davidrj

May have been just one man doing that job in each mint! Rob, do we have any records of the size of the workforce, the total number of blanks cut, and the time span of the mintages? Currently doing some research on the production of French Revolutionally bronze 1791-3 (taxing my O level French) entire yearly mintages appear to have taken only a week or so at each mint

Not so, a skilled worker would be able to get almost identical weights every time, and his work would be recognisable. Given Rob's comments re low circulation, I think he may be onto something useful

First time I've looked at this interesting thread - forget the B in BR - the D of F:D is far easier to spot, the D points directly to a corner on the left hand coin - need to dig my thruppences out

Interesting! If we were talking about newly produced hand cut blanks, a forensic expert could no doubt testify that some were made by Joe and others by Fred, due to the habitual shape and direction of tooling marks. After a couple of hundred years of circulation, clipping and cabinet wear... who knows

Details of dates

Much better than my two! another rare coin on my upgrade list! Freeman only found 7 with the narrow date die out of 354 1879 pennies from circulation; applying Court's methodology that's a mintage of approx 152,000 out of 7,666,000 Note (and now I'm in Full Geek Mode) that my two coins have different date spacing (Gouby lists only 1) - so at least two narrow date dies were in use

Welcome Nicky! I think most of us here started out by looking for nice coins from our (& parents') change Good list of all the 50p types here with background information on the commemorative issues Happy hunting David

I've been on a lookout for an upgrade for some time without success; so i guess this ultrawide 1896 is rare, as is the wide date 1895, again mine being the only example I've seen

Are there any other differences? Who knows? grade is awful

Only 2 widths for 1898, but two different fonts for final 8

I have 4 widths for 1896

I was about to respectfully point this out: I stand corrected ! Here's my wide date 1895 Not in Gouby and seems to be pretty scarce

There are quite noticable date variations for 1895, 1896 and 1899. The rarity seems to increase with date width,which probably indicates they were spottedand corrected 1897,1900,1901 and the EdVII date variations usually need a lens to spot and are of less interest in my view

A very rude French 10 centime piece David

mislabelled slabbed 1897 penny BIN at £587.13!!!

I always try to use the same orientation when scanning my pennies - the light from my scanner is projected at an angle from the head. Different illumination can lead you down blind alleys when variety spotting

Suspect it won't go for much as it's not in Freeman, Gouby's book probably has not had a high enough circulation for the variety to be well known 20th century penny varieties don't ever seem to get listed as such on Ebay (except 1902 LT and 1926 ME) , how often are die varieties of 1905, 1908, 1913, 1915, 1916, 1921, 1937 listed let alone 1940 or 1944? 1903 - open 3, and 1911 Gouby X are both relatively unknown, so you just need to look carefully at sellers' photos, I'm still keeping a watch on 1908, 1909, 1913, & 1922! anyone got a 1967 "tidal wave" ? David

I paid a fiver for mine! Probably the worst example known.

What do folk make of this 1908 penny? "Rainbow toning" so i can see it getting bids from across the pond. Looks like a cleaned coin retoning to me

French coins can get quite interesting Usually a Mint Mark - normally a letter, but a little cow for Pau. Further complicated by additional dots adjacent to the mint letters, indicating the so called "Provisional mints" in the Constitutional period (1791-3) Coins prior to 1793 often have a raised dot (eg under the D of Ludovicus) to indicted the second simester (ie the second minting period of the year) Then there are what the French refer to as "les differants" a symbol for the National Chief Engraver, plus another for the local mintmaster Even more fun when you get to the Directoire (lan'5 - l'an8; 1796-1801) 5 centimes and decimes have not only overdates but overstrikes of the mint letters and/or the differents! David

And a gold for Ainsley in the sailing! There was me thinking sailing was some nice leisurely pursuit. It's not - it's all out war!

Get your own back - congratulate any Americans you meet on the number of medals being won by California Or mistake them for Canadians!

Ding! Dong Ding! A snip at £1,800

If you asked for a Lucky Dip and they sold you an Unlucky one, maybe you could test Camelot's return policy