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and for more enjoyment some strange things in other 1861 pennies 

the first a lost bar on the A in VICTORIA the second the broken T with the top of its neighbour up inside the inner circle, the 3rd is a V in VICTORIA which looks like an inverted A and the last is a broken F in F:D 

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1860 penny B over D or O or R toothed LCW L C Wyon high trunc could you take a look and see if there are others around THanks Larry 

your thoughts please : there is an upstanding arc of metal in the upper loop, an addition on the right side, removal of something with an angled leg (blue) and an extension out of the back left (blue) with finishing "flicks" as in the old curly lettering.  However in the negative image (second) there are lines which seem to pass through the metal indicating something like a D or an O 

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On 7/6/2018 at 1:02 AM, PWA 1967 said:

Thank you.

There is also a 1853 with the large 5 which is a DOT between the I & A in GRATIA ,you may not be bothered but a variety that you also may have in such a large group.

is the large 5 variety reasonably common ?

 

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3 hours ago, DrLarry said:

is the large 5 variety reasonably common ?

 

Yes Larry its a common year and not hard to find one of each ,you will notice the small one described as italic and the larger one having a curl at the top.

The scarcest is the PT ....Did you find anymore :)

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1861 halfpennies have plenty of broken letters as well

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11 hours ago, PWA 1967 said:

Yes Larry its a common year and not hard to find one of each ,you will notice the small one described as italic and the larger one having a curl at the top.

The scarcest is the PT ....Did you find anymore :)

no It turned out I only had 48 a little short of my 80 prediction my apt to thinking I have more than I have when I see a sheet full of them soon it will be time to sell off a load and be a little more selective,  I just love these old copper pennies as much as I love the bronzes yet it is hard to imagine carrying them around in the pocket shocking really any survived at all not battered and dented and scratched to pieces. 

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5 hours ago, scott said:

1861 halfpennies have plenty of broken letters as well

yes very true they do .   Scott, if you are referring to the above broken letters ,these are in pennies the 1861 in fact in one particular penny broken letters I am happy to just let pass by what interests me is if any are then repaired using letters not meant for purpose, like the I over the T it's purely an anorak interest for me and I like to ask others if they also have noted it.  I understand there are some very detailed works but I cannot afford them.  I wish some of these extensive and deep books could be digitally made available such a lot gets missed.  It is a shame that the big libraries cannot come up with an idea that distributes the burden to digitise by coming up with an idea of lending the scanners or utilising the scanners that each of us have and asks individuals to take on the responsibility of scanning research books , even if each of us did a few pages each day eventually the books would be digitised. 

Edited by DrLarry

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32 minutes ago, DrLarry said:

no It turned out I only had 48 a little short of my 80 prediction my apt to thinking I have more than I have when I see a sheet full of them soon it will be time to sell off a load and be a little more selective,  I just love these old copper pennies as much as I love the bronzes yet it is hard to imagine carrying them around in the pocket shocking really any survived at all not battered and dented and scratched to pieces. 

Well one out of forty eight shows how much scarcer they are :)

Plenty varieties on the Coppers to look for.

Pete.

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One small spreadsheet, but a lot of work:-

 

I mentioned a few days ago that I had taken pictures of all ebay listings of Victorian ‘Young Head’ copper pennies over a 5 year period, this was from September 18th 2008 to September 17th 2013. I did this with the aim of trying to compile some useful statistics when time permitted.

Attached is my initial spreadsheet for 1853 Pennies, this may help clarify the rarity of the Plain Trident (PT) pennies compared to OT currently available in the market place………and I suspect fairly close to the original mintage percentages.

I also attach images, at identical resolution, of the three different font types for numeral 5 (which I know of) used on the 1853 penny.

Pete’s earlier comment about the ‘large 5’ was referencing Gouby Style A, sometimes also called Italic 5. This date type is very rare when found paired with the Plain Trident reverse, with a count of only 9 in the above spreadsheet. On the obverse of this variety I believe there may always be a small dot between the I and A of GRATIA, although I cannot be 100% sure on all 9 of these coins because of the image quality. I will follow on with images of my own piece, which I was lucky enough to find in 2014, where this dot can clearly be seen.

I also think that this exact same obverse is paired with the much more common Ornamental Trident variety, presumably on coins struck around the time that the Plain Trident was first introduced…….so the I.A in GRATIA can also be found on OT.

In this spreadsheet I also decided to include stats for the Peck 1503 variety, sometimes known as the Closer DEF colon, i.e. NOT midway between the F of DEF and Britannia’s toes (as is usually seen). Bramah references this as his type 15 saying “last colon is 1mm from the F, and 2 1/4mm from Britannia's foot; he also goes on to say:-

Coming to the trident divisions, the O.T.

class of 1853 is common while those with P.T. must be

accounted almost rare. The sub-division No. 15 of the

                              O.T. class of this year is also rare.

I often wonder, with current knowledge and a blank sheet of paper, how one would now categorise the features that are seen on the 1839 to 1860/59 penny series. There are certainly a number of interesting things seen with regard to colon dots, but where does one draw the line? For example, if one just looks at the 1853 penny, the colon dots after DEF are not just seen ‘closer’ to F, and normally aligned midway to the toes, but also in a number of other ‘in between’ positions…………and the individual dots can be seen a) almost touching, B) quite distant from one another, and c) distinctly slanted in both directions. Indeed, Bramah again recognises this on his Page 108 by saying:-

Another prolific source of minor variation is provided

by the colons on the rev. Probably every die creates a

colon variant and the only really satisfactory way of

describing the position identifiably is by measurement and

by the rather delicate indication afforded by projecting the

line of each colon and so cutting the inscription opposite.

 

Anyway, I do not wish to hog this site so I will cut off now and invite anyone interested in this area to ask questions or clarification on the spreadsheet numbers.

Style B.jpg

SS Picture.jpg

Style A.jpg

Style C.jpg

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The spreadsheet was supposed to appear before the pictures!!

Anyway, here is the promised 1853 PT Italic 5

 

1853PT Italic 5 Obverse.jpg

1853PT Italic 5 Reverse.jpg

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well done afnail for approaching this in the way you have.  I have been trying to do the same for features of the 1861 and 62 halfpenny but ended up with far too many column  descriptors.  I enjoy reading about variations and much appreciate your work. 

23 minutes ago, alfnail said:

The spreadsheet was supposed to appear before the pictures!!

Anyway, here is the promised 1853 PT Italic 5

 

1853PT Italic 5 Obverse.jpg

1853PT Italic 5 Reverse.jpg

 

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Ian.......

I have confused myself here yet again :D

The Italic 5 is that known as the Large one then and the curl small , i am aware of the differences but just want to confirm please ?

Also that the 1853 PT is about one in fortyish that is similar to Larrys findings ?

Pete.

Edited by PWA 1967

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Hi Pete,

No worries!

Those boxes with the three types of 5 fonts are all exactly same dimensions. I could measure numeral sizes but didn't bother because they all look around the same height and width to me, so no real startling differences to report...…...unlike say an 1857 numeral 7 or an 1859 numeral 9 where font sizes can be distinctly different. I guess the italic 5 looks a bit wider than the others, but then if you were to rotate it to stand upright you could say it would become narrower. I prefer to call this an italic 5 rather than a 'large one'. i.e. following the lead given by Gouby on his website:-

http://www.michael-coins.co.uk/1853_penny.htm

Hope that helps,

 

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Evening chaps - can someone kindly confirm for me that this is reverse N. I have an opportunity to buy a F114, and I want to be absolutely sure that this is a F115 before I splash out. I'm 99% certain it's the much commoner reverse N, but there is just that niggling doubt, as it was bought in more unsophisticated days simply as 1882H, and no type. 

I find the two reverses difficult to tell apart as the differences are (or appear to me to be) quite subtle.  

Thanks in advance. 

AF1QipMnYcGL6Hl5S8riTHMbCjKFsvKlN8QZRhql

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Just now, alfnail said:

Common one Mike, many more border teeth than F114

Thanks a lot, Ian. Much appreciated :)

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Re. my 1853 penny study, the other interesting thing which I noted was that none of the Plain Trident pieces were above a GVF grade, and only a handful around VF...….most were complete tat. My italic 5 piece which I pictured earlier was found outside my 5 year study period. There are some better grade pieces around, because a handful have been sold, for example, by London Coins in the past few years...………….. including one with the italic 5 date in June 2017 for hammer of £400:-

http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&auc=157&searchlot=2969&searchtype=2

 

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On 7/9/2018 at 2:50 PM, alfnail said:

Hi Pete,

No worries!

Those boxes with the three types of 5 fonts are all exactly same dimensions. I could measure numeral sizes but didn't bother because they all look around the same height and width to me, so no real startling differences to report...…...unlike say an 1857 numeral 7 or an 1859 numeral 9 where font sizes can be distinctly different. I guess the italic 5 looks a bit wider than the others, but then if you were to rotate it to stand upright you could say it would become narrower. I prefer to call this an italic 5 rather than a 'large one'. i.e. following the lead given by Gouby on his website:-

http://www.michael-coins.co.uk/1853_penny.htm

Hope that helps,

 

Morning Ian, when you were looking at the 53's could you tell me did you ever come across one that has a raised dot in the field toward the outer edge across from the right side of the portrait?  Many thanks Larry 

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7 hours ago, alfnail said:

Re. my 1853 penny study, the other interesting thing which I noted was that none of the Plain Trident pieces were above a GVF grade, and only a handful around VF...….most were complete tat. My italic 5 piece which I pictured earlier was found outside my 5 year study period. There are some better grade pieces around, because a handful have been sold, for example, by London Coins in the past few years...………….. including one with the italic 5 date in June 2017 for hammer of £400:-

http://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&auc=157&searchlot=2969&searchtype=2

 

Hello Ian. I've been following your recent very interesting posts with interest and would like to submit my 1853 PT Penny for your consideration which I bought from Colin Cooke as Unc GLus with "small spot on Obv field" in Oct 2003 (which puts it before your 5 year study?).

I'm happy enough to give it P1504, Bramah 16 but I'm blowed if I can give it a Gouby date type with any confidence!  Whilst seeming to fit Gouby date style C, the date width is too narrow.  His date style C (?) does have the same date width as mine BUT, although the E of DEI has been repaired in both examples, my 3 does not appear to have been altered in any way.

I will attempt to attach pics but I usually manage to cock it up.

Any comments would be welcome.

1853D P1504 Bramah 16 Obv.jpg

1853D P1504 Bramah 16 Rev.jpg

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it was the E on the 53 that intrigued me hence the reason to collect so many.  Please let there not be other things that interest me I am not sure I will afford it in the future. 

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4 hours ago, DrLarry said:

Please let there not be other things that interest me I am not sure I will afford it in the future. 

In that case, stay well away from 1922 and 1926 pennies.

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7 minutes ago, Peckris said:

In that case, stay well away from 1922 and 1926 pennies.

yes I am pretty much done with buying I have thousands to prepare and admire across the ages from staters to sixpences 3000 years of history is enough even for me ....I did find one of those funny old 1922's with the strange trident detached from the teeth the other day.  My modified 26's sadly would not rank high on my best of bunch 

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Just now, DrLarry said:

yes I am pretty much done with buying I have thousands to prepare and admire across the ages from staters to sixpences 3000 years of history is enough even for me ....I did find one of those funny old 1922's with the strange trident detached from the teeth the other day.  My modified 26's sadly would not rank high on my best of bunch 

Haha. You've barely dipped your toe in the water. There's a whole book waiting to be written...

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oh really on two dates?  just goes to show there are so many things we have not yet discovered and as you say tip of the iceberg  who is to say what someone might find !!! 

Edited by DrLarry

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