William and Mary Penny

This tiny (12mm in diameter) early milled silver coin was sent in by Dennis Langmead. It’s a penny of William and Mary and the date on the reverse is 1693. Coins like this one are sometimes generically listed as Maundy Money but they were used as small change, together with fourpences, threepences and twopences. It was only during the 19th century that sets were made specifically to hand out on Maundy Thursday. Being so small it might be expected that pennies would be lost fairly easily. This, though, doesn’t seem to be the case as very few have been found by detectorists. I’ve seen perhaps half a dozen and three of them were holed for storing on a piece of cord or string.