Nick

The surface looks quite porous in the close-up picture. The diameter is spot on, but the thickness and weight are both under. Whatever the method of production, it's a pretty good gap-filler.

It doesn't look silver plated, it looks more like a standard 189x sixpence with a slightly larger 3 grafted on. What is the weight and is it standard thickness?

Indeed. I had a nice old head 1893 3d that sold a couple of weeks back for approx £30.

Indeed, me too.

It was a combined lot with 5 other shillings, so if all you wanted was the 1921 3+D there would have been some "baggage" to dispose of.

Here's a clickable link - first lot of Peter Davies collection is 1135.

Found it. It was LCA Auction 124, Feb 28 and Mar 1 2009.

I thought it was sold by London Coin Auctions in 2009.

It's the scarcest of the four shallow recut portrait die pairings. I suspect the one you'd be interested in is the more deeply engraved portrait (3+D), which was in the previous sale and went for a steal.

Lot 791 contains a nice 1913 shilling, a fairly scarce 1921 shilling 4+E and the scarcer 1st type (non-ME) 1926 threepence (despite what it is says on the slab!).

Lot 781 contains a scarce 1911 sixpence variety (2+A).

Lot 764 has no pictures, so here is the 1884 6d (NB the scratches are on the plastic of the slab), 1886 6d and 1889 6d (2+C).

I've also got a few lots in the DNW auction on 6 Apr. There are one or two varieties on offer. The following posts give a few notes and some pictures for the lot with no picture.

No, that's one that VS has had for a while.

Here are the pictures (reduced in size) of the 1893 Jubilee head sixpence from VS.

Please do.

Obverse 2 and reverse D, but I've never had one, not even a poor one. I suspect there are not enough of them to have any die pairing variants.

Looks to be F or gF.

Having just looked through the London Coins archive, I see that obverse 2 is mentioned for a number of 1889 sixpences in their auction on 01/03/2009. I wonder if these were from Peter Davies' collection.

The images I used were from 1888 for obverse 1 and 1889 for obverse 2. I've never seen an obverse 2 before 1889, although you could say that the JEB on truncation obverse is similar.

Not that far, I suspect. I think I'd stop at the last eBay seller.

I imagine so. All of mine were stored in Lighthouse capsules inserted into trays inside metal box cabinets.

Davies notes five principal reverses for sixpences 1887-1893 labelled A to E and also mentions that "Numerous design & die sinking differences exist before adoption of rev. 'D'.". What is not mentioned is that there are 2 obverses and the changeover seems to have occured during 1889. The picture below shows the difference between obverses 1 and 2, left and right respectively. As long as you can focus that close, you can see the difference with the naked eye. The difference is a wedge cut out of the truncation above J.E.B. which is present in obverse 1 and not in obverse 2. I'm not entirely certain which crossover die pairings exist for 1889 but I have seen 1+C, 2+C, 2+D and even 2+A, so it is possible that all permutations are out there. As far as I'm aware all obverses after 1889 are obverse 2, unless you know different.

Some sort of magnification tool is a must, whether that be loupe, magnifying glass or camera.

Thanks guys. Really appreciate it. I hope those of you that bid, managed to get something you wanted. All in all, pleased with the result. Some went for lower estimates, some high and some just wow.