Nick

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.

Definitely a wrong'un. The hair and beard never look as prominent as that, even on an as struck example.

I have liberated and reduced the NGC photos. I now don't think that it has been cleaned, although the toning doesn't look that appealing and there is what looks like a finger print in front of George's chin.

The patch between the horse's hoof and the dragon's head could be cleaning, but it's not clear from that picture. What grade has NGC given it?