The History Of The Penny -- From Six Coins And Two Millennia

The calculus of nations that made and used pennies, the pieces and varieties produced, plus the numbers of people who knew them, used them, admired them, and now mostly ignore or even despise them... can hurt your head!

Using the collage at the top of the page as a rough indication of the historical span of pennies, the story begins with a Roman coin called a denarius, a common silver coin earned for a day’s work by laborers in the Roman Republic. The earliest denarii were coined in 211 BC. The leftmost coin above is a denarius dating from 46 BC.

The word denarius echoed later in the French silver denier. The letter d was used in abbreviation of English silver pence, such as the second coin above, struck by the Late Anglo Saxon King Cnut in the early years of the 11th century.

This medieval coin was typical of coins throughout Europe during this time -- small, thin hammered pieces (each silver penny struck by hand on an anvil), produced in the same manner for centuries.

From Silver to Copper and Bronze…

The third coin to examine in this history of the penny is a broad and sturdy disk of solid copper, a British One Penny piece bearing the image of a distinctly Roman looking goddess – Britannia. Though its design speaks to Roman tradition, its precise form and mode of manufacture celebrate the Industrial Revolution.

Continuing in solid copper, but not from a steam press – at least for a while – is the US “large cent”, represented by the one dated 1818 above.

The American coin mimicked the British penny in size and purchasing power, and was usually referred to as a penny, though in fact there has never been a US coin officially called a penny.

Collectors call the first American pennies large cents because by the mid-19th century US pennies became much smaller, as shown by the Indian Head cent in bronze, and the ubiquitous Lincoln cent that circulates today.

Continue the history of the penny with…