young head threepence obverses 1 and 2

[Mr T]

I've got a fairly worn 1860 threepence and I'm trying to work out which Davies obverse it has.

It looks like an obverse 1 as the G in D:G: looks like it has a big right serif and not much of a left serif. The Queen's ear is completely worn away so I can't use that, and the serif on the G seems a little shaky as a diagnostic (prone to die fill or damage I would think).

Anyone got any other way of telling the two obverses? I have pretty much no young head threepences to compare with.

[Nick]

7 hours ago, Mr T said:

I've got a fairly worn 1860 threepence and I'm trying to work out which Davies obverse it has.

It looks like an obverse 1 as the G in D:G: looks like it has a big right serif and not much of a left serif. The Queen's ear is completely worn away so I can't use that, and the serif on the G seems a little shaky as a diagnostic (prone to die fill or damage I would think).

Anyone got any other way of telling the two obverses? I have pretty much no young head threepences to compare with.

The top of Victoria's ear is the easiest way to tell them apart, but the serif on the G does seem to be diagnostic.  It's possible that the waves in Victoria's hair are slightly different, but you'd need high grade examples to verify that.

[Mr T]

I found some decent images of both (never easy):

Obverse 1: https://www.gbclassiccoins.co.uk/shop/silver-threepences/1838-queen-victoria-young-head-silver-threepence-scarce/

Obverse 2: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Victoria-1863-Threepence-/361979845871

So it looks like besides the G and the hair above the ear, the obverse 2 R serifs seem to flick up more, and the : at the end of the F:D: seems to cut into the D on obverse 2.