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Ebay is virtually dead these days. Nobody is willing to pay good money for good coins. On a personal level, I will only spend money on something decent if I know the coin, or is a particular seller I can trust. I put things on that are dirt cheap with a smattering of higher grade things, but the latter rarely sell. A couple of quid here or there is less of a problem, but don't expect bargains. From a sellers perspective, a few quid for something worth a few pence is a good margin, which is why I persist. If you bought the same from a dealer, you would still have postage costs, so nothing lost. TIP. Don't assume dealers are trying to rip you off and charging over the odds - that's ebay area of expertise. Do a lot of spadework and you will see that many are quite reasonably priced, and despite the apparent attraction of ebay's buyer/seller protection, like any insurance, the proof of the pudding is when you try to invoke the protection. It might work. Though to be fair, ebay's policy of buyer good, seller bad, means relatively little hassle for buyers. Any respectable dealer will offer to take returns in a reasonable time frame, allowing for people going on holiday, but to say you don't want something 6 months down the line because you just found better is likely to be viewed as tough shit. Responsibility/respectability is a two way thing. At the end of the day, most people on this planet are decent and honest, so don't lose much sleep over it..

Where do we start! I have given up buying or selling completely on Ebay. The coins I still need are all rare dates or varieties, which makes the chances of fakery or fraud very high. For low value items, it is probably still useful, or if you spot a rare variety that the seller has missed. I suppose my main thoughts are: If it is high value, assume a fake unless you are absolutely certain. Do your research. Check sold items - a tick box down the left of a search list. This will show you the actually sale price of recently completed similar items to give you a good idea of real value. (Sadly this does not include "best offer" sale values.) Research the seller. These days it is almost impossible to leave negative feedback, so the overall score is irrelevant, so check the actual words left by buyers. Also check that the seller has sold plenty of coins before with feedback. Someone who usually sells household good and suddenly starts listing high value coins is a worry. Check sellers location. Anything far eastern or Eastern Europe is a worry. Read the words the seller has attached. Often these are clearly AI generated or stolen from some auction site, in which case you know it is a con. If still uncertain, ask on a forum such as this.

One possible explanation could be that the letters in question have been re punched to hard , which would result in a deeper indentation into the die resulting in a bigger wider and longer letter . I have seen this on the date digits on some of the Victorian pennies. Im sure I have a picture some where , I'll see if I can find it . Note the 9 in the two date examples below

It is unlikely that the issue would be with the master die, but it is possible that a working die was repaired either with fractionally larger ‘I’ and ‘T’ punches though I think die repairs with correct punches very slightly misplaced could have a similar effect. Jerry