Mr T

Do you have the coin in hand to check? I haven't been able to find a lot of die letter A examples but it looks like the coins with A near or touching the linear circle have faint/no rocks while the coins with the A touching the lighthouse definitely have rocks.

Exactly - it's clever but I didn't think the designs looked good on their own either.

Interesting, there are more die letter A examples than I expected. Anyway, left with more questions than answers as usual.

I agree - nice designs. I was never a fan of the sections of shield.

And a little bit of an update to this - I haven't done a in-depth study of the G with rock/G with no rock from 1861 to 1873, but I have had a brief look. From 1863 to 1873, the pictures I have at hand all seem to show a rock (though a bit faint at times). More interestingly, the 1862 with A to left of lighthouse has no rocks while the 1862 with A to right of lighthouse has a rock, at least from the handful of images I've looked at (https://www.baldwin.co.uk/product/victoria-1837-1901-halfpenny-1862-die-letter-a-rrr/, https://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&auc=124&searchlot=555&searchtype=2, https://www.londoncoins.co.uk/?page=Pastresults&auc=162&searchlot=2355&searchtype=2).

I don't really track US coins but yeah probably the high mintage would be part of it. I'd assume that collectors are very much divided (like here) into classic (1960s or earlier) and modern (alphabet sets/state quarters) and maybe these sets fall in between.

Looking forward to hearing what comes of it. It's good that the Royal Mint still do look into things like this - the Royal Australian Mint stopped years ago I believe.

Two to three production runs makes sense. Maybe - I think there are some modern mules that are too good to be true. This one seems plausible given the similarity between dies at least.

I assume they weren't all made in one run (the regular ones anyway). How does it work? I assume the coins are for sale for a year or so, during which the Royal Mint will keep producing them as long as they keep selling.

Hard to say - I don't know of any study of die markers. I do have in my notes that Dracott says it also exists as a circulated coin, but now I don't remember where that's from. If it's not in his July 2004 article, maybe his more recent article - November 2021 I think.

I think it's A#? The date is wider and Britannia has short hair.

Ah nice thank you.

I was looking at this the other day and it says release date September 2024 - was that there before? I didn't see it as in stock anywhere last time I went looking either.

Looks like it's the browser - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66348773/this-form-is-not-secure-autofill-has-been-turned-off-only-in-chrome The forums isn't served with HTTPS which is why you're getting the error, but I'm a bit confused as to why it's not happening for everyone.

There was no picture of the coin in the article and no NGC holder number was given. I don't think you can get the image from NGC without the holder number.