that satisfying. Later the Royal Mint officials took Lavrillier’s advice. Lavrillier was not only known for his artistic skills but also his deep understanding of die making, which his English counterparts lacked. His design was presented in January 1933 to the officials but Ghosting was not totally eliminated and the King’s neck in the design was not that impressive. On his experimental design, his initials AL initials are next to Bertram McKennal’s BM initials. The examples were kept at the Mint museum in November1935. Only one of these coins is still at the museum.

Spink sold one coin as part of the famous Norweb Collection on Nov. 19, 1986, for £4,510. The same coin was sold twice again, last by Heritage on Jan. 4, 2009, for $26,000. Colin Cooke sold a third coin in an online auction in 2007 for £18,000.