Leaderboard

Not sure how much of the 1902LT wide date stuff was said in jest but here are comparative pictures of type with bar and slightly wider normal date for reference, also a 'close up' of bar in top of zero, which is sort of straight! Inclined to agree with Rob about varieties, "design and errors", both human introduced rather than machine, e.g. not keen on cannon balls, crow feet, clashed dies being classified as varieties, but they do seem to have found their way into all recognised documentation to date (and CGS), so now have their place. With Victorian Pennies (my main collection) I always find that repairs are the more difficult ones to decide whether to collect because I think probably every letter in the legend has been repaired on one die or another, some much more obvious than others, so where does one draw the line, and what should be termed a variety? Clearly everyone wants an 1860N/Z, but a repaired E in DEF is far less desirable, but still nice to have if it's a real botch job. Then there are date variations and colon dot positions which again vary in location from one die to another, human introduced so perhaps fairly classed as varieties by some authors. For exampIe, I recently looked in detail at my 1851 pennies, no over-dates on that year but we still see different numeral sizes on the 1,5 and 8, and when additionally taking date widths into consideration I found in total I have 12 different date variations.............and that's not a particularly common mintage year. Think this is a subject which collectors will never agree upon, as always looking for something different to collect, and dealers / auctioneers will always market a new 'feature' to aid their sale.....and then a feature sometimes turns into a new variety! Could go on forever but will stop now, expect this will open a can of worms!

My 1875 cannon ball with the grit affecting the obverse die too, as predicted by Gouby in his footnote to BP1875 Ce, I suspect his BP1875 Cd is an error

Thanks Pete, yes I was thinking of the 1875 penny; always thinking about pennies! These foreign bodies which get trapped in the die also appear on several other Victorian pennies, the Copper 1854 dot below first I of VICTORIA, the 1859 DEF extra dot and the 1846 (more pennies discussion) are examples, then of course there is the 1897 DOT as another Bronze example...........these are not the result of human introduced design, or deliberate / mistaken repair..............unless one expects that a person should have checked that a piece of grit / metal filing should not have been there......... and that constitutes an error? But I don't expect for a minute that my views will stop penny enthusiasts from wanting an 1897 DOT Penny!!

Ian will be talking about the 1875 penny i think Rob not a halfcrown.

Thanks Brian, here are the 1851 penny different numeral types I mentioned earlier, in case anyone is interested

Because his pennies are biting him on the bum

English Government, especially 3 of them specifically, Cameron, Osbourne and IDS