PENANG: While most people would discard one-sen coins, numismatist Danny Tan Swee Boon would pick up the coin if he chances upon one on the ground.  The 55-year-old social worker has been collecting one-sen coins since he was five, after his grandfather gave him a few from the Straits Settlement era of 1845.

Not to be scoffed at: Tan showing his collection of the three different types of one-sen coins which have been used in the country.
“My grandfather taught me to appreciate its value. Besides, it has survived for 162 years, the longest surviving coin in Malaysia,” he said in an interview here yesterday.

Tan said the first one-sen coin in then Malaya bearing the image of the young Queen Victoria of England was minted by the British East India Company in 1845. The round coin – as big as the present 50-sen coin – now had a market value of RM3 per piece, he added.

Tan said square one-sen coins were later introduced in 1910, bearing the image of King George V. These square coins were also issued for King George VI and for Queen Elizabeth II, who began her rule in 1951. The last issue of square coins, he noted, was in 1961.

“During the Japanese Occupation, the Japanese banned the use of all British currency in Malaya and replaced them with banana notes. The use of British one-sen coins resumed under the Federation of Malaya in 1948. These coins bore the face of King George VI.”

Tan said that in 1967, Bank Negara began minting copper one-sen coins, bearing the image of the Parliament building. The image on the coin was changed to a rebana ubi (Malay traditional drum) in 1989.