Farthing (british coin)
A farthing was a quarter penny worth of British coin . The noun comes from the Old English fēorþing / fēorþung ( fēorþa + ing / ung = "Vierting / Viertung" [a fourth]; cf. anord. "Fjórðungr"). This coin was from the 13th century to 1956 in England dominated and had up to 31 December 1960 valid means of payment . In the years before, there were already increasing press reports that businesses refused to accept Farthings as a means of payment.
Although several million farthings were minted over the course of 700 years, relatively few have survived to this day. The oldest coins found date from the reign of Henry III. , but they are probably just initial attempts at minting and not really coins intended for payment transactions.
Farthing was minted from silver until the 16th century. However, since there were several weight reductions, it became so small in the 16th century and therefore so easy to lose that the coinage was suspended for several decades. Jacob I switched to copper stamping. The last pieces were finally made of bronze . The new English penny , introduced with the currency reform of 1971, has almost the same dimensions as the last farthing. In the early 19th century there were also quarter, third and half farthings as circulation coins made of copper. Probably the last halffarthing was minted in 1902 as the "Coronation Model" (ejection coin) for King Edward VII .
literature
- Günther Schön, Jean-Francois Cartier: World coin catalog 19th century , Battenberg Verlag Augsburg 1992, ISBN 3-89441-062-0
- Gorge S. Cuhaj, Thomas Michael: Standard Catalog of World Coins 1801–1900 , Krause Publications, 2010
