1820 Shilling H over Horizontal H question.

[Unwilling Numismatist]

Good day, hive mind. Is there an example anyone can point me to for reference of the said variety? 

I have one I would call "similar" but it would appear as it is quite abraded more potentially to be a H over Horizontal N. I have considered and referred to as many abraded 1820 shilling coins as I can find on the likes of Ebay, past and present and all of them show clear spacing between the bars of the H, even when almost flat, so I believe this one is different.

I would appreciate any thoughts on this. 

 

[Unwilling Numismatist]

Its so scabby I weighed it. Its only a little bit light   5g exactly. Fake 100%  but I think contemporary rather than modern as it came from a neighbours fathers estate a few years ago. 

 

[Citizen H]

could you show both sides in full size, would be nice to see. 👍

[Unwilling Numismatist]

On 1/16/2026 at 6:33 PM, Citizen H said:

could you show both sides in full size, would be nice to see. 👍

Certainly.

[Ukstu]

6 hours ago, Unwilling Numismatist said:

Certainly.

Yes i agree it has to be spurious. The dates not lined up properly and the G & R in Geor are out of proportion with the other letters.

I have a contemporary forgery silver washed brass shilling dated 1817. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Ukstu

[Coinery]

@seuk used to specialise in these, and had quite a collection I believe. If my memory serves me correctly, he either had, or was putting together, a book and/or website?

[Paddy]

There was a website for these, which I have bookmarked, but when I tried to visit it just now I think it has been deleted.

 

[Unwilling Numismatist]

This one definitely looks brass with a silver wash, given its state I decided a clean wasn't going to harm its value too much!  

[Chris Perkins]

2 hours ago, Paddy said:

There was a website for these, which I have bookmarked, but when I tried to visit it just now I think it has been deleted.

 

I think I remember that. Is it on the wayback machine/internet archive?

[Paddy]

It maybe - I am not sure I would know how to find out.

The link I have is this: http://www.steppeulvene.com/index.george_iii.html 

Based on the similarities I suspect this may have been @seuk's site.

[Ukstu]

Gary Oddie has written a few papers about them. He was doing a study of them. Not sure if he still is but his old paper's should still be online somewhere. 

[Ukstu]

4 minutes ago, Ukstu said:

Gary Oddie has written a few papers about them. He was doing a study of them. Not sure if he still is but his old paper's should still be online somewhere. 

Just found an obituary for him i think so that's a no go on any further research. Passed away last February. 

[Chris Perkins]

Yes, Gary Oddie passed away quite recently. 

@seuk is Peter Poulsen. Most of his website text has been archived, but unfortunately none of the images:

web.archive.org/web/20150825194438/http://www.steppeulvene.com/index.george_iii.html

I hope he's alright.

[Ukstu]

Sad news about Gary. I never met him but heard lots of good things about him. He was born in the town i reside in.

I just dug my shilling out as this post had sparked my interest. Never even noticed it before but it's got a clear overdate. 1817 over 1820. That's something i have never seen in a counterfeit coin before. 

 

[Ukstu]

I assume there must be a known genuine die of this overdate? Must be cast surely.  

Then again that makes no sense. Why overdate it with an older date. Very odd.

I wonder if the word got out that 1820 shillings where being counterfeited thus giving extra scrutiny to coins with that date so the forger altered the date to take some of the scrutiny away 🤔

Edited 57 minutes ago by Ukstu
Added too.