A SMALL PIECE OF AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
The story of the penny
A hundred-year-old Australian coin. A new handmade guitar. Two stories brought together.
Every Andy Allen guitar carries an old Australian penny set into the headstock. It is a small mark of where the instrument was made — and a link to a life already lived.
Every Andy Allen guitar carries an old Australian penny in its headstock.
People ask me about the penny in the headstock all the time.
It started as my own little made-in-Australia mark. I wanted something that felt genuinely Australian without looking like a factory badge or a corporate logo. An old penny had the right look, the right history and a bit of character already built into it.
I’ve always loved old Australian history — the pioneers, the old currency and the feeling that these things have already travelled through another world before they get to us. A penny might have spent years moving through pockets, shops and households. It might have bought somebody’s lunch, gone into a child’s money box or even been tossed in a game of two-up. I’ll never know where it has been, and that’s part of what I like about it.
“The coin has already lived one life. The guitar gives it another.”
The penny forms part of my distinctive headstock design.
Setting the penny into the headstock during the build.
A quiet record of the year
I use a coin dated exactly one hundred years before the build year, so a guitar made in 2024 carries a 1924 penny. It’s a simple little detail, but long after I’m gone, somebody will be able to look at that coin and know when the instrument came out of my workshop.
It becomes part signature, part date stamp and part history.
More than decoration
The headstock is one of the most recognisable parts of any guitar. I’ve always believed it should carry some identity and be worn as a badge of honour.
The penny sits alongside my own headstock shape and signature, but it isn’t there just to fill a space. It says that this guitar was made here, by hand, as an individual instrument. It connects the guitar to Australia and gives it a detail that no mass-produced badge could ever quite replace.
Like the timber itself, every old coin carries small marks from the life it had before. Wear, colour and age make each one a little different. That suits my guitars, because no two of them are ever exactly the same either.
The penny completes my signature headstock shape.
The coin, build year and guitar’s story are recorded with the finished instrument.
A story that keeps moving
One day, each of these guitars will have stories I’ll never hear.
They’ll be played in homes, studios, pubs, theatres and places I can’t imagine. They’ll pick up their own marks, memories and music. The penny has already travelled through one century, and now it gets to continue the journey as part of something new.
That’s what the penny means to me: a small piece of Australian history, brought back to life in an instrument made to be played.
The smallest detail can carry one of the instrument’s longest stories.