Mr T

I think more than just a freedom of information request is needed - at least in the early days all that was recorded was output in a calendar year (which is often a good enough approximation) but to find the truth you'd need to dig through the die production, usage and destruction register(s) to find out what dies were used and when. In the latest Australian Coin and Banknote Magazine Howard Hodgson finally put the mystery of the 1927M sovereign to bed - reports say a few hundred thousand were struck but further investigation showed they all struck in January 1927, most likely before 1927-dated dies arrived in Australia. It was a note accompanying the coins sent to London for the Trial of the Pyx that actually confirmed that all of the coins were struck before 1927-dated dies arrived in Australia. While London-struck coins didn't have the issue of a multi-month sea journey to complicate things I'm sure die production was not always in sync with the calendar.

I feel your pain - among other things I collect coins of the Cook Islands and Solomon Islands and almost all of my gaps are coins made for sets by the Franklin Mint, often with mintages of less than 1,000.

It's out: https://www.sovr.co.uk/pdfs/david-iverson-jubilee-hd-half-sovs.pdf

I wouldn't be buying it, though I wonder if it's poorly-struck? The details are generally terrible but not all over.

From the halfpennies post some close-ups of the 1861, 1956 and 1957 coins. From the pennies post some close-ups of the 1860, 1875 and 1883 coins.

Can you post all of the penny and halfpenny years? They all look pretty worn so probably don't have much value but if any are of the rarer types they might be worth something.

I am aware of the variety (probably from the same Australian coin forum you saw this) - I don't think the old obverse was used beyond 1898 but I don't know.

Are you going to publish somewhere?

At the end of the day I want a nice coin and I'm not fussed on whether it's wear or circulation.

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.