Was at the same church I have been finding silvers and I pulled this very crusty penny from Great Britain. From 1918. Question I have is why it was in Utah in a church that was built in 1927
Lots of immigrants came to Utah after they joined the LDS church. No idea if that is a church you are searching but there seems to be one everywhere. Very possible that another church was built on the property OR someone that was helping build the church had it in his pocket.
Yes it was an LDS church. First one in the town. It was a mining town started in the late 1800s. The immigrant movement seems right. I hear stories of most of the ghost towns being settled by Chinese, English, etc either for mining or for joining the church.
That's the cool part about these relics. You can imagine how they got lost. It's possible one of the kids brought it for show and tell and lost it. Maybe the kid brought it to toss in the grassy lawn so someone 90 years later can scratch his head why it's there.
It was a WW2 souvenir brought home by a returning US serviceman... stationed in England. The US had small cents at this point, and that "big penny" was quite an anomaly to the Americans. I have found a few souvenir coins at homes of veterans.