Help with 1552 crown

[secret santa]

Can someone please explain the difference in the legend at the lower left between these 2 coins.

also, one has a dot after the date,

Edited February 17, 2023 by secret santa
addition

[Rob]

You need to refer to the Lingford catalogue, where all the legend varieties described by him are listed (13 obverse and 20 reverse varieties). The top one is 1552 obv.A and the second was not listed by him, though the obverse configuration with just a colon before the tun does appear in 1553 as his 1553 obv.B, so is likely a late die. I haven't compiled an exhaustive database of images for these, so can't say how rare the bottom one is, but don't have any examples to date. I wouldn't lose any sleep over the lack of stop - it's just another die (even if not recorded by Lingford), and probably specific to just this one.

[secret santa]

Thanks Rob. I bought a 1552 crown myself many years ago (Lord knows why) and have only just noticed the variation in different examples. Spink just pictures a single design and the various examples that I've seen in auction never seem to differentiate between obverse or reverse designs. Are they all more or less as common as each other, to the best of your knowledge ?

And is the Lingford catalogue accessible online ?

[Rob]

Some die pairs are rare, but in terms of common, over half the 1551s use obverse A, which given there are 9 obverse dies across both marks seems disproportionate. 

No idea if the catalogue is online, as I always use my own copy.

Must get around to doing a census of these at some point as I want either a crown or halfcrown to tick the y initial mark box. 

[kildonan]

The Lingford catalogue is available on the Newman Numismatic Portal

https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=512958&AuctionId=533901

[secret santa]

Thank you very much - that's really appreciated, and so useful.