Watch List notes:

Victoria (1837-1901), white metal Pattern Penny, 1887, trial striking by Adolph Weyl, crowned Jubilee style bust with veil left, date either side of crown, English legend and beaded border surrounding, VICTORIA QUEEN AND EMPRESS, rev. struck en medaille, crowned cruciform shield with emblems in angles and quatrefoil centre, all within tressure, denomination ONE PENNY below, legend surrounding UNITED KINGDOM AND GREATER BRITAIN, edge plain, weight 13.04g (cf.Peck 2180; cf.Fr.913 R19). Lightly toned around rim with a few tiny black spots and pits on obverse, clearly a struck piece with bevelled rims to the plain edge and no doubt a trial piece before commencement of striking in other metals, the only example known to us of this denomination though a Halfpenny trial also known, of highest rarity, deemed by NGC to be lead and therefore ineligible type for grading.

NGC Certification 6321673-010.

Provenance:
Ex Colin Adams Collection, Spink (London) 23rd of July 2003, Lot 294.
Ex A. H. Baldwin, Fixed Price List, Winter 2013, item BM343.

The German medallist and engraver, Adolph Weyl, was supposedly tasked by the Royal Mint in the mid-1880s to produce a series of pattern coins to potentially be adopted for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. Known pattern pennies were made out of Gold, Copper and Aluminium, this piece may well have been a trial strike. Believed to have been made by Lauer of Nuremberg, these pattern pieces are of the highest rarity.
Estimate: £600-800