Lions Crown
What is the value of a Queen Elizabeth 10 New Pence 1968 coin?
It's in mint condition with a crowned lion on the back and the Queen on the front.
On the font it has Elizabeth . II and D-G-REG-F-D-1968
On the back has New pence, a crowned lion. Also "New pence"
I saw a coin alike on Ebay that was selling the coin with a very high price.
Anybody know how much this coin is worth?
Queen Elizabeth the II* I mean.
That description is absolutely standard for the British 10p coin before the design was changed in 2008 - I have a few in my pocket now! It's not worth THAT much - a lot were made, though they're out of circulation now as the size of the British 10p coin was reduced in 1992. The British magazine "Coin News" reckons it's worth about £3, so about $5.
There's a bit of historical interest there - when it was minted, "new pence" weren't the British currency. We changed from £1 = 20 shillings = 240 pence to £1 = 100 new pence (now just called pence as that was nearly 40 years ago!) in 1971, but to relieve pressure on the Royal Mint in replacing the entire coinage, some coins were introduced early and the 10p was one of them - it was worth exactly the same as 2 shillings and it was made to be exactly the same size as the existing 2 shilling coin so people would recognise it. 1968 was the first year in which they were made, and in fact 336 million of them were made that year - more than in any other year since, except for the minting of over 1 billion of the new smaller size in 1992. (We needed more than in 1968 - that's inflation!)
I remember "D-Day" (Decimalisation Day) on 15 February 1971 well even though I was only aged 5 at the time - as you can imagine, changing the currency was a huge event and left so many people confused as they couldn't relate to the value shown by prices in shops any more, even though the pound remained the same. I remember the "old money" coins as well, though I never really used them as I wasn't old enough - I do remember my mother giving me a 3d coin every Sunday afternoon to put in the offering at Sunday School. Now that was a strange one - very thick for its size and it had 12 sides, not round. (To explain - old pence were d rather than p - it comes from the Latin denarius, a small Roman coin.) For some strange reason, one thing that sticks in my mind from then is the 5 minute public information films on TV all about it, and the jingle "six pence is two and a half pence mmmmmmm!" (because 6d = 2 1/2p).
Of course "old money" totally confused tourists used to "1 big unit = 100 smaller units", like dollars and cents, and that was one reason for the change. Imagine something priced at 2/6. That meant 2 shillings and 6d, equivalent to 12 1/2p now. (Thanks to inflation, half pennies have been withdrawn as it became just too small a unit.)
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 2 Lions Crown Victoriana Ox Silver Plate 1377so2 $8.80 Time Remaining: 8d 2h 20m Buy It Now for only: $8.80 |