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I have been working with these double florins for about 10 years but only just spotted your post. Can you let me know if the 1887 is on an Arabic or Roman 1 reverse? At first the comparison with 1888 is rather pointless as the 1887 is clearly not even aligned to the same beads. The serifs are broken and worn so perhaps this is the thrust of what they are saying. In comparison with other 1887 double florins the example you give just seems from a rather worn die. Nothing could be more normal. given the minting problems of the large coins. Perhaps there is something that is clear to the eye but not to the camera? I have checked my collection but not knowing exactly what they are calling broken I have been unable to pinpoint the problem. The right serif has a small chip off the corner but that occurs mainly on the obv 2 Davies. Can you give me the CGS reference please and I will work further on it?

Unifaces from the mint are usually made with properly prepared blank reverse dies. i.e there is a rim of sorts, even if no design. Trials from unfinished dies may also be made, but tend to be in lead or similar soft material as the die has not been hardened at this point. A perfectly flat surface on the blank side is much easier to obtain by rubbing down than replicating some vestige of a rim which you would expect as whether uniface or double sided it always has to be struck in a collar to prevent spreading, and so you would expect to see flow into the gap between collar and blank die (which would never be practical to use if a perfect fit without any tolerance).

Another one chaps i've come across, this one a bit between mine and brians. Note the position of the die clash and the ribbons. This one also has a very weak low colon dot between F and D.

I remember seeing a video on Youtube - they used some chemical and a small electric current.