Mr T

Yes. Very annoying when the only thing you have to go on is denticle alignment.

To me it should - early British George V pennies or later Australian Perth Mint bronze can really have poor strike and even though they might be technically uncirculated, if they don't look the part then they're not really uncirculated.

That's the book that Sleepy mentioned - black and white photos unfortunately so while they're not too small they're still kind of hard to figure.

Lucky! I think there was a news story about a boy getting a sovereign in change as a pound a year or two ago as well.

Oh yes the bridge of the nose does look thinner on the 1928, though obverse 1 having the thinner nose bridge is at odds with the Museum Victoria examples being obverse 1 and Paddy's example being an obverse 2. Isn't that what the books suggest happened though? It seems like the only difference is the portrait as odd at that seems.

I'll say it's ancient Greek based on the imagery - do you have some bigger photos?

Groom's book says the differences are flatness of the forehead, definition of eyebrow (which I think is most obvious in the various pictures), thickness of rim and relief of effigy.

Thanks NIck - whereabouts is the difference in the nose? It looks like the eyebrows are subtely different - the one on the left seems to have a bit of a depression in the middle while on the one on the right it seems to taper uniformly down to the eye. Based on that Paddy's and the second Museum Victoria might be obverse 2?

I thought I read FIrefox blocked (or was intending to block) some plugins that met certain criteria (how they're built) - perhaps the plugin just needs to be updated?

Well I still can't figure it - Paddy's example seems to have a flatter forehead than the two Museum Victoria examples. One of the Museum Victoria examples seems to have a less defined eyebrow, as does Paddy's. Paddy's has a uniformly thick rim but the two Museum Victoria examples have rims that are much thinner on one side. The arrow in David Groom's book isn't clear either - it looks like it's pointing at a nick in the eyebrow. I'm tempted to say they're the same design and that difference is due to strike pressure or using an old proof die or something, but without a definitive image of obverse 2 it's up in the air.

Very good.

The one from the Onedrive link looks like it does have a flatter forehead - compare to the Museum Victoria images which have a small trench above the eyebrow. But the eyebrows in the Museum Victoria images don't match either, and the Onedrive one has a flat eyebrow.

Hm, I was thinking maybe the first was numbers with letters in alphabetical order - cent and acht do but eight doesn't fit. Conversely zwölf is in reverse alphabetical order. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree.

How good does my knowledge of the German language need to be to get this? My French is okay but not my German.

Looks like the top half of a 3 over the bottom half of a 5 but I'm not sure.

Does anyone have a picture of an obverse 2? I've read both Davies and Groom and the small black and white pictures don't really make the eyebrow differences obvious. I think Museum Victoria's first one is a bit nicer.

Oh excellent - thanks.

Is there an easy way to tell obverse 1 from obverse 2? I'm guessing the denticle count is the same and otherwise that's what would books would say. It seems like the flatness or dip of the forehead might be the easiest distinguishing feature but I'm not sure. I can't quite make sense of the eye-brow difference. Based on the dip in the forehead I guess https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/52386 and https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/73888 are both obverse 1?

I was having a look over Ian Dracott's halfpenny articles again recently and I saw in part III that he listed a 12+H# halfpenny for 1875. I suspect this is an error as there is no H# reverse listed in his previous articles. Does anyone know what it should be for sure? I suspect it should be J# but have nothing other than gut feeling to back that up.

I think Sylvester is right - dies didn't last forever and certainly not for more than a year. It's possible that at the end of a year a die may have been used again next year (if it was still good) but I doubt there would have been much overlap. I think half sovereigns are probably one of the less popular denominations so probably no one has reported newer die numbers.

There's one on gold patterns etc (by Wilson and Rasmussen I think) but I think it's something of a niche area so Freeman is still probably the most up-to-date for bronze. Latest English Silver Coins might have improved on older editions but I don't know.

Hm, four issues per year. Were the articles decent? Any familiar names among the writers?

Nice - Maundy is it?

Used to collect and still have some stamps. I still put aside any that I get in the mail - not uncommon to see 30 year old stamps that get used for postage these days (which seems a bit short-sighted to me but old mint stamps are cheaper than current new stamps). I've seen New Zealand and British stamps used in Australia too (these days the post office workers don't pay too much attention apparently) and the other day I got mail from Italy with lira-denominated stamps.

I'll correct myself - in my attempts to not do any further damage to my somewhat tattered copy I overlooked a couple of thin first pages that do state the year and edition.