A penny that the comedy great Ronnie Barker received as change from a bus conductor when he travelled to a theatre for a job interview is expected to raise up to £5,000 at auction.
Barker cherished the coin as his lucky penny and believed that from that day forward he was always fortunate in his work.
The coin, together with a handwritten letter from Barker explaining the story behind it, is being sold by East Bristol Auctions on 19 June.
Barker’s letter reads: “This is the actual penny change from the sixpence I gave to the bus conductor for a fivepenny fare to the Oxford Playhouse on the day I went for my interview to get a job.
“From that day to this I have been lucky in my work. PS – I have had it polished, of course.”
Barker’s family moved to Oxford when he was a boy and his first job was working as a bank clerk in Cowley.
After giving up that post to try to make it as an actor, Barker worked at provincial theatres around the country. He once had to hitchhike back to Oxford when a mime company he was part of went broke in Cornwall.
His big break came when he was working at the Oxford Playhouse in the early 1950s. He played a clown in the circus comedy He Who Gets Slapped and worked with Sir Peter Hall, who encouraged him to try to make his name in London.
The auctioneer, Andrew Stowe, said the penny was an important artefact in the history of British comedy. “It’s not just an old penny – it’s a vital part of our British comedy heritage,” he said.
“It’s amazing that Ronnie kept this coin so long – he must have really treasured it. His writing was always full of sentiment, as was he. This coin really must have meant a lot to him.”
The letter explaining the provenance is dated April 1980 – 25 years before Barker died, aged 76. It is not known why he felt he could part with his penny at that point but Stowe suggested Barker may have donated it to a fundraising auction. It is being sold by a collector.
It is not the first piece of Barker memorabilia the auction house has sold. In 2018, a buyer paid £28,000 for the handwritten script of The Two Ronnies “four candles” sketch.
