Narrow date 1880

[terrysoldpennies]

I see there's a lot of talk about the 1880 8 over 8 penny, but you could say its a story about two coins, the over date and the original penny with the narrow date that left the ghostly outline. Well I think this is that penny, as the position of the second 8 aligns correctly with the ghost 8. I have had this coin some time now, and have not seen another, even having scoured the net, and coin dealers. I've found nothing mention of it any where, but if it is listed shoot me. There's even more 1877 narrow dates to be found Terry

[terrysoldpennies]

Terry

[Nordle11]

By right, wouldn't that make every wide date 1880 an 8 over 8?

Also, the 0 is further along in the wide date, so would that have been an overdate as well?

[secret santa]

I see there's a lot of talk about the 1880 8 over 8 penny, but you could say its a story about two coins, the over date and the original penny with the narrow date that left the ghostly outline. Well I think this is that penny, as the position of the second 8 aligns correctly with the ghost 8. I have had this coin some time now, and have not seen another, even having scoured the net, and coin dealers. I've found nothing mention of it any where, but if it is listed shoot me. There's even more 1877 narrow dates to be found Terry

Good spot Terry - Michael Gouby's Victorian Penny book does picture a narrow 1880 and it's difficult to see whether your date is even narrower than his - there's not much in it. Even so, he'd only heard of 1 such example so it's not at all common.

Richard

[RLC35]

I see there's a lot of talk about the 1880 8 over 8 penny, but you could say its a story about two coins, the over date and the original penny with the narrow date that left the ghostly outline. Well I think this is that penny, as the position of the second 8 aligns correctly with the ghost 8. I have had this coin some time now, and have not seen another, even having scoured the net, and coin dealers. I've found nothing mention of it any where, but if it is listed shoot me. There's even more 1877 narrow dates to be found Terry

Good spot Terry - Michael Gouby's Victorian Penny book does picture a narrow 1880 and it's difficult to see whether your date is even narrower than his - there's not much in it. Even so, he'd only heard of 1 such example so it's not at all common.

Richard

I have 5 1880;s...they breakdown this way...

qty

1 Narrow Date (12.5 teeth, like the one in the above example)

2 Wide Date (13.5 teeth, both are 8/8)

2 Wide Date (14.5 teeth)

[PWA 1967]

I may be wrong Bob but is the picture not 12 teeth ?.

[RLC35]

I may be wrong Bob but is the picture not 12 teeth ?.

You may be right Pete, however I was looking at the two ND examples that Gouby has in his book, and to me it looked more like the 12.5 tooth example. The O is a little bit slanted, and it would be easy to read it either way! Has anyone else have a opinion?

[jelida]

I would call it 12.5 teeth. Must admit I'm not really into date breadth variation..............yet!

Jerry

[secret santa]

By right, wouldn't that make every wide date 1880 an 8 over 8?

Also, the 0 is further along in the wide date, so would that have been an overdate as well?

Just looked at my 1880 F99 and there is definitely the trace of a slanted 8 under the second 8 and the O of ONE also shows signs of rework !

[alfnail]

It would be good if we could all agree how to count date widths. This is something I raised with MG shortly after his book was published back in 2009 because to me he seemed to be consistently adding 1 to the date widths which I was counting. Apparently I was not the first person to have raised this with him. His response indicated that his method of counting teeth is to include both teeth which the first and last numerals are over as a full tooth each rather than half a tooth each. Referencing Page 76 of his book, for example, where 1880 date widths are described, if you look at the narrow date type BP 1880 Aa (M +k) he catalogues this date as having 12 teeth, which is 10 full teeth plus the 2 half teeth which the first and last numeral 1’s are over, both of which he counts as full teeth. So instead of being 10 + (2 x 0.5) = 11 he has decided to describe as 10 + (2 x 1.0) = 12. He has used this method consistently throughout his book, the only anomaly being the 1881 date where the first 1 is over a gap rather than a tooth, so if you look at the adjacent page 77 at type 1881Ca he describes as having 11.5 teeth whereas strictly speaking there are only 10.5 (i.e. he still adds 1).

All date variety collectors will now find it difficult if we adopt different methods to describe our coins to one another, so I would suggest that as Gouby’s book is the main reference point for describing date widths that we all try to use his method?

I also attach a picture of a coin I have kept because it seemed to me to be the missing 1880 Ac date width. On Page 76 MG lists Aa, Ab and Ad, but no Ac. His Ab and Ad have the centre of the numeral 0 (zero) directly over a gap, whereas my coin has it more towards the centre of a tooth. So if we use MG’s method of counting then this would be a date width of 13 teeth, 11 full teeth plus 2 bits (almost halves) = 13 (not 12). Hope I am helping rather than serving to confuse.

P.S. If Terry’s got lots of 1877 narrow dates I wouldn’t mind one, doesn’t have to be UNC!

[RLC35]

It would be good if we could all agree how to count date widths. This is something I raised with MG shortly after his book was published back in 2009 because to me he seemed to be consistently adding 1 to the date widths which I was counting. Apparently I was not the first person to have raised this with him. His response indicated that his method of counting teeth is to include both teeth which the first and last numerals are over as a full tooth each rather than half a tooth each. Referencing Page 76 of his book, for example, where 1880 date widths are described, if you look at the narrow date type BP 1880 Aa (M +k) he catalogues this date as having 12 teeth, which is 10 full teeth plus the 2 half teeth which the first and last numeral 1’s are over, both of which he counts as full teeth. So instead of being 10 + (2 x 0.5) = 11 he has decided to describe as 10 + (2 x 1.0) = 12. He has used this method consistently throughout his book, the only anomaly being the 1881 date where the first 1 is over a gap rather than a tooth, so if you look at the adjacent page 77 at type 1881Ca he describes as having 11.5 teeth whereas strictly speaking there are only 10.5 (i.e. he still adds 1).

All date variety collectors will now find it difficult if we adopt different methods to describe our coins to one another, so I would suggest that as Gouby’s book is the main reference point for describing date widths that we all try to use his method?

I also attach a picture of a coin I have kept because it seemed to me to be the missing 1880 Ac date width. On Page 76 MG lists Aa, Ab and Ad, but no Ac. His Ab and Ad have the centre of the numeral 0 (zero) directly over a gap, whereas my coin has it more towards the centre of a tooth. So if we use MG’s method of counting then this would be a date width of 13 teeth, 11 full teeth plus 2 bits (almost halves) = 13 (not 12). Hope I am helping rather than serving to confuse.

P.S. If Terry’s got lots of 1877 narrow dates I wouldn’t mind one, doesn’t have to be UNC!

Here is one that is easy to count the teeth on...definately 9.5 teeth!