Recessed ear 1915/16 penny

[PWA 1967]

2 minutes ago, Coinery said:

Have you chaps posted this in Hammered just to show off how many posts you can generate in one thread?  

You can put the blame on Terry for that Stuart ,although if it had been the correct thread there would of been twice as many posts 

[Peckris]

30 minutes ago, terrysoldpennies said:

That's with unworn coins, I have a couple that are worn, and its very obvious as the ear is totally untouched  with the rest of the head badly worn.

That is so true, and is the reason why I doubt the "one die" theory. One die would be used for approximately 50,000 coins, right? That means - with two penny dates involved - a single die would be a very scarce variety. Yet I remember when collecting as a schoolboy late 60s, quite a lot of recessed ears came up; I didn't think anything of them, believing them just to be an eccentric wear pattern rather than a variety, but far more than would be accountable from a single die. 

[terrysoldpennies]

OOps that's my bugger up. anyway we collect the refined Milled, not that primitive Hammered stuff. 

[Rob]

13 minutes ago, terrysoldpennies said:

OOps that's my bugger up. anyway we collect the refined Milled, not that primitive Hammered stuff. 

Most of the 1915 and 1916 pennies I see appear to have had said tool applied. Most unappealing.

[Coinery]

1 hour ago, terrysoldpennies said:

OOps that's my bugger up. anyway we collect the refined Milled, not that primitive Hammered stuff. 

 

1 hour ago, PWA 1967 said:

You can put the blame on Terry for that Stuart ,although if it had been the correct thread there would of been twice as many posts 

[jelida]

7 hours ago, Peckris said:

That is so true, and is the reason why I doubt the "one die" theory. One die would be used for approximately 50,000 coins, right? That means - with two penny dates involved - a single die would be a very scarce variety. Yet I remember when collecting as a schoolboy late 60s, quite a lot of recessed ears came up; I didn't think anything of them, believing them just to be an eccentric wear pattern rather than a variety, but far more than would be accountable from a single die. 

Which means that the several working dies must have been made from one progressively more clogged RE master die, and why would the master die become clogged if used presumabIy to make a very limited number of working dies? am not sure which is more unlikely, that or one particularly long-lived obverse die. Any other solutions?

Jerry

[davidrj]

39 minutes ago, jelida said:

Which means that the several working dies must have been made from one progressively more clogged RE master die, and why would the master die become clogged if used presumabIy to make a very limited number of working dies? am not sure which is more unlikely, that or one particularly long-lived obverse die. Any other solutions?

Jerry

I haven’t got Courts article to hand at present, but from memory I think we are talking millions for the 1916 RE, must be more than one working die, very puzzling.

[InforaPenny]

In my opinion, this variety is from multiple dies that were produced using a puncheon (or hub) with a chipped tooth. It doesn't seem plausible to me that this could be due to a filled die...

Best Regards,

 

InforaPenny

[Peckris]

2 hours ago, InforaPenny said:

In my opinion, this variety is from multiple dies that were produced using a puncheon (or hub) with a chipped tooth. It doesn't seem plausible to me that this could be due to a filled die...

I don't have sufficient technical knowledge to answer this but ... would a punch with a slightly broken tooth get worse over time? I'm assuming that a punch doesn't use any more force than a strike (maybe even less?) and that it shouldn't deteriorate during the making of a few dozen dies?

[jelida]

4 hours ago, davidrj said:

I haven’t got Courts article to hand at present, but from memory I think we are talking millions for the 1916 RE, must be more than one working die, very puzzling.

True, Court quotes 16,129,850 for the 1916 RE penny so there must have been many individual obverse working dies. As I understand it, the puncheons would build up the design in incuse, the result being used to strike  a master die which is a relief die. From this, whatever number of incuse working dies necessary could be struck. It would seem likely that only one master die would be prepared, and thus the border tooth puncheon would only be used once in building up the master die. Logically any progression  in the damaged tooth would have to occur when sequentially preparing new working dies from the master. Does this seem reasonable? To answer Pecks earlier question re the non-continuation of the RE obverse, perhaps the damaged master die was deemed to require replacement, and rather than going back to the individual punches to build up a fresh master, they simply returned to the previous non RE master to produce the next generations of working dies.

Jerry

Edited April 3, 2018 by jelida

[Peckris]

10 hours ago, jelida said:

To answer Pecks earlier question re the non-continuation of the RE obverse, perhaps the damaged master die was deemed to require replacement, and rather than going back to the individual punches to build up a fresh master, they simply returned to the previous non RE master to produce the next generations of working dies.

That seems a bit odd. Mind you, it all depends exactly WHY they tried the experiment. It could well have been to try and eliminate the 'ghosting' effect on the reverse, which it failed to do. What it DID do however, is to ensure that Britannia was fully struck up, avoiding the flattening to face and upper body which the non-RE obverse was causing. So you could say it was a partial success.

I wouldn't have thought that a single broken tooth would have caused them to abandon the experiment, but then again, in 1916 the nation had a lot more to think and worry about than how well struck up pennies were.

[PWA 1967]

I read this thread with interest as found it hard to find a good one 1915 Recessed ear and then like most things two turned up at once.Most of the 1915 tend to be weakly struck which one was although that had better lustre.

The one i sent to CGS for Freyas collection has part of the tooth missing(couple of tiny spots but not verd) and as i mentioned in a previous thread find it much easier to tell and be sure.

Pete.

Edited April 11, 2018 by PWA 1967

[IanB]

49 minutes ago, PWA 1967 said:

I read this thread with interest as found it hard to find a good one 1915 Recessed ear and then like most things two turned up at once.Most of the 1915 tend to be weakly struck which one was although that had better lustre.

The one i sent to CGS for Freyas collection has part of the tooth missing(couple of tiny spots but not verd) and as i mentioned in a previous thread find it much easier to tell and be sure.

Pete.

 

[PWA 1967]

Another one i bought a couple of weeks ago 1915 Recessed ear.

[Peckris 2]

This has been posted in Hammered - can a moderator move it please?

(Just to add - that lovely example doesn't seem to have the broken tooth?)