A thruppny bit (three-penny piece) was my favourite coin. It was a brassy colour, different from every other coin - not coppery, and not silvery. It was quite h

A thruppny bit (three-penny piece) was my favourite coin. It was a brassy colour, different from every other coin - not coppery, and not silvery. It was quite heavy - it felt like wealth. It had twelve sides - the only sterling coin that had sides, until the introduction of the 50p bit, with decimalisation. The other thing I liked about it was that three is such a crazy denomination for a currency token, like a three-dollar bill; three old pennies were heavier and bigger, but the old pennies were ridiculously large and heavy. I also liked florins and half-crowns. A florin was a two-shilling piece, and a half-crown was two-and-a-half shillings. These were coins that actually contained silver. A crown was five shillings, but not generally used as currency, it was issued as a memorial, like a medal. At one time I owned a Churchill Crown, issued to commemorate Churchill's death. They were big, heavy coins. That's why a half-crown was two-and-a-half shillings.