This one comes from Barbara who works in the Marketing Department:
'While gardening at my mother's the other day (she still lives in her childhood home!) I unearthed a Jamaican penny. Dated 1937 it bore the head of George VI since prior to decimalisation in 1969 Jamaican coins bore the head of the reigning British monarch. What was an old Jamaican penny doing in a garden in a small Welsh village I wondered? I know for a certainty that no-one had visited Jamaica in the 30s - perhaps my granddad had brought it back from the war - it seems a Caribbean Regiment served in Italy in 1944? Perhaps he had swapped a Britannia penny for it and the two 'swappers' compared the different portraits of George VI? We'll never know - my granddad died in 1982 without ever having mentioned a Jamaican penny although he gave his medals to my brother to remember him by and also to remember how his generation suffered in war - but it's funny how a coin can take you back to a different time and place and start you wondering isn't it?. That's the beauty of coins for me.'
Have you a fascinating coin story to tell?
Let us know and, if your story is published, we'll send you an All Change for 2009 coin pack free of charge. You never know, 100 years hence, coins like this may be found in a garden in Jamaica one day!
All Change for 2009 Coin Pack
The new designs on the circulating coinage have caused quite a stir in the coin world - I wonder what future generations will make of them? As the new definitives, they take their place in the coin sets of 2009 and as a set, from the £1 to the 1p, they record this milestone in the coinage of the UK.
Send us your coin stories
Send your coin stories to coinstories@royalmint.gov.uk for your chance to win the All Change Collectors Pack.
Dave Knight
Director of Commemorative Coin
View the 2009 commemorative coin range.