1 Penny - George V modified effigy (1926–1927)

One row for each year the 1 Penny - George V modified effigy was struck. Prices are medians of verified sold listings matched to that year from the listing: circulated is worn condition up to Extremely Fine, uncirculated is About Uncirculated or better. A count in brackets means fewer than three sales behind the figure; a grey figure marked "type" is the median across every year, shown where that year has no sale of its own yet. Most types have been searched year by year only since October 2026, so later years are still filling in. Use the grade table below for a price by condition across all years.

About the 1926 1 Penny - George V modified effigy

The 1926 1 Penny - George V modified effigy is a circulating 1 penny coin issued from 1926 to 1927, struck in bronze. It weighs 9.45g and measures 30.8mm across. Reverse design: Seated figure of Britannia right, with trident in left hand and shield bearing the Union flag in right, sea behind, denomination above and date in exergue.

Mintage figures are recorded for 2 years between 1926 and 1927, 65,488,000 coins in all. 1926 is the scarcest date, with 4,498,500 struck. It is no longer legal tender (withdrawn 1971), so its value is to collectors only.

Common questions

History and design

George V's bronze coins were made current by a proclamation of 28 November 1910, effective from 1 January 1911. The Royal Mint Museum describes Bertram Mackennal's portrait as attractive but technically unsuited to coinage: the head was so large and in such high relief that it displaced too much metal, leaving a ghost image of the King on the reverse.

No pennies were struck in 1923, 1924 or 1925. Tony Clayton records that the Mint used the pause to tackle ghosting, adopting a slightly softer bronze of 95.5 percent copper, 3 percent tin and 1.5 percent zinc, and redesigning the head in lower relief during 1926. That modified effigy was used for the rest of 1926 and for 1927, and replaced in 1928 by a smaller head.

Coin Hunter gives 4,498,519 pennies for 1926, the lowest figure for any Royal Mint penny of the reign in Wikipedia's table apart from 1933, and CoinVarieties notes that this includes the first effigy coins struck earlier that year. 1927 was a full year at 60,989,561.

The obverse is Mackennal's bare head of George V facing left, with his initials BM on the truncation, and the legend GEORGIVS V DEI GRA:BRITT:OMN:REX FID:DEF:IND:IMP: set by the 1910 proclamation. The reverse shows Britannia seated on a rock surrounded by the sea, her right hand on a shield and a trident in her left, with ONE PENNY and the date. The edge is plain.

Wikipedia traces the Britannia to Leonard Charles Wyon, as modified by George William de Saulles in 1895. Clayton lists the 1927 coins with a modified reverse, and notes that a rare 1922 reverse resembles it.

Varieties and errors

The 1926 modified effigy is the key piece. Clayton gives a simple test using the rim teeth: on the modified effigy the I in DEI points at a tooth and the I in BRITT between two teeth, the opposite of the first effigy. The colons after GRA and BRITT are also placed differently.

Collecting notes

Check every 1926 penny with the DEI and BRITT test, since both effigies share the date and Clayton calls the modified version scarce. CoinVarieties calls 1927 a common date and records proofs of it. The old penny ceased to be legal tender after 31 August 1971. The smaller portrait penny of 1928 to 1936 followed.