Lucky Wedding Sixpence; Rose, Thistle, Shamrock and Leek 6 Pence Great Britain Authentic Coin Money for Jewelry and Craft Making (Fortune)

Lucky Wedding Sixpence; Rose, Thistle, Shamrock and Leek 6 Pence Great Britain Authentic Coin Money for Jewelry and Craft Making (Good Fortune)

Reverse: English Tudor rose, Scottish thistle, Irish shamrock, and Welsh leek aligned in a cross, legend above, denomination and date below.
Lettering: FID· DEF·
E.F C.T
SIX PENCE
Translation: Defender of the Faith

Obverse: Young laureate portrait of HM Queen Elizabeth II right, legend around.
Lettering: ELIZABETH·II·DEI·GRATIA·REGINA +
Translation: Elizabeth the Second by the Grace of God Queen

Edge: Reeded

Features
Issuer United Kingdom
Queen Elizabeth II (1952-date)
Type Standard circulation coin
Years 1954-1970
Value 6 Pence = 1/2 Shilling (1/40)
Currency Pound sterling (1158-1970)
Composition Copper-nickel
Weight 2.83 g
Diameter 19.3 mm
Thickness 1 mm
Shape Round
Technique Milled
Orientation Medal alignment ↑↑
Demonetized 30 June 1980
Number N# 576
References KM# 903, Sp# 4149

Wikipedia:
Cultural significance
As the supply of silver threepence coins slowly disappeared, Royal Mint sixpences replaced them as the coins traditionally put into Christmas puddings. From the Victorian era onwards, it became tradition to mix a threepence or sixpence into the ingredients when preparing a Christmas pudding, as the coin was believed to grant good luck. Prepared on Stir-up Sunday, the last Sunday before the start of Advent, the coin would be placed into the mixture, then the mixture was stirred by every member of the family. When it came to eating the pudding on Christmas day, whoever found the sixpence in their slice would receive good luck in the year to come.

In Britain, there is a well-known tradition of the bride wearing "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe". A silver sixpence in the bride's shoe is a traditional wedding gesture for good luck; customarily the father of the bride places the sixpence, as a token of him wishing her prosperity, love and happiness in her marriage.

They are also used as a good luck charm by Royal Air Force aircrew who have them sewn behind their wings or brevets, a custom dating back to the Second World War.

The archaic slang "bender" for a sixpence emerged when the coin had a high silver content and could easily be bent, sometimes deliberately to create a love token. The expression "to go on a bender" (to indulge in a binge drinking session) derives from this meaning when one could drink all day in taverns for six pence.

In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 4, Scene 2), we learn that by his absence (ensorcelled in Titania's bower) Bottom the Weaver will forgo sixpence a day for life from the Duke. In Elizabethan times, six pence was roughly a day's wage for rustic labour in the provinces. With it, one might buy two dinners, six performances of Hamlet among the groundlings at the Globe Theatre, or an unbound copy of the play itself.

In David Copperfield, Charles Dickens describes how its protagonist dealt with a street carman about taking his travel box to a coach office in London: "I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I wanted him to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence", then he replying: "Done with you for a tanner!"

The sixpence also features in other works of British popular culture and literature. It appears in the title of the writer W. Somerset Maugham's 1919 novel, The Moon and Sixpence, and appears in both the title and as a plot device in Michael Paraskos's novel In Search of Sixpence. The sixpence appears in the English nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence" published in London in 1744. Half a Sixpence is the title of the 1963 West End stage musical, and the subsequent 1967 musical film version, of H. G. Wells's novel Kipps.

"I've Got Sixpence" is a song dating from at least 1810. An elaborated version was published in 1941, words and music by Elton Box & Desmond Cox. The singer tells the tale of spending twopence (per verse) until he has "no-pence to send home to my wife – poor wife."

Some guitarists prefer the rigidity of a coin to the flexibility of a more traditional plastic plectrum; among them are Brian May of Queen and Ian Bairnson of The Alan Parsons Project. May at some time even had sixpence-sized coins featuring his own head struck by the Royal Mint, which he used, gave away, and sold as his signature plectrum.

Sixpence None the Richer (also known as Sixpence) is an American rock band whose name was inspired by a passage from the book Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.

Penguin Books initially sold books in the 1930s through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence.

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Thistles, Leeks, Roses and Shamrocks ..
Do you know what these are? They are the national plant emblems British Isles. The thistle of Scotland, the leek of Wales, the Rose of England and the Shamrock of Ireland are the national symbols, which may appear on many things such as the national flag, coat of arms, or other patriotic materials.

According to legend the Vikings were successful at the start of their war against the native inhabitants of Scotland and were likely to be overrun. A Viking is one of the Norse (Scandinavian) explorers, warriors, merchants and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century.

These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far west as Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland. This period of Viking expansion is known as the Viking Age, and forms a major part of the medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles and Europe in general.

The adoption of the Scottish Thistle (or Spear Thistle) by a grateful nation, as its national emblem, came about as a large force of Vikings were making one last foray to beat the sleeping Scots, when one barefooted Norseman stepped on a thistle. His cry of pain woke the Scots and they routed the Vikings who never again returned to Scotland.

The legend of the leek depends on the story-teller. Wales is now primarily represented by the symbol of the red Welsh Dragon, but other national emblems include the leek and daffodil. The Welsh words for leeks (cenrin) and daffodils (cennin Pedr = (St) Peter’s Leeks) are, as you can see, closely related and it is likely that one of the symbols came to be used due to a misunderstanding for the other, though which came first is lost in the mists of time.

According to legend St David had lived on bread and leeks when he had been a monk in Wales and he gave this unappetising fare to the Christian Celts before their battle, which may also have taken place in a leek field, against the heathen Saxons. The Welsh Celts won the day and adopted the leek as their emblem. All three emblems are known in the UK as representing Wales; however the Welsh Dragon prevails for patriotic regalia.

As a young boy St Patrick had been taken from his home in England as a slave to Ireland, but after his escape home he became a fervent believer in the new faith, and wanted to convert the Druids (a priestly and learned class) and their king to Christianity so returning to Ireland.

St Patrick was caught lighting a forbidden fire and brought before the King, but was given permission to speak before being sentenced, when Patrick told the King the story of the Trinity. But the ruler needed a sign, at this Patrick bent down and picked up a shamrock with the words ‘Look, three leaves in one leaf’. The King, saved Patrick, and adopted the new faith with the shamrock becoming the basis of the Celtic Cross and the national emblem of Ireland.

The Rose of England made its first royal symbolic appearance in England when Edward I adopted the flower as his badge, and we know that the Crusaders carved rose emblems on the buildings in the Holy Land (industrious lot weren’t they .. can’t see us doing that today somehow?!).

In 1455 the series of civil wars now known as the Wars of the Roses broke out – so-called because the House of York adopted the White Rose as its emblem and the House of Lancaster bore the Red Rose. The struggle finally ended in 1485 with Henry Tudor the victor at the Battle of Bosworth.

Now was the time for reconciliation and a symbol of the re-unified nation was needed – Henry VII combined his Lancastrian Red Rose and the White Rose of his bride, Elizabeth of York, and the resulting combination was the Tudor Rose.

From that day the Tudor Rose, sometimes called the Union Rose, is the traditional floral heraldic emblem of England, taking its name and origins from the Tudor dynasty.

I have to say I am m not sure I would have liked to walk through Scotland barefoot, or fight in a field of leeks, let alone carve roses out of stone in the high temperatures of the Holy Land, or for that matter probably just live in the cold and damp of Ireland! Fortunately I live today .. but I love my history and traditional past!

Source: http://positiveletters.blogspot.com/2009/06/thistles-leeks-roses-and-shamrocks.html