1887 sixpence

[grkshef]

As a new member, I should be grateful for the opinion of others on a 1887 jubilee head shield reverse sixpence. This has R on I amendments to the R in BRITT and VICTORIA, which I understand are well recognised. in addition, there is an inverted A or V adjacent to the A in VICTORIA which I have not seen reported before. Have there been previous reports of this?

[mrbadexample]

Interesting first post grkshef. Welcome to the forum. Someone clever will turn up in a bit and let you know.

[Nick]

A great number of 1887 sixpences have amendments to the Rs in particular.  The A over higher misplaced A is known about, but not listed in any of the usual references.  When I first saw one, I thought it interesting enough to find one for myself.  I would imagine a similar value to the R/I variety.

Having looked at my example again, it could easily be an inverted V as there is no obvious sign of a crossbar.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Nick

[declanwmagee]

Welcome to the forum, George.

Glad you found us, this is where proper coinies hang out... 

 

[grkshef]

Thanks for these responses. I am sure I shall enjoy being a member of this group and learning from others who generously share their knowledge. 

[1887jubilee]

I have been studying 1887 sixpences for fifteen years and can confirm this as a recognized variety. You should see from the coin that the Rs all have both serifs left and right at the base of the upright so this coin is a variety of the R over I that is in most books. If you look at the R in BRITT: you should be able to see the R/I very clearly. This is a distinguishing feature of this die variety which has come to be called A over A but, as pointed out, it could be an inverted V. The specimens I have do not show a bar to the "A" but you will have noticed how weak the strike is from your own specimen. They turn up from time to time on ebay and fetch fairly normal prices but then most people don't know what they are looking at. In a survey of 1,518 sixpences I have found 5. I don't look for them any more. Extrapolating this would give a mintage figure of 12,107. Given You have one and Nick has one the sample then would indicate 17,000+. It is most likely this pair of dies had a normal use and so the actual figure would be more like 30,000. Well done on spotting it. There is a specimen in The Royal Mint collection RMM8457.

[Guest grkshef]

Thank you for this. Yes, my sixpence does show the R/I more clearly on the BRITT: 

I did try to submit this photo with my initial enquiry but was defeated by the limit on file size that this site imposes.  I wonder whether this restriction has caused others difficulty? I am not very clever at reducing photo file size; perhaps there is an easy technique that others can enlighten me about, but wonder whether this might obscure the smaller details we are endeavouring to share.

Thank you also for your calculation about the likely numbers of this variant. I shall continue to look for others now!