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This one, on an F16, has always intrigued me. Ghosting of Victoria's face can be seen (as it often does) above Britannia's left knee, but there is also something strange going on with the border teeth. The series of pictures at the bottom show an overlay picture of border teeth, from the same coin, which I have made gradually transparent from 0% to 100% as go from left to right hand side. This shows that the marks through Britannia's knees are clearly from border teeth. I bought this coin at Heritage in 2013 (MS63 Slabbed), and it took me a long time to find another F16 like this, to prove that it must have occurred during the minting process.......rather than the coin being hit with something post-minting. I will show the pictures of that other coin immediately below, as this picture uses up my 500Kb allowance!!

This is just about the most extreme example I have come across !!! An 1862 penny Note the half circle on Victoria's back , its the shield from the reverse side . The extra ribbons are created from the folds in Britannia's. dress

It looks to me as if there was nearly a brockage, as the raised detail of the teeth is the incuse detail on the die. If a coin is not properly expelled between strikes, it will act as the die and leave an incuse detailed impression, because a die has the inverted relief, ie incuse is raised an vice versa, so to have raised 'incuse detail', it had to be a wrong-un, because the die would not have changed its relief and would strike normally, albeit off-centre. With several examples known, the detail must have been from a trapped coin.

Sorry for the delay, it’s been a mad few days! Blimey, Rob, really sorry to hear you’ve been in with sepsis, that’s miserable. That’s a lovely halfpenny you have there, and at an excellent price, especially when the example I quote sold for £375. I did see it, but had my eye on something else. I know it’s nothing of the class of yours, but I picked up an anchor halfpenny not so long ago…plus very limiting resources are always going to force some difficult decisions. Yours is the same die as the Comber, Wilkinson & Lockett example and, what’s interesting, is what initially appears to be a double-strike of the portcullis, is actually the bottom half of it being re-entered, it’s identical on each coin. What’s also interesting, is that the oddities beneath your portcullis are less prominent on the Comber example, excepting a few dots here and there, most notably in the bottom 2 squares of the vertical righthand row. Equally the horizontal bar running under the anchor on yours, which possibly hinted at a key (if that’s what’s being referred to), is also not present on the other example. I wonder if some of what’s being seen on yours is the die becoming progressively damaged? Re your trip South, if I’m not on nights it would be great to catch up…there’s a lovely riverside Greene King pub, 1 minute off junction 13, if that suits you?

1873: 1 to 6, 10 to 14, 16, 17, 19, 21 to 24, 26, 27, 30, 31, 34, 35, 37, 39 to 48, 50, 53 to 65, 67, 69 to 71, 73, 75, 76, 79, 83 to 89, 92 to 94, 96, 100, 101, 103, 105 to 107, 109 to 111, 113 to 115, 117 to 123, 125, 127 to 129, 131, 132, 135 to 137, 141

I thought the ganga dynasty started with bob marley in Jamaca

It's good. I have recessed ear 1915 pennies both with and without broken tooth. Without seems rarer. Haven't yet seen a 1916 without broken tooth though.

Better than EF for me, contact marks aren’t so much of an issue as scratches and other damage from circulation. You can always be caught out by photos, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was graded MS 62ish. Price at auction is so unpredictable, you could offer it at a fixed price of somewhere midway between EF and BU in the catalogue but be prepared to wait, or nearer EF price for a quicker sale. Jerry

I completely agree about the common coin in uncommonly good condition being something to relish. The 1873 shilling I sold to Geoff Cope when he was desperate to find something to buy close to the end is one in question. I bought it from Andrew Wayne's sale at London Coins 110, lot 1046, 1873 shilling where I paid just over 200 for it. However, all good things come to an end, and with a date run of 3rd young head shillings still in the collection all in similar grade and toning due to being a bit too nice to sell, a decision had to be made when I needed funds for something else, so it went in the trays for about 3 years. Couldn't sell it for love nor money because everyone thought it wasn't worth book price, which I was asking. Sold it to Geoff for book price (about 500 at the time) who said 'Ooh, that's nice. I'll have that one' and lo and behold, a few years later sold for CHF 5500, or about 10 or 11 times what he paid as a top pop 66. So at least two other people appreciated the quality and it was worth at least most of that at today's prices. The colours on it were genuinely superb and the best of the bunch, but I made the decision to get rid of all bar and keep the higher graded and near perfect 1874. Reminds me of Non's 1843.

It wasn't totally abandoned - there was a DF pattern done in early George V so they must have toyed with introducing them again.

Oh yeah. I missed that.