1 Penny - Victoria 2nd portrait 1st type (1860–1874)

One row for each year the 1 Penny - Victoria 2nd portrait – 1st type 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 1860 1 Penny - Victoria – 1st type

The 1860 1 Penny - Victoria – 1st type is a circulating 1 penny coin issued from 1860 to 1874, 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 with lighthouse on left and ship on right, denomination around, date in exergue.

A mintage of 5,053,440 is recorded for one date of this type; figures for each year are not held. It is no longer legal tender (withdrawn 1971), so its value is to collectors only.

Common questions

History and design

By the late 1850s Britain's copper coinage was heavy and badly worn. Wikipedia's account of the recoinage explains that Thomas Graham, Master of the Mint, persuaded the Chancellor, William Gladstone, to replace it with bronze, which was harder and had already been used by the Mint for colonial coins. The new penny, of 95 per cent copper, 4 per cent tin and 1 per cent zinc, weighed half as much as the old one.

The bronze coins were released from 26 November 1860 and made current by proclamation on 17 December. Production outran the Royal Mint, so contracts went to James Watt and Co and Ralph Heaton and Sons of Birmingham. Output peaked at 50,534,400 in 1862, then fell to 1,182,720 in 1868 and 1,290,318 in 1871 in Coin Hunter's figures. The old coppers were demonetised at the end of 1869.

Leonard Charles Wyon modelled the laureate portrait, nicknamed the bun head after the Queen's hair. Victoria sat for him at Osborne House in December 1859 and asked for changes as late as July 1860. The legend reads VICTORIA D: G: BRITT: REG: F: D:, Gladstone having insisted on the doubled T of BRITT for the Latin plural.

Wyon's reverse shows Britannia seated with trident and shield, a lighthouse behind her and a ship before her, with ONE PENNY around and the date in the exergue. The Royal Mint Museum's 1906 catalogue records L. C. WYON on the bust and L.C.W. below the shield on the first coins. This was the first base-metal penny to state its value.

Varieties and errors

Wikipedia, citing Spink, counts 13 obverses and 14 reverses across the bun series. In Tony Clayton's die list the first type uses obverses 1 to 5, the older portrait arriving as obverse 6 in 1874. The main collector varieties are the 1860 beaded and toothed borders (with scarce mules), the 1862 8 over 6, the 1863 die number below the date, the 1864 plain and crosslet 4, and the 1865 5 over 3.

Collecting notes

The Royal Mint Museum notes that bun pennies stayed in circulation until decimalisation, so most survivors are well worn. Wikipedia attributes the large number of early varieties to speed of production and three sources of supply. For die identification Clayton points collectors to Peck and to Michael Freeman's book on the bronze coinage. The later bun penny of 1874 to 1894 carries the older portrait.