BRITISH COINS, George V, Copper Pattern Penny, 1933, by André Lavrillier, stylised bare headed bust facing left, L to left of B.M in angular font on truncation, GEORGIVS V DEI GRA: BRITT: OMN: REX FID: DEF: IND: IMP:, rev struck en médaille, stylised Britannia helmeted seated right with trident and shield, L on rocks to left, wavy sea to right, date in exergue, legend ONE PENNY, 9.31g (Peck 2284, plate 46; Fr 786 R19, plate XV). Considerable lustre on the obverse, toned on the reverse, otherwise as struck and extremely rare, one of only four known examples.
ex Gregory Collection (part I), Baldwin's Auction 44, 2 May 2006, lot 461
C W Peck stated that only four examples are believed to exist in his research for his publication "English Copper Tin and Bronze Coins in the British Museum 1558-1958", and he records only two known locations in the first edition of his book as (a) Royal Mint Museum, and (b) Fred Baldwin Collection.
Listed below are the four known provenance trails to date, and it is very interesting to note that, in total number produced, these Lavrillier patterns are fewer in number than the regular design 1933 Pennies, of which there are seven whether proof or currency. Coincidentally, it is interesting to note there are three privately owned examples of both this Lavrillier pattern and the more valuable 1933 regular proof/currency Penny.
1) Royal Mint Museum
2) Fred Baldwin Collection Example – sold privately to Mrs E M Norweb, May 1958
ex Norweb Collection of English Coins (part 3,) Spink Auction 56, 19 November 1986, lot 1149, for £4,510 (including premium)
ex Colin Adams Collection, Spink Auction, 23 July 2003, lot 355, sold for £9,775 (including premium)
ex Heritage Auction, 4 January 2009, lot 21452, graded by NGC as PF65BN, sold for US$26,000 (including premium)
3) ex Gregory Collection (part I), Baldwin's Auction 44, 2 May 2006, lot 461, sold for £18,975 (including premium), this coin.
4) ex The Alderley Collection, Colin Cooke online auction 2007, lot 200, sold for £18,000
Michael J Freeman, The Bronze Coinage of Great Britain, specifically mentions these patterns were designed as an experiment of the relief of the bronze Penny. As will be demonstrated below, this was an attempt to finally extinguish once and for all the ghosting as seen on the larger bust type Pennies that had been prevalent on the bronze issues since 1911, and had only been recently "solved" by swapping to a much smaller head in 1928. The Lavrillier pattern exhibited the same percentage ratio of relief upon each side of the coin, thus perhaps equalising the load on the dies as they struck these coins, giving no prevalence to the relief on one side or the other, and therefore in theory eliminating ghosting.
The existence and reasons for these unusual Lavrillier patterns has never been fully published until now and we acknowledge the collaboration of Mr G P Dyer of the Royal Mint Museum in the preparation of this footnote.
The story really starts when the British Royal Mint was contracted to mint a coinage for Romania in 1929-1930, when a proclamation for a new effigy of King Carol II was passed in June 1930. The Romanian authorities commissioned Monsieur André Lavrillier, a French artist of considerable experience, to come to Bucharest for sittings with King Carol II. Because the closest possible co-operation between artist and the Mint craftsmen was required, Lavrillier then came to London, arriving in mid-November 1930 for several weeks. The result was a successful coinage of 1930 dated Romanian 20-Lei and 10-Lei pieces, struck to the tune of 40 and 60 million pieces respectively at the Royal Mint, with a proportion of these figures struck by the Heaton and Kings Norton Mints in Birmingham (marked with an H or KN respectively).
The 1930 Royal Mint report notes how greatly impressed the Deputy Master Sir Robert Johnson was with André Lavrillier, not just for his artistic skill, but more his understanding of the technicalities in die making, a knowledge normally not known to English artists, and in turn the Mint craftsmen had learnt a great deal about the artistic process from Lavrillier too.
The next Royal Mint report of 1931 reveals that the Mint Museum had acquired some examples of André Lavrillier's medallic work during that year. These medals may well have been sent in connection to a continuing relationship with André Lavrillier as detailed in the minutes of a two hour meeting of the "Standing Committee on Coins Medals and Decorations" at St James's Palace at 4pm on Thursday 26 February 1931. This, the 71st meeting of the committee chaired by Sir Robert Johnson, discussed as the fifth item on the agenda, the "Effigy of His Majesty for Imperial coins and Reverse of Bronze Coinage" where Sir Robert emphasised how impressed he had been with Lavrillier's work with the Romanian coinage, and that this artist could be the one that could help to finally eliminate the "ghost" that had been appearing on the British bronze coinage through most of the reign of King George V. Sir Robert had therefore commissioned Lavrillier to help and furnish a revised obverse model whilst at the same time revising the Britannia reverse design. Some of the members of the Committee at first questioned why it was necessary to go overseas to find the right person to conduct such work, though it was agreed to make a fair judgement of whatever models subsequently emerged from Lavrillier's engagement.
The artist's work on the designs therefore commenced over a long period, and it was late 1932 before plaster models were ready for the operative departments at the Mint to reduce into nickel faced models, which progressed to experimental dies for the striking of pattern pieces. The Mint Factory Reductions book lists the work on the Lavrillier plaster models in their technical reduction to coin size "nickled models" on pages 123-125 – numbers 53-55 for the "New Imperial Effigy" and the reverse from the "New design by A Lavrillier" with work carried out from the 6 to 20 December 1932. The original obverse plaster model had a diameter of 10.5 inches and the resulting reductions had a diameter of 1.208 inches. The reverse plaster model was 9.9 inches in diameter and the reduction was 1.208 inches. The third and final reduction was a second version of the obverse effigy, where the actual head on the reduction was to be larger than the first produced some days before, the head on the original plaster model being 7.38 inches long from tip of truncation to top of head, and on this new reduction to be 0.876 inches.
The reason for production of this second obverse reduction is summarised in the Die Office Record Book, where the first reduction of the "George V New Civil Effigy from a new model (Lavrillier)" was received 6 December 1932 with a pencil note that the head was considered "too small," therefore work progressed no further. The note continues further about the second reduction with the larger head and dimensions, being hardened for die work on the 30 December 1932, with two steel dies started on the 3 January and 5 January 1933 respectively. The second of these was not eventually required, therefore the first die was hardened with all details added by 12 January 1933, and a copper impression from it sent to the Mint Office 13 January 1933 (similar to Freeman 787).
A separate page notes the "Penny Imperial Reverse (Lavrillier) from new model" was received 12 December 1932 and a hardened reduction was also ready on 30 December as per the obverse design; with reverse dies also being prepared on the 3 January and 5 January 1933, again with the second reverse die not being required. The first reverse reduction was produced as a hardened steel die with all details added by 11 January 1933, with a copper impression sent to the office 12 January 1933 (similar Freeman 788). A further record of these reductions being made into "Experimental Dies" with copper impressions produced occurs in the Engraving Department Records with illustrations of the pieces and their technical aspect.
The culmination of this work led to the 75th meeting of the Standing Committee on Coins Medals and Decorations at St James's Palace on Tuesday 17 January 1933 at 4.30pm, where, again, the fifth item on the agenda was the "Effigy of His Majesty for Imperial Coins and Reverse of Bronze Coinage". At this meeting the electrotype of Lavrillier's model and the existing design, "together with specimens struck in a medal press of pennies (a) in use, and (b) bearing M. Lavrillier's revised bust of His Majesty and new reverse" were shown to Committee members for comment. The Chairman reported that Lavrillier's work did not fully eliminate the "ghost" as desired, and invited comment, especially as to any superiority in the design of the Britannia. The Committee "did not think there was much to choose," and one member preferred the existing current design of Britannia. The Committee generally preferred the existing obverse too, and were critical of the neck area of the new Lavrillier piece, and one observer pointed out a misuse of the Greek style helmet on the reverse where the visor should pivot at the nape of the neck.
From the minutes of this meeting, we can surmise there was no way further forward for a coinage of the Lavrilier "experiment" and the pieces prepared for observation at that meeting, including the regular pennies "in use" dated 1932, found their way to the Mint Museum on 19 November 1935. The Mint Museum accessions book records their arrival from Mr H W L Evans, Superintendent of the Operative Department of the Royal Mint factory (retired Spring 1939), as numbers 3475-3478 inclusive for the Lavrillier patterns, and items 3479-3482 for the regular 1932 Pennies in use. There is a remark appended to the Lavrillier Patterns that "These 1933 Pennies must not be confused with the 6 ordinary 1933 pennies issued for foundation stones and Museums." This record book also shows later pencil marks crossing through one accession number for the patterns and all accession numbers for the 1932 pennies as they have been de-accessioned from the Museum holdings. The record then falls silent, but certainly shows that only four examples of the 1933 Lavrillier pattern are recorded, which matches C W Peck's quote.
The story of the rarity of the regular 1933 Penny need not be repeated in detail here, other than the Royal Mint report of 1933 activity (reviewed Spink Numismatic Circular February 1934), revealed that production of Pennies ceased in October 1932 and was not revived until 1934. This was reiterated in the Times Newspaper in early 1935 and the relevant section reproduced in the Spink Numismatic Circular of March 1935, where it was added that the University of London in Bloomsbury had a 1933 Penny in a set placed under its foundation stone on 26 June 1933, as well as the British Museum and Royal Mint receiving examples. The Hull Daily Mail newspaper of 23 February 1937, page 6, carried a snippet entitled "1933 Pennies" where the Mint had quelled a rumour that two coins out of the "six minted" were unaccounted for, and "they were prepared to pay £150 each for them." The Mint confirmed there were six, two in the British Museum, one in the Royal Mint Museum and three under building foundation stones. As noted in the cataloguing of the Norweb 1933 currency Penny, the Librarian and Curator of the Mint Museum at the time was Charles F Barrett, who made an annotation on 10 May 1934 that "seven examples exist, one of which is not traceable at current time" hence why the official line in 1937 was "six were minted." The one untraced coin was still "missing" as of 19 November 1935 when the "6" remark was added to the Lavrillier Patterns in the Accessions Book also in the hand of Charles F Barrett.
Noting more about the artist, according to French language family website, www.lavrillier.com, André Lavrillier was born 7 May 1885, son of the steel engraver Henri Lavrillier, which is why the young André eventually understood the complete process in medallic design, from artist's conception to preparing a steel die. After André's studies in Rome and service in World War I, he started to produce recognised medallic works from 1917 onwards. These medallic works progressed towards coinage with the commission for Romania with portraits produced of Carol II and Princess Ileana as mentioned above, which directly led to André Lavrillier working on the technically challenged patterns of the British 1933 Penny. From this pioneering work in coinage relief at the Royal Mint, Lavrillier then produced patterns and designs for the coinage of France and her colonies dating onward from 1933, many of which were used up until 1966. André Lavrillier died in Paris in 1958 and other family members have since become involved in artistic design.
Estimate: £35,000-45,000