jelida

I can’t say I had thought about it before, but you may well be right, here is my F32. Presumably the shield is shallower, compared to Britannia, and is a little better protected than other reverses? Except perhaps the beaded, which have a rather similar wear pattern. Possibly. Jerry

I sent an email to Michael Gouby yesterday, and had a reply today to say that he suffered a ‘torn retina ‘ affecting his macula yesterday and subsequently underwent surgery, and is incapacitated for the next month, and cannot at present read. I expressed the hope that he makes a full recovery. Jerry

Ultra rare beaded border 1881. Very nice! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1881-PENNY-VERY-NICE-NO-RESERVE/152983712755?hash=item239e8a33f3:g:zrwAAOSwmC5a0l7D Jerry

Really just a name change, mostly same personnel, nothing to get too het up about.

Some-one clearly did think it was OK, and it is in reasonable condition, but to my mind there is the faintest shadow of an H and a blocked die is far more likely, occurs sporadically throughout the penny series including at least one 1876 without ‘H’ and many lost letters and digits. It is really only the use of the ‘London only’ 1882 obverse 11 that suggests that those ‘no H’ pennies were indeed not of Heaton manufacture. Not that an obverse 12 ‘no H’ die is impossible, just not proven. Jerry

Wow! They are indeed the same coin, how on earth did one become the other? Perhaps the vendor used their ‘conservation’ service! Jerry

I’m afraid date width variations are not my thing, unless associated with other die changes. They are so variable they rarely merit varietal status. we better get back to Ebays worst offerings! Jerry

Sorry Zoo, what are you looking at?

Looks like the R and I of BRITT touch, so not the right obverse for a ‘no H’. Jerry

It might be a rare ‘no bottom bar to ‘2’ ‘ ! Jerry

I think there is an H, but in any case which obverse is it? That would give a clue as to whether it could be a ‘no H’. Jerry

True, Court quotes 16,129,850 for the 1916 RE penny so there must have been many individual obverse working dies. As I understand it, the puncheons would build up the design in incuse, the result being used to strike a master die which is a relief die. From this, whatever number of incuse working dies necessary could be struck. It would seem likely that only one master die would be prepared, and thus the border tooth puncheon would only be used once in building up the master die. Logically any progression in the damaged tooth would have to occur when sequentially preparing new working dies from the master. Does this seem reasonable? To answer Pecks earlier question re the non-continuation of the RE obverse, perhaps the damaged master die was deemed to require replacement, and rather than going back to the individual punches to build up a fresh master, they simply returned to the previous non RE master to produce the next generations of working dies. Jerry

Which means that the several working dies must have been made from one progressively more clogged RE master die, and why would the master die become clogged if used presumabIy to make a very limited number of working dies? am not sure which is more unlikely, that or one particularly long-lived obverse die. Any other solutions? Jerry

It could be a late ‘15, the question is whether the damaged tooth progresses chronologically; are there any relatively undamaged tooth RE 1916’s? It is unlikely that several distinct working dies identically broke teeth, so a multiple die usage would necessitate a damaged master die or a deliberate use of the damaged tooth as a marker for the new obverse. More research required . Perhaps as we use the broken tooth as an identifier, we are missing undamaged tooth coins. Jerry

That’s nice Terry, and confirmation that it is a single die variety. Jerry

Likewise, I had sent him the links and he wishes, quite correctly to protect his reputation. Perfectly genuine but numismatically inexperienced auctioneer I suspect. Jerry

I have emailed the auctioneer. It will be interesting to see the outcome. Jerry

Essentially conservation is remedial work to stabilise, and prevent future deterioration. Cleaning is to make it look prettier, at least in the eyes of the ‘cleaner’. Jerry

Possibly, have a look in Michael Gouby’s book where he shows an ‘E’ probably repaired with an ‘L’, but on an F10 penny if I remember correctly. No reason why it couldn’t have been used on other dates, I suspect most dies were ‘refreshed’ for continued use in the early high production years. Jerry

The figure you have drawn in yellow is not an ‘F’ but it’s mirror image. It is unlikely they would ever have needed such a punch as when they were repairing an incuse letter on the die they could just have used an ‘E’ punch or an ‘L’ as Gouby describes where appropriate. Jerry

Yes, it’s a repaired E, but not with an upside-down ‘F’ as it would have to be a mirror image punch. Jerry oops Rob just posted the same point, but much more succinctly.

This almost had me in tears........sob! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1933-One-Penny-EF-ULTRA-RARE-224-918-minted-Union-of-South-Africa-George-V/162965618854?hash=item25f18200a6:g:mdQAAOSwjI5auPKY Cue wanton violence towards massed violins.... Jerry

Yup, looks right.