6 Pence - Victoria 1st portrait 1st type (1838–1868)

One row for each year the 6 Pence - Victoria 1st 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; 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 1838 6 Pence - Victoria – 1st type

The 1838 6 Pence - Victoria – 1st type is a circulating 6 pence coin issued from 1838 to 1868, struck in 92.5% silver. It weighs 2.83g and measures 19.3mm across. Reverse design: Crowned denomination within wreath, date below.

Mintage figures are recorded for 28 years between 1838 and 1868, 61,880,400 coins in all. 1863 is the scarcest date, with 491,000 struck. It is no longer legal tender (withdrawn 1980), so its value is to collectors only.

Common questions

History and design

Victoria's first sixpences were struck in 1838, the year William Wyon's Young Head reached the coinage; the Royal Mint Museum says the new coins began to find their way into circulation that summer. The sixpence was struck in sterling silver almost every year, and Tony Clayton treats the coins to 1866 as the first of three Young Head types, before a lower-relief head arrived in 1867.

Output varied widely. Coin Hunter and Wikipedia agree on most dates: 1,607,760 in 1838, a low of 491,040 in 1863, and over 4.6 million in 1859. They differ on a handful of years, and Wikipedia gives 5,140,080 for 1866 where Coin Hunter has 4,140,080.

The obverse is Wyon's Young Head facing left, with the legend VICTORIA DEI GRATIA BRITANNIAR REG FD. The reverse shows SIX PENCE within a wreath, a crown above and the date below. Wikipedia's account of the Jubilee coinage traces this reverse to Jean Baptiste Merlen's design of 1831 for William IV.

From 1864 a small die number appears on the reverse, just above the date. Clayton's die number list begins that year for the sixpence, and the numbers ran on through the second type until 1879.

Varieties and errors

Coin Hunter and Clayton both list overdates for 1848 (8 over 6), 1850 (0 over 3), 1855 (5 over 3) and 1859 (9 over 8), and a large-date 1844. Proofs are listed for 1839 and 1853. Clayton notes that a few 1866 coins lack the die number.

Collecting notes

Collecting die numbers is a pursuit in its own right; Clayton keeps a list of those recorded for each year and warns that sixpence numbers are often hard to read. The dates with the lowest figures, 1863, 1850, 1848 and 1842, are the hardest to complete. Sixpences ceased to be legal tender on 30 June 1980. The type continues as the second Young Head sixpence.