Quick answer
Most British coin superstitions grew out of real practices. Coins buried with the dead go back to the ancient Greek fee for Charon the ferryman. Bent coins were vows to saints and later love tokens. Pierced gold coins were given at royal healing ceremonies, and coins were sealed under ship masts and foundation stones for luck.
Key facts
| Superstition | What people did | Evidence and source |
|---|---|---|
| Coins for the dead | Buried a coin with the body, in the mouth or sometimes over the eye | Ancient Greek custom of paying Charon (Royal Mint; University of Edinburgh research) |
| Pennies on the eyes | Laid a penny on each eyelid of a corpse | Folklore record from Ireland: done to keep the eyes shut |
| Find a penny, pick it up | Picked up a found coin for a day's luck | Oral rhyme with no known author. An older version is about a pin |
| Bent coin | Folded a coin when making a vow to a saint | Medieval England (British Numismatic Journal) |
| Crooked sixpence love token | Bent a worn silver coin and gave it to a sweetheart | Thames finds from the 16th century on (London Museum; Portable Antiquities Scheme) |
| Touch piece | Wore a pierced gold coin given by the monarch | Royal touching for scrofula, to 1712 (Royal Mint) |
| Mast coin | Placed a coin under a ship's mast | Roman barge of about AD 150 (London Museum); HMS Victory, 1894 farthing |
| Foundation coin | Buried the year's coins under a foundation stone | 1933 pennies (Royal Mint Museum) |
| Lucky sixpence | Put a sixpence in a bride's shoe or a Christmas pudding | Royal Mint |
Coins on the eyes of the dead: what it means
Two different ideas sit behind this image.
Charon's obol
The Royal Mint traces the custom to ancient Greece. The Greeks buried their dead with a coin, sometimes over the eye, to pay Charon, the ferryman who carried souls across the River Styx to Hades. Historians call this coin Charon's obol.
The evidence is less tidy than the story. A 2013 University of Edinburgh thesis by Lisa Brown, on coins in Roman burials in Italy, Germany and Britain, notes that such coins are routinely explained as Charon's fee on the strength of classical literature, with little attempt to test what the coin was doing in each burial.
So the ferryman's fee is the traditional reading of coins in graves, not a proven explanation for every one.
Pennies to keep the eyes closed
The later custom of pennies on the eyelids has a plainer explanation in folklore. A record in Ireland's National Folklore Collection, taken down from a father in County Wexford, says: "When a person is dead and his eyes are open somebody puts two pennies on his eyes in order to keep them shut."
No museum or academic source was found that documents this as a formal English rite. It is best treated as household folklore that later picked up the ferryman story.
Find a penny, pick it up: the rhyme
The version most people know runs: "Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long you'll have good luck." It is an oral rhyme with no known author and no fixed text.
It appears to be a newer form of an older rhyme about a pin. The Phrase Finder gives that version as "See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck; see a pin and let it lie, bad luck you'll have all day."
The idea underneath is thrift, not magic. The same source quotes a proverb recorded in Samuel Pepys's diary in the 1660s: "He that will not stoop for a pin, will never be worth a pound."
Bent coin love tokens and the crooked sixpence
Bending a coin on purpose is a well documented custom in Britain, and it had two lives.
Medieval vows
A note in the British Numismatic Journal for 2024 records a medieval penny found "bent double" and explains why: there is "considerable documentary and coin find evidence" for bending coins in medieval England "when making a vow or praying to a saint", to ask for help in illness or adversity. Bending made the coin unusable in trade and turned it into a religious offering.
Post-medieval love tokens
By the 1500s the bent coin had become a courtship gift. London Museum says bent coins found on the Thames foreshore date from the 16th century onwards, and that most surviving "crooked coins" are from the 17th and 18th centuries. Suitors "would often bend the coins and present them to the lady they wished to court". The monarch's head was often rubbed smooth and initials engraved in its place.
Portable Antiquities Scheme records describe the typical find: a silver sixpence, worn almost flat, bent twice into an S shape. Many are worn sixpences of William III. A Dorset Historic Environment Record entry for one such find describes a possible William III sixpence in silver, worn smooth and "bent as a love token".
The same records add a caution. Not every bent coin was a love token. Some may have been carried as charms against witchcraft, and bent coins also turn up in hoards alongside ordinary ones. An uninscribed bent coin cannot tell you which.
Pierced coins and touch pieces
A hole in an old gold coin can be a sign of royal ceremony. For centuries English monarchs touched people suffering from scrofula, a disease of the neck glands known as the King's Evil, in the belief that the royal touch could cure it.
The Royal Mint records that Henry VII used the gold angel, which showed the archangel Michael slaying a dragon. The coins were pierced and threaded on a white ribbon to be worn as a charm.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1470 | Gold angel first issued |
| From 1485 | Henry VII uses the angel in healing ceremonies |
| 1660 to 1682 | Charles II is thought to have touched more than 105,000 people |
| From 1665 | Specially struck touch pieces resembling the angel come into use |
| 1711 | Queen Anne touches the infant Samuel Johnson |
| 1712 | Queen Anne, the last royal healer, touches about 200 people |
Not every pierced coin is a touch piece. Other coins were holed to hang from a chain or ribbon.
Coins under ship masts and foundation stones
Mast coins
The Royal Mint links mast coins to the ferryman too: the Romans placed a coin under a ship's mast so that the fare would be paid if the ship sank, and the practice "came to be associated more with good luck".
London Museum holds part of the mast step of a Romano-British barge that sank about AD 150 while carrying building stone from Maidstone to London. A coin of the emperor Domitian was found in a recess in the timber.
In May 2021 conservators at the National Museum of the Royal Navy lifted a mast on HMS Victory and found a farthing dated 1894 beneath it. "We had wondered if there would be a coin under the mast, to follow with naval tradition," said Rosemary Thornber, the ship's principal heritage adviser. The museum says the custom may date back to Roman times. Ordinary examples of that coin are covered in the farthing values guide.
Foundation coins and the 1933 penny
Burying coins beneath a new building is, in the Royal Mint's words, a superstition that has existed for millennia. It produced one of Britain's best known rare coins.
In 1933 the banks held so many pennies that none were needed for circulation. The Royal Mint Museum says a custom of the time was to bury a complete set of the year's coins under the foundation stones of new buildings, so three 1933 pennies were struck for that purpose, with a few more kept as record copies. The total is thought to be no more than six or seven.
One set, under a church at Middleton near Leeds, was stolen in August 1970. A second was removed and sold, and the third is believed to be still in place. The full story is in the 1933 penny guide.
Which coins are considered lucky in Britain?
The sixpence has the strongest claim. The Royal Mint says it was introduced in 1551, was demonetised in 1980 and is "still considered a symbol of luck and prosperity". It is slipped into a bride's shoe and stirred into the Christmas pudding. Dates and prices are in the sixpence values guide.
Beyond that, the lucky coin is whichever one carries a story: a found penny, a crooked sixpence, a coin from a birth year. None of this is evidence that coins bring luck. They are customs.
For coins that are spooky by design, see the round-up of Halloween coins.
What to do if you find a bent or pierced coin
Leave it as it is. Do not straighten a bent coin or polish a worn one. The guide on how to clean a coin explains why.
If you found it while metal detecting, consider recording it with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and check the Treasure Act guide and metal detecting finds and coin values.
For an inherited lucky coin, identify the date and denomination first, then see whether old coins are worth anything and use the coin value checker. Prices for bent and pierced coins vary widely.
If the coin matters to your family, add it to your collection with the MyCoinage coin tracker so its story is kept with it. It is free to start.
FAQ
Why were coins placed on the eyes of the dead?
Two reasons are given. The ancient Greeks buried a coin with the dead, sometimes over the eye, to pay Charon the ferryman. In later folklore, pennies were laid on the eyelids simply to keep them shut. The second is recorded as a household custom, not a formal rite.
What is the full "find a penny, pick it up" rhyme?
The common version is "Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long you'll have good luck." It is an oral rhyme with no fixed text or known author. An older form begins "See a pin and pick it up" and ends with bad luck for anyone who lets the pin lie.
Which coins are considered lucky in Britain?
The sixpence is the best known. The Royal Mint describes it as still a symbol of luck and prosperity, used in a bride's shoe and in Christmas pudding. Found pennies, bent "crooked" sixpences and pierced touch pieces have also been kept as lucky coins.
What is a bent coin love token?
A bent coin love token is a coin, usually a worn silver sixpence, deliberately bent and given to a sweetheart. London Museum dates Thames finds from the 16th century, with most from the 17th and 18th centuries. Many were bent twice into an S shape.
Do coins bring good luck?
There is no evidence that they do. Coin superstitions are customs with long histories: offerings for the dead, vows to saints, royal healing ceremonies and builders' rites. Their value is historical, and a coin with a documented story is more interesting than one without.
Sources
- The Royal Mint: Superstitions and Traditions Linked to Coins
- The Royal Mint: The King's Evil and the Tradition of Touch Coins
- The Royal Mint Museum: 1933 penny
- London Museum: Valentine's love tokens, from bent coins to whale's tooth
- National Museum of the Royal Navy: Century-old coin uncovered under HMS Victory mast
- Portable Antiquities Scheme: Altered Coins as Treasure