Coinery

I know this shouldn’t come as any surprise, but there are 317 Elizabeth I coins on eBay at the moment, and I wouldn’t care to own any of them.

Rob P - excerpt taken from ‘Henry VII Groat Without Mintmark’ thread “Guaranteed to be a lot of dies. Potter & Winstanley note 16 obverse dies for no mark, lis and Greyhound's Head, but give up when it comes to Cross Crosslet. For what it is worth, they list 7 dies each for no mark and Lis, plus another 2 for Greyhound's Head. Crosslet is much more common. As far as the reverses go, you can reasonably expect a minimum of twice the number of obverse dies. Greyhound's Head being the rarest and hence the simplest case, the sylloge has an example of dies 15/16 (nearly identical) plus 3 GH reverses from 2 dies including muled marks. Add to that my GH rev. (below) plus another not in the Ashmolean gives a total of 4 GH rev. dies I know for certain. You are unlikely to be looking at more than another one or two reverses, if they do indeed exist. A back of the fag packet calculation assuming 1:2 obv:rev gives a total of 50 or so rare mark dies for both sides, plus a guesstimate of say 100 crosslets would give a total of 150ish tentative dies for all marks. If someone wants to do the survey, then we can plumb in the numbers and obtain a more precise estimate of the number of dies.”

I suppose it was, really, the beginning of a new style; would explain the number of punches and die variations, definitely.

So, @Paddy are you going to buy it? What does your friend think it’s worth?

It appears that even the reverse legend orientations are dramatic, quite a series!

More midnight oil from you, Rob! Such a variety of busts, hair, and crowns too. Quite an incredible little run. Hope you don’t mind Rob, but I’m going to copy this into a new post, just to make it searchable in the future?

Ah, I see...it’s still a lot, though, it’s fair to say? Even a simple google image search throws up a pile of coins where the challenge would actually be in trying to find 2 dies the same.

Phenomenal! I can barely imagine these numbers existing for any other other denomination type.

What I was trying to say was the entire bust could sit higher up on the coin, rather than the crown dropping off the beading, which would make the coin look a little less unusual in appearance, if you know what I mean? I think it’s the unusual configuration that made me and others feel cautious but, as I said, the punches look good, and it would only be a repositioning of the devices that would make it look far more conventional anyway. Caveat emptor

Maybe? The picture I posted was to demonstrate the punches used, nothing more. There are a large number of dies and punches for these profile groats. I didn’t look in Spink or any book, I thought we were trying to establish whether it was legit or not, not classify it?

Weight is pretty well spot on. From the pictures I can’t put it down to be honest. I think the obverse looks a little odd, but I wonder whether that’s only the bust punches being a little bit positional. It could be nothing more ominous than the crown being high...it’s much lower on the head of the other coin posted, which would transform the entire aesthetic.

Is it genuinely unique? Are there mint documents to support that, or is it simply that it’s the only one found, or the first coin pressed?

Why isn’t it being snapped up by the elite, the royals, the Arabs, the museums? Surely it’s a must-have for one of those? Especially for a collection that will never sell, it will get its price again one day, if not before.

As a penny completist you’ve got to have it, haven’t you! For those deep-pocketed penny collectors who are running out of things to buy...I can see this going nuts. Is it truly unique? How is that?

Well that’s phenomenal I must say! 😲

Ah, yes, doh! Thanks, Non

How on earth did you manage to get so many pictures into one post, I often give up trying to put 2 images into my posts. 😲

I think Spink would catalogue this variety at 8/5 simply because it is the only logical way to list it. To call it 5/8 would suggest it was a coin intended for use in time travel. I think the common assumption would be, as with Rob’s GEOE coin, that no-one would intend to change a correctly entered digit/letter. It would be difficult to trace whether these things happened accidentally (as in Colin’s valid suggestion), except in die studies (if you’re lucky enough to find an identifiable feature such as a developing flan crack pre and post the error.) so, unless proven otherwise, Spink would have to sensibly call the variety 8/5

A very rational idea, as logical an explanation as any. I guess that same rationale applies to the time the die was first cut too. I think the interesting point to clear up, though, is the idea that when an error occurs, it’s assumed the highest device (the one in greatest relief) is the first entered, when in fact it’s only about which device has been struck the hardest/deepest that has it sit on top of another letter/number/device on the actual coin. Diaconis talks about 5/8 and 8/5 but they are in this example one and the same (with only how hard the punch was struck to differentiate) when all the points are explored into how the 5 happened there in the first place. The 8 could’ve been first on the die and then unintentionally recut at a later date with a deep strike of the 5 (meaning to recut the 5 but using Colin’s suggestion), putting it in higher relief on the milled coin. Or, when the die was first made, a 5 was accidentally entered where the 8 should be, and was subsequently recut/repaired with a lighter strike of an 8, still leaving the 5 in higher relief on the milled coin. A bit wordy, I’m not sure everyone is grasping the concept.

I have to say I feel really happy with that date error. I can’t see any foul play, even when I’m trying to seek it out...not that I’m any expert, of course.

In reality it all depends on how hard a device has been punched, the deepest appearing as the digit on top, regardless of which one was entered first.

Looking even closer it appears there might be delamination (and break away) between what could be an independent obverse and reverse casting?

Just rechecking the photos, it looks groat-sized or Matteo has very small, lady-like, hands?

Interesting, but wouldn’t you cast copies from a real coin, rather than go to all the troubles of making up punches and getting the legends ‘spelled’ out all wrong?