My partner in her younger days liked to collect coins in her collection she has a few halfpennies from they were first produced in 1971. I can just remember them always seemed a bit pointless the coins were phased out in December 1984 the reason they lasted as long as they did was due to the Bank of England's fear of devaluing the sterling . Their were plans to replace the halfpenny with a quarter coin as far as my partner knows none were ever produced which leaves the question would they have been as useless as the halfpenny had been?