Talk:Penny (British decimal coin)/Archive 1

Legal tender
Could someone please explain to me the 'One and two pence coins are legal tender only up to the sum of 20p.' reference. I do not recal such law existing, as i have, on many occations payed for things with 1-2p coins to values greater than 20p. Also, banks allow bags of 1GBP in 1-2 pence pieces. --Benbread 17:26, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * The relevant current law is the Currency Act, 1983, although similar limits have applied in the past (bronze coins only valid to one shilling, etc). Note the article on legal tender -- that is the limit of the value of coins which someone can be forced to accept in payment of a debt. There is nothing to stop someone agreeing to take larger amounts, but I could not, for example, dump 60,586 pennies at my local council office in payment of this years' Council Tax, it would be unreasonable of me to expect them to count them accurately. As for the banks accepting bags of £1's worth of bronze coins, there is no debt involved, you are simply paying money into an account so "legal tender" doesn't enter into it; also banks tend to weigh coins rather than count them, anyway. -- Arwel 23:56, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the main article is not worded very clearly. I believe it would be better to say you can legally refuse 'settlement of a debt' of greater than 20 pence in 1p or 2p coins. Of course, when no debt has been incurred, anybody is free to refuse payment of any form, regardless of legal tender - for instance a bus driver doesn't have to take a £20 note for a £1 fare, because no debt has been incurred at that stage. Equally a shopkeeper could refuse a £1 coin in payment for an item costing £1, if they chose not to sell it to you - you don't have a legal right to buy something from someone else if they don't want to sell it to you.

From D and dropped when moving to D (disambiguation)
On D the following appears: In British currency, d is an abbreviation (from the Latin denarius) for the pre-decimalization penny, worth 1/240th of a pound.

In transferring the information to D (disambiguation) I have shortened this to: British One Penny coin ("d"), as the abbreviation for the United Kingdom coin denomination before 1971

Would you a) consider this an accurate transformation and b) consider inclusion of the information dropped in the transformation in this article? The reason for the change is to focus on disambiguation rather than information delivery.

Regards, Courtland 01:41, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


 * No, it's not accurate. For starters, British One Penny coin links to the article about the decimal penny coin introduced in 1971, abbreviated "p"; secondly "d" is not an abbreviation for the coin, but for the value, i.e. you could have anything from 1d to 11d. -- Arwel 02:35, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * This indicates what's wrong, but it doesn't indicate how to make it right. Courtland 03:49, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Failed GA
The article is little more than a stub at the moment. I'm suprised it was nominated as a Good Article. SilkTork 13:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * How could it be improved? It is not a stub, or anything like one, as it is pretty much the most one can write on the subject. Computerjoe 's talk 13:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Coins
I don't think this article should be put under Category:Coins, not because an article should only belong to exactly one category, but because Category:Coins of the United Kingdom is a subcategory of Category:Coins. See this MOS for rules. It states as it first sentence
 * ''In straightforward cases an article should not be in both a category and its subcategory, for example Golden Gate Bridge is in Category:Suspension bridges, so it should not also be in Category:Bridges.

Isn't the case of British One Penny coin analogous to that? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 06:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * But read the very next sentence:
 * However there are many articles which should be in both a subcategory and a parent category.
 * Besides, if your argument is 100% valid, then how do you explain the Living people category? Anthony Rupert 15:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I have read the MOS. And my interpretation is that the general rule is not to put an article into both a cat and a subcat. "However there are many articles which should be in both a subcategory and a parent category." is an exception and must be justified. I don't see subcategories of Category:Living people. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 18:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * And how might that be justified?
 * By the way, when I brought up Living people, I meant that articles about famous people belong to several categories as well as that very broad category. Anthony Rupert 21:25, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with ChoChoPK. Including an article in a category and a subcategory of that category should be an exceptional event and should be well-justified before it's done. Looking at Category:Coins, it is clear that its principal purpose is to provide a hierarchy of subcategories, not to contain individual coins. -- Arwel (talk) 23:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Minting dates
Years of Minting: 1971–2006 - Should this be updated to 2007 (in which case 'present' would be more useful) or are there no pennies being minted in 2007?--Knowledge33 18:36, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * New version coming soon, apparently. Nick Cooper 13:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there were pennies minted for general circulation in 2007 and in every year since.86.182.64.151 (talk) 21:06, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

obverse image
The obverse image is now out of date, as it shows the pre-2008 design. (The new one doesn't have the beading around the edge.) If the article is going to show the new reverse it should show the new obverse too. 143.252.80.100 (talk) 17:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Excat weight of 1p
The article says: 'The coin weighs 3.56 grams (one eighth of an ounce)'.

However an internet search shows that the weight is only approximately 1/8 oz, noting that it is commonly taken to be exact by drug dealers!

1/8 oz = 28.349523125/8 g = 3.5437 g. Thus taking 3.56 to be exact, the coin weighs about 0.46% more than 1/8 oz.

Therefore in the interest of accuracy I propose either: 'The coin weighs 3.56 grams (about 0.5% more than one eighth of an ounce)'

or 'The coin weighs 3.56 grams (marginally more than one eighth of an ounce)', and giving the more exact value later.

Presumably this affects some related articles. Any thoughts? GilesW (talk) 19:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, if I had my way the non-metric units wouldn't be mentioned at all. But seeing as I guess the whole world needs to keep doing convoluted conversions until the Brits finish what they started 45 years ago, and the Americans decide to even start, they'll have to stay in.


 * Since the mass in metric units is the definitive specification, the approximation needs to be on the imperial/US customary side. Given that difference is truly *minute* (about the weight of a raindrop), I would suggest stating anything other than "Aprroximately 1/8 oz" would be beyond pedantic. Petecollier (talk) 00:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Since when...
Since when has the Sterling cent been called a penny? I thought you blokes called them "pence" Rpm2005 (talk) 13:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Since about the 7th Century, so for approximately 1300 years, although it has only been worth 1/100 of a pound since 1971. For the first 1250 years or so there were 240 to the pound.


 * It's a fair question coming from someone not familiar with the currency. By way of an explanation: The coin (the physical object) is called a "penny", plural "pennies". "Pence" is is the plural word for the value of those coins, for example "the Pound Sterling is divided into 100 Pence". Put another way, if you needed ten pence, you could get ten pennies out of your loose-change jar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petecollier (talk • contribs) 23:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess it just seemed weird to me (from the US) because even though our 1-cent coin is called a penny we just always use the plural "pennies" and any amount under a dollar we use the term "cents" as in "that'll be 2 dollars and 53 cents, please". Learning is fun! Thanks Pete. Rpm2005 (talk) 08:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. The situation here is no different really, we say pennies in the same circumstances you do. And when you would say 'cents' rather than 'pennies', we would say 'pence' for the same reason.  The irony of course is that 'pence' is actually a contraction of 'pennies', first attested in the 14th century (we've lost sight of the origin of the word over the intervening 600 years!).  Petecollier (talk) 17:17, 10 November 2010 (UTC)


 * another yank here. so...penny/pennies is the same both places, but UK pence = US cents?  is that the whole of it?  does the UK ever use cent or cents for EITHER meaning?


 * and what about the singular? when something costs 1p (yeah, right!) is that "one pence" or "one cent"?  any variation by region or age on this?


 * btw, are "ha'penny" and "tuppence" still in use? would i out myself as being 150 yrs old if i read 2p as "tuppence"?


 * no use WHATSOEVER for "pence" in the US, fwiw. but i'm sure you knew that already.  ;)  66.105.218.43 (talk) 22:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * To answer your questions, "pence" is only used for the plural, so something that costs 1p costs "one penny", but something that costs 2p costs "two pence" ("tuppence" pretty much died out with decimalisation) and you could pay for it either with a single 2p ("two pence") coin, or with two 1p coins ("pennies"). It sounds complicated but it really isn't. As for cents, that word isn't used in Britain - the pound is divided into 100 pence, not 100 cents. 86.8.64.70 (talk) 00:16, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:BritishOneNewPenny.jpg
There is no copyright problem, just a FairuseBot run amok. Have a human read the actual UK copyright policy in question. JoelWest (talk) 05:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

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Change of composition of coin
To be technically correct, copper-plated steel was used for circulating one penny coins from 1992. The original bronze planchets were used for the BU Mint and Proof sets that year. 86.182.64.151 (talk) 21:03, 3 May 2013 (UTC)