I was expecting something completely different when I saw the title.  Love the venezolano. 

Very nice examples.

When decimilisation happened here in the UK (later than most places) - 'pounds & pence' changed to 'pounds & new pence' so we never had all the wonderful name changes most people had to deal with, although my old sixpences at 2.5 new pence didn't last long

Jack, interesting focus on the Venezuelan coinage, to add up a little bit more to your information, Venezuela ordered to the Royal Mint (UK) to mint the first centavos (1/4, 1/2, 1), the copper cents issues lasted until 1863. But in 1858 Venezuela minted a series of silver coins that went from 1/2 Real up to 5 Reales. The official monetary unit at the moment was the "Peso Fuerte", 10 Centavos were equal to a Real and 10 Reales equal to a Peso Fuerte.

In 1863 the president Jose Antonio Paez ordered the 10 Reales coin, with his bust and the lettering "Ciudadano Esclarecido" on them. But when the coins arrived at the port of La Guaira, the service port of Caracas, the Venezuelan Federal War had just ended and Paez had left the country and who took the presidential chair ordered that the coins were going to be melted. This is one of the key pieces in the Venezuelan coin collection, apparently only 300 of them survived because they were sent to the Venezuelan offices in Paris before the main shipping. Less than 10 are known though.

In the picture, my 1843 1 Centavo.

Thank you for adding those details!  I only collect crown size coins so I tend to focus on those but of course all issues are of interest