Edward VIII, 1936. AE Pattern Penny, 1937, by T. H. Paget & C. W. Coombes.Bare head left, HP below, EDWARDVS VIII D: G: BR: OMN: REX F: D: IND: IMP., rev. ONE PENNY, Britannia seated right, lighthouse behind, date in exergue. Gordiano P3a and p. 253 – this coin; Freeman 216; Peck 2367; S.4063. Of the highest rarity. Lightly toned with considerable blazing red lustre. Much as struck and the sole example of a Penny of this king available to commerce. NGC PF 63+ RB TOP POP (4861781-001) Ex Showpiece fractional sale in partnership with Baldwin’s 2022 (4000 shares sold at £50 per share); Waterbird (Spink 264, 24 September 2019), lot 63; M. Rasmussen, FPL 5, Summer 2003, no. 398; Bowers & Ruddy Galleries, ANA Auction, Houston, 21-26 August 1978, lot 2929; R. Lobel [Coincraft], June 1977.. The Penny is the foundational denomination of the English currency system. For much of the Anglo-Saxon and early medieval periods, it was the only coin issued and remains to this day the sole denomination known for every English monarch. The most elusive Penny for a collector to obtain is that of Edward VIII, who ruled for a mere eleven months in 1936 prior to his Abdication on 10 December. No coins of Edward VIII were released for circulation during his brief reign. The beautiful pattern Penny offered here is one of only six known to have been struck. The obverse die by Thomas Humphrey Paget depicts the king facing left, at Edward’s insistence. This was a personal preference: he considered his left profile the more favourable and felt that the parting of his hair would break up an otherwise solid fringe. Edward’s choice ran counter to the centuries-old tradition that a new monarch’s portrait should face the opposite way to that of his predecessor: the coinage portrait of George V also faced left. On the reverse, the familiar seated figure of Britannia was imaginatively reinterpreted by Charles Walter Coombes in line with the prevailing Moderate Modernism of the age. Perhaps reflecting the social, economic and political storms of the 1930s, Coombes reintroduced the lighthouse, a symbol of hope and security, which had been absent from the Penny since 1895. This coin originally formed part of a complete set of the thirteen denominations of the projected coinage for the new king. Only six of these sets were made at the Royal Mint in anticipation of a wider release of proof sets to coincide with Edward’s planned coronation on 12 May 1937, and the general currency issue that would have ensued. Full-scale production of the new coinage was scheduled to commence at 8 a.m. on 1 January 1937, but the Abdication brought these plans to an abrupt end. Today, the other five known Pennies remain housed in their original sets: three of these sets are at the Royal Mint Museum, one of which was previously on loan to the British Museum; a fourth set is in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle; and the fifth set is in the Tyrant Collection, California, USA. Consequently, this Penny is the only example of the type available to collectors as an individual coin.