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Was it an interesting 'penny' article Mike?

Haven't seen many high grade F148's Mike, but a fair number of really low grade ones.

I have a few 0.925 silver commemorative pieces, one or two of which have good detail but marks like the one on this picture. Has anyone any experience as to whether it is worth trying to improve such pieces please? i.e. removing marks, without degrading the detail.

Thanks all, sounds dangerously new and exciting! Should I use de-ionized water or just ordinary tap?

I don't think it's a repaired 8. All the numerals are doubled, like this one, die 'bounce'.............not a repair.

He has relisted it, currently with an opening bid of £1, and no mention of die 3

Hi Mike, Yes, whilst it sounds 'on the face of it' a little strange, I believe that it is true. On Gouby's website you will note the wording highlighted in yellow below. In addition to the REG Colon low position you can see other identical features on the 1841 Proof and 1841 REG: currency coins, such as the repaired letter which Michael mentions. They both also display thicker BRITANNIAR plume feathers, a feature not seen on any later years. The reverse die used for this proof is with colon dots after REG: and it is more than likely that when it was finished being used as a proof die it was used to strike the rare 1841 currency pennies also with colon dots after REG:. We know for a fact that it was the proof die that were used for the 1841 currency coins, with colon dots after REG:, as they are identical in all ways, including a repaired letter. It is therefore probably that only ONE reverse die was ever used to make the proof and then the currency coins.

Hi Mike, nice ebay find. The 1841 REG: is paired with an obverse which develops a flaw through the numeral 8 of the date on later strikes, as per the picture below. It then also starts to flaw through the top of the VICTORIA legend. The best example of this that I have seen is the one shown on Richard’s englishpennies website. What is particularly interesting about this is that the exact same obverse, flawed in identical positions but further deteriorated, is also seen paired with a non REG: reverse. This latter pairing, to my knowledge, is quite a bit rarer than the 1841 REG:

Well if that doesn't inspire good exam results then not sure what will.

A really good spot Martin, well done

I checked and found this is the case on both the large and small date types of 1859. Slightly further on, he continues:- Interesting Mike. I knew that I had seen that quite often but not explored further. I have just checked all my No WW's and found this 'secret' mark on all of them, including 1858's as well as 1589 and 1860. Picture below for reference. Bramah also talks about other secret mint marks, is anyone aware of what they might be on the YH Copper Penny? I guess with banknotes that was done as a fraud prevention measure prior to such things as microprinting becoming available. P.S. I still have my spare decent copy of Bramah.......not a sales pitch!!

Higher grade specimens can have fuller breasts! I believe that the 1860/59 is a single die pair. Reverses always have the weak legend, especially in BRITANNIAR, and even on higher grade pieces. The clover is also detached from its stalk, although that feature is also seen on other years. Obverses, whether full 6 or partial 6, always have identical marks under Victoria's chin, and again under her pony tail. They also have the doubled tie ribbon.....which isn't really a tie ribbon but a clashed die, as explained in Peck Page 404, and better on MG's website.

That's lovely Pete, did you buy it?

Thanks Richard, but I am not sure I will ever be in a position to do much more than posts on Predecimal. I had a few years retirement where I was able to spend a lot of time on the hobby, but I am no longer in that position. I could do something like retrieving all my Predecimal copper penny posts and putting them all in one place in a new thread, which could be added to if anything new and relevant needs posting, by myself or other members. We have already discussed book, CD, website options but I am not about to embark on a venture like that myself. The best place to describe copper Victorian pennies is possibly on your own site, and you are most welcome to grab any of my material and put it on there if you wish. I have no desire to attempt to profit from my material, and am more than happy to share for the benefit of the numismatic community. The main problem that I see with any Victorian Copper penny book (or website) is deciding what the sub-varieties should be for each year, and where to draw the line with respect to things such as legend repairs, date differences, colon positions, various dots. A new book (site) should in my opinion start with an introduction about all these different 'features', many of which will have already been mentioned by Gouby or Bramah, and a brand new list (with new naming convention) of each coin which the author considers to be a variety. The naming convention would of course have to allow for any new discovery to slot in neatly. Pictures of the varieties for each year can then follow on, with some mention of rarity. As I have said before, I think that discussion of what is, and what isn't, a sub- variety for each 'feature' that is seen should perhaps first take place on a forum such as this. Personally I would not be happy to presume that I knew enough to forge ahead without spending a good deal of time involving others. Also, I would need to examine coins from other collectors in order to picture all the features to the consistent standard I would like. e.g. I don't have many 1843's, 1849's, 1856's and 1860's in my own collection!

Hi Mike, It's this bit of Bramah's quote which I find particularly difficult. Not sure I have ever seen anything which resembles 2 dots in lower loop of 8. If any member wants a decent copy of Bramah then please message me, I do have 1 spare, but will be asking for close to going rate!

The flaw at front of truncation, bottom left in above set, isn't particularly clear on that example, so here's another one, again on large rose reverse, where flaw has developed a little more......still not as much as it has by time reverse moves to reverse 3 (bottom right picture in above set)

Yes, no surprise Richard. This 8/? obverse (with the 1/1) has 3 reverse pairings, the second being the large rose large date variety. The obverse starts off with no die flaws and then progresses as follows:- First flaw starts above A of VICTORIA and then develops through the bottom of A towards Victoria's head. The flaw at the queen's truncation starts afterwards, I think around the same time as another flaw through the base of the letters OR of VICTORIA All of those are seen to develop on examples of Large Rose, (Reverse 2) seen paired with this obverse The same flaws are then seen on a later reverse (3) without the large rose, but flaws are more developed (timeline). Hopefully the pictures below will clarify. P.S. The other 8/? reverse we have been discussing I think has only a single reverse paired with it.......i.e. the one with the repaired A. So I prefer to think as 2 different types, albeit very similar.

P.S. The distance from the numeral 5 to 8 are also different

The die flaw on your coin is actually in a slightly different location to the one on the coin I pictured earlier, making it a different obverse die, and the 8/?’s are also different. If you count border teeth (beads) from the numeral 1 of the date to where the flaw meets the border you will see that the flaw is one bead further away on your coin. Different flaw positions = Different Dies. In the set of pictures below, your coin is like the bottom two pictures, and the one pictured earlier (like Mike’s) is the top two pictures. It’s not entirely clear what Bramah had in mind when he documented his type 25c, but our two coins are definitely from different obverse / reverse die pairings. Re. Rob’s above comment, die flaws can be great in helping identify some of the rarer coins, and they also give us a ‘chronological sequence’ i.e. as the flaws develop. You will see that the obverse on your coin has a number of die flaws; these flaws are seen developing in the exact same locations when this obverse is paired with two other earlier reverses. The second of the 3 reverses paired with this obverse is the rare large rose large date variety. If you look for an 1858 large rose large date you will see these obverse flaws, albeit to a lesser extent, noting the same 1 over 1 in the date as well as the same 8/?. Hope this helps, rather than confuses!

Well spotted Mike. It's another one of those 8/? dates which is often discussed, and has some unusual protrusions on the numeral 8, which aren't always obvious.......these are highlighted by red arrows in my attached picture. I think this date variety is always seen with a die flaw running from front of truncation to border. I believe this type is a single obverse / reverse die pairing; I have always noted that the reverse paired with this particular obverse has a number of 'signature' legend repairs, the most interesting probably the repaired first A of BRITANNIAR.................also pictured below.

1870 dot almost circular, can't see a flaw on my lower grade piece.

Pictured below are the dates on my three 1843 REG Colon pennies. The reader will notice that even with a handful of dies there are date width variations, and there also appears to be a possible font difference to the numeral 4. There is also an even narrower date width on some 1843’s with no REG colon. Penny collectors will know that date width variations are covered by MG in his 2009 Bronze book, and also to some extent on his website for Coppers. Small / large numerals, narrow / wide dates are also already referenced elsewhere. It seems, therefore, that these would need to be covered in any new reference documentation to satisfy the needs of many collectors. But the question then arises as to how far this should be taken. If one looks at a more common year, 1851, I have found 12 different date varieties, including font variations. I have stopped counting on 1853’s and 1858’s! As for any font variations I think these are definitely worthy of documenting. I have not mentioned other different features seen on this series (e.g. Plume variations) but think I will leave it there for now, as I am aware that I am ‘hogging’ the site with my meanderings. Just one final fleeting thought, would you rather have a Fine 1843, or an EF+ 1857 Slender 7? I think the latter is rarer, but both can be had for around £100.

I have now done some statistics for 1843 pennies from my 5 year records of all ebay listings. The main reason for this post is to demonstrate, by using a rarer year with fewer dies, some difficulties in how to catalogue the 1839-1860 penny series. Looking first at the main split, there were 127 examples listed over the 5 years of my study. The vast majority of these were low grade, and many pictures were not great either, resulting in me marking up 27 of these as “cannot see REG clearly enough to decide whether there is a colon present”. I could, however, see the date. The above was rather handy because that left exactly 100 pieces, of which 62 had a colon, i.e. 62% of the 1843 population. I believe that will come as no surprise. I then split the 62 REG Colon coins as follows:- TYPE Count % of all 1843's Bramah 3b (DFF) 12 12% Cannot See DE(F)F 5 REG Doubled Colon 9 9% Remaining 36 Totals 62 At this point I checked all London Coins 1843 auction pictures back to 2009. There were 33 sales; a couple of these coins sold more than once over the years. I could see 13 without a REG Colon, and 20 with. Out of the 20 with REG Colon there were 3 DFF’s and 2 Doubled REG Colons, although the latter was the same piece being auctioned twice, 3 months apart….and with no mention of the doubled REG Colon. I guess this is not surprising, as this feature, to my knowledge, is not documented anywhere, and quite rare………..but the question is “should it be documented as an 1843 sub-variety?” Clearly this repair was ‘man-made’, and is also more obvious than other similar ‘colon’ repairs (e.g. the 1855 FID 3 colons, which I believe has been categorised in the CGS population report), so one could argue that the 1843 :: is worthy of being documented as a sub-variety. Having said that, if one goes down the path of documenting legend repairs then where do you ‘draw the line’? If you were to examine hundreds of Victorian ‘Young Head’ pennies you would eventually find repairs to every letter, colon, and numeral in the entire legend………….some of these being far more obvious than others, for example the repair to F of DEF seen on the 1841 penny, and already documented by Bramah as his type 2c. Collectors who own an 1841 Bramah 2c would naturally wish to see that type documented within any new reference material, but in my opinion there are other ‘same letter’ repairs even worse than that particular one, and more worthy of inclusion……see for example the multiple E repair pictured immediately below. I would definitely include as variety types any letter or number which has been repaired with a different letter or number. This would mean, for example, that the 1858 F/B in DEF should be included as a new variety. Whilst on the subject of colon dots, readers will also recall many posts on this forum about ‘dot varieties’. Dots have been seen on quite a few ‘Young Head’ pennies, e.g. 1854 (under the I of VICTORIA), 1855 (on the Queen’s forehead), 1846 (after T of GRATIA), 1853 (after I of GRATIA), 1858 (under 2nd 😎 and 1859 (next to rim above DEF colon). Some of these I think have been referenced by both CGS and London Coins. None of these are ‘man-made’, and as such could be regarded as not being ‘true’ varieties, but again collectors who own these pieces would probably wish to see them documented in any new reference material. Imagine omitting an 1897 dot penny or 1875 canon-ball out of a Victorian Bronze penny book! As for the DFF varieties, documented by Bramah, for both 1843 and 1844, these are clearly not F’s, but rather they are E’s which have lost a piece of the bottom leg. They are, however, quite sought after by variety collectors, who would undoubtedly ‘throw a wobbly’ if left out of new reference material. I am going to follow on from this post with one which shows the date varieties I have found on my 1843 REG Colon pennies.

Working hard on those antique house clearances from past 25 years:- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1848-Queen-Victoria-One-Penny/224164077427?hash=item3431385f73:g:0iwAAOSwHh1fZ7oR

Thanks for your comments about my Victorian Copper Penny pictures Jerry; also Mike and others.............. glad to be able to help. Whilst authoring a book has a certain 'prestigious'' appeal, in this day and age I don't actually think it is the best way of sharing / improving knowledge about coin varieties, particularly as new discoveries are made and regularly need adding to the knowledge base. I much prefer to have available to me websites such as Richard's englishpennies and rarestpennies sites, this Predecimal site, MG's website (which he has kindly kept going), or even past auction results (e.g. London Coins). A potential problem in coming to rely on these sites is, however, that they may of course disappear one day when site owners can no longer maintain. I definitely think that reference material for the 1839-1860 Victorian Penny varieties would benefit from being pulled together from these various websites, and other sources (e.g. Bramah and Peck), and probably introduce a completely new indexing method at the same time. Prior to that I think there would need to be discussion, for example from members of this forum, about how to do that, what to include and not include, and by providing examples from their own collections. I think I may try to do my next post on 1843 Pennies, giving a couple of examples to demonstrate how difficult such a task might be.