1 Penny - Victoria 1st portrait (1841–1860)

One row for each year the 1 Penny - Victoria 1st portrait 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; years with no sales yet fill in as sales are recorded. 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 1841 1 Penny - Victoria

The 1841 1 Penny - Victoria is a circulating 1 penny coin issued from 1841 to 1860, struck in copper. It weighs 18.9g and measures 34mm across. Reverse design: Seated figure of Britannia facing right, trident in left hand and shield bearing the Union flag in right, legend around and national flower emblems in exergue.

Mintage figures are recorded for 17 years between 1841 and 1860, 21,357,400 coins in all. 1860 is the scarcest date, with 32,000 struck. It is no longer legal tender (withdrawn 1869), so its value is to collectors only.

Common questions

History and design

Queen Victoria's copper pennies kept the standard of her predecessors: Tony Clayton gives about 18.8 g and 34 mm. Wikipedia's penny history, citing Coincraft, lists no pennies for 1840, 1842, 1850 or 1852, and the 1839 date is a bronzed proof only, so the currency run starts in 1841. From the early 1850s the Heaton Mint in Birmingham supplied many of the blanks.

Coin Hunter gives 913,920 for 1841. Most dates of the 1840s stayed below half a million, with 1848 lowest at 161,280, before output jumped to 6,720,000 in 1854. Bronze coins replaced copper in 1860, and the 32,256 pennies dated 1860 were all overdates that Clayton says were never issued. Copper was demonetised on 31 December 1869.

The obverse carries William Wyon's Young Head of the Queen with VICTORIA DEI GRATIA and the date below. The Royal Mint Museum records that the Queen told Wyon 'You always represent me favourably'. Some dies, including 1858, have W.W. on the truncation.

The reverse is the seated Britannia from the pennies of George IV and William IV. Wikipedia notes the only change was REX becoming REG, so the legend reads BRITANNIAR REG FID DEF, abbreviated Latin which Wikipedia renders as Queen of the British Territories, Defender of the Faith. The edge is plain.

Varieties and errors

Clayton lists several die differences. 1841 and 1843 come with or without a colon after REG. Many dates have a close or far colon after DEF, and from 1853 to 1857 a plain trident appears alongside the usual ornamental one. Overdates include 1848 over 6 and over 7, 1854 over 3 and 1858 over 7, and 1858 also comes with and without W.W. on the truncation.

Collecting notes

Clayton names 1849 and 1860 as the scarce dates and says the coin needs to be at least EF to show its quality. Pure copper wore quickly, so high grade examples of the low mintage dates of the 1840s are hard to find.

1851 is disputed: Coin Hunter and CoinVarieties give about 268,800, while Wikipedia's penny history gives 432,224. The bronzed proof of 1839 is covered at 1839 bronzed penny.