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Yes, it's hard to find a nice 1845 penny, which is one of my missing puzzles in young head penny series. Nice acquisition 👍

Very pleased with this 1845 penny. Quite scarce and underrated. A difficult coin to find - in high grade especially. This one is near UNC, albeit with a few minor marks.

If my memory serves me correctly the following would probably provide the most plausible explanation. I seem to recall reading about copies of coins made for jewelry purposes that were of the proper gold content. They were adequate for the purpose of the wearer but would not fool a collector or dealer. If you placed them side by side and examined them you could and would see the difference. However, if you simply did a gold content test they would match. Oftentimes they would be bought alongside genuine coins for melt. I have seen bracelets and necklaces with these type copies. They included British sovereigns, US $20 & $10 (necklaces), and $5 & $2 1/2 (bracelets, cufflinks & rings. Also Austrian 20 (not sure of the denomination) Ducats,, French 20 Francs, and Mexican 50 Pesos.

It's entirely possible - though what first drew my attention to it was the gap between the 8 and the 7, much wider than on normal issues. One of our fellow members (who's studied 1887 JH coins in very fine detail) says it's a pattern, but he also says there are very many 'patterns' for this date.

No. That is a puzzler as in all my years have not seen any other instances of FM dies getting outside of that mint. Again, not first hand, but the probably secondary source (LH) somehow got hold of these as well as the US Mint sourced dies - I may have said that I know of the whereabouts of some FM and US mint dies. Much obviously is speculative given that the key protagonists have passed away - the collector Richard Stuart and dealer LH. Because of the intrigue, I want to query my friend again about some more information. I don't think LH's widow would be forthcoming, but I may see if I might ask some innocent questions (if possible!). I want to find someone in the area with XRF to test the possible residual metal in the referred 1/4 Balboa US mint dies as if there is trace gold that would tend to be a "smoking gun". That still does not answer as to how in the world the FM dies were obtained. In any case, certainly a bit of intrigue....

Not much else to go on, but the date suspect. This looks a bit like some of the Beirut 1970's struck coins that were of good metal but fabricated with some issues similar to what has been shown. Weight of coin? Gold purity was good and from what I have heard on occasion exceeding 22k.

I would assume not too many pairings on the 1893 Jub? BTW, check out the specimen shown on the PCGS website under "Pop Report" as it is pictured there.

If a die was used until deemed unsuitable and if only the faulty die was exchanged, it stands to reason that more than one die will be known paired with a specific die. A good job really, as the pairings observed give useful information for the chronology, and in the case of a simple series can demonstrate the order of die use from start to finish.

This was a little while back , so as I remember it, It was about the 1862 2+G only, and it showed that there were at leased two reverse G dies used with the obverse 2 die [ It could be that only one obverse die was used , and retooled to give a new outer circle line ] . With such a rare combination [ 2+G ] it was likely that only one reverse die would have been used in combination with die 2 , but this date variation shows that there were indeed two dies used .