Score lines or graffiti

[VickySilver]

Ah, very good. I have both type of 1839 proof groats for reference.

[Rob]

7 minutes ago, VickySilver said:

Ah, very good. I have both type of 1839 proof groats for reference.

And do they both use Davies groat obverse 1, or is one a later obverse (apparently from the threepences)?

[Menger]

9 minutes ago, Rob said:

And do they both use Davies groat obverse 1, or is one a later obverse (apparently from the threepences)?

Interesting question.  Or is one coin axis and one medal? 

My understanding is the groat proof dates and obverses are:

Obverse 1 – 1838, 1839, 1842 & 1853

Obverse 2 – 1862

Obverse 3 – 1852, 1857 & 1862

Obverse 4 – 1837 & 1853

I have a 1839 proof with medal strike and (I believe it is a proof) coin strike but I have only seen Obverse 1 for that date. 

[Menger]

35 minutes ago, Menger said:

Interesting question.  Or is one coin axis and one medal? 

My understanding is the groat proof dates and obverses are:

Obverse 1 – 1838, 1839, 1842 & 1853

Obverse 2 – 1862

Obverse 3 – 1852, 1857 & 1862

Obverse 4 – 1837 & 1853

I have a 1839 proof with medal strike and (I believe it is a proof) coin strike but I have only seen Obverse 1 for that date. 

Correction: I have only seen obverse 1 for the 1839 proof groat. I have only the coin strike variety.  This came from what I believe was an original proof set (the set sold in the MDC Monaco sale in Oct 2020 for record money and it had a provenance from Sotheby’s 1856) and so presumably that was the original striking? (I did not buy the set! Only the little groat when it was seemingly broken up after the Monaco sale).  

[Menger]

2 hours ago, Rob said:

There is an 1839 proof groat with an inverted die axis, noted in ESC as being rarer than the regular en-medaille proof. Is this a third instance of a late strike?

Interesting. As I comment above - my take is that the inverted axis for the 1839 proof groat was found in the original 1839 proof set. This being the case in the MDC Monaco set - which is certainly one of the finer ones.  By contrast I have 1839 Maundy proofs with both medal and coin axis. Here, I have a always assumed that the medal strikes were more likely from the original proof sets and the coin axis strikes from later restrikes. This is because my coin axis proof Maundy is clearly inferior quality (die cracks and wot not) compared to the medal strike. 

[Peckris 2]

18 hours ago, Menger said:

Interesting. As I comment above - my take is that the inverted axis for the 1839 proof groat was found in the original 1839 proof set. This being the case in the MDC Monaco set - which is certainly one of the finer ones.  By contrast I have 1839 Maundy proofs with both medal and coin axis. Here, I have a always assumed that the medal strikes were more likely from the original proof sets and the coin axis strikes from later restrikes. This is because my coin axis proof Maundy is clearly inferior quality (die cracks and wot not) compared to the medal strike. 

There's a post about an 1839 plain edge proof halfcrown with coin axis in Confirmed Unlisted Varieties.

[Mr T]

https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/556493 has an article on an 1837 groat using threepence obverse 3 (I think).

Davies isn't clear but is groat obverse 2 the same as threepence obverse 2, groat obverse 3 the same as threepence obverse 3 and groat obverse 4 the same as threepence obverse 4?

[VickySilver]

Well, regardless, I love these Britannia groats. Sad to say I missed the 1837 that sold a while ago..... How late was the last run of 1839 sets? Yikes, I seem to have recalled they did some in the 1880s or so......

 

Well, Rob has answered to some degree..

 

Now Mr. T looks to be throwing a maths problem at us - LOL

[Mr T]

I see now that the numbers for the groat and threepence obverses match - convenient.

But it looks like Graham Dyer found another one not mentioned above.