½ Penny - William IV (1831–1837)

One row for each year the ½ Penny - William IV 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 1831 Halfpenny - William IV

The 1831 Halfpenny - William IV is a circulating ½ penny coin issued from 1831 to 1837, struck in copper. It weighs 9.45g and measures 28mm across. Reverse design: Seated figure of Britannia right, with 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 3 years between 1831 and 1837, 1,693,000 coins in all. 1837 is the scarcest date, with 349,000 struck. It is no longer legal tender (withdrawn 1869), so its value is to collectors only.

Common questions

History and design

After the Great Recoinage of 1816 the Mint struck only gold and silver at first, and copper pennies and halfpennies did not resume until 1825 under George IV. William IV, who came to the throne in 1830, had halfpennies struck in only three years: 1831, 1834 and 1837. Tony Clayton describes them as a single type.

Coin Hunter gives 806,400 for 1831, 537,600 for 1834 and 349,440 for 1837, under 1.7 million in all. Not all of it stayed in Britain: Wikipedia notes that roughly a quarter of the copper coinage struck between 1821 and 1856 was sent overseas, with Ceylon the leading recipient. The halfpenny was replaced by a lighter bronze coin from 1860, and the old coppers were demonetised after 1869.

The obverse shows the King's bare head facing right. The Royal Mint Museum explains that William Wyon engraved William IV's coinage portraits, but that they were based on a bust by the sculptor Francis Chantrey rather than being wholly Wyon's own work.

Clayton describes the reverse as similar to George IV's halfpenny: Britannia seated facing right with her trident and shield, the design Wikipedia describes on George IV's penny. The coin is large and heavy copper, as were all British halfpennies before the bronze coinage of 1860.

Varieties and errors

Proofs dated 1831 exist, including bronzed examples recorded as KM 706a. No circulation varieties or mint errors are documented for this type.

Collecting notes

All three dates are the same design, so the date is the main thing to check. CoinVarieties notes that 1837, despite the lowest mintage, is the most available of the three in practice, which makes 1831 and 1834 the dates to look for. Copper of this age is prone to verdigris and cleaning, so original colour and surface count for a great deal.

The matching coins are the William IV penny, struck in the same three years, and the William IV farthing, struck in five.