"Stephen Allcroft" wrote

Todays 5p IMHO clashes with the lower threshold where coins are too
small to be convenient to handle.

It is only slightly smaller than the pre-decimal sixpence, which was a
pretty popular coin. The silver threepence was smaller, and it was unpopular
(and not infrequently got swallowed in Christmas pudding). One of the
reasons why it was replaced with the twelve-sided brass coin was that people
wouldn't use it to pay bus fares, so bus conductors ended up with vast
quantities of pennies, to the extent that London Transport handled in the
1930s about 600 tons per year of 'copper' coins.

Peter