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 January 19 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 January 19 by Ukstu
Added too.

[Ukstu]

Someone has took a genuine 1820 coin and altered it to 1817 then cast it i assume. 

Anyway....I found the paper's that Gary Oddie wrote if anyone is interested. They are all on the link here...https://britnumsoc.blog/2021/10/09/counterfeit-shillings-of-george-iii-1816-1820-iv-a-contemporary-mould-revisited-gary-oddie/

[Ukstu]

The plot thickens. Another overdate spotted in the wild. Ebay. 

1820 over 1819. 

Any sign of Seuk ? Love to know his take on these overdate forgeries it's strange yet fascinating. 

[Unwilling Numismatist]

Even thicker, I have an 1819 in this box too! 

[Unwilling Numismatist]

[Ukstu]

6 hours ago, Unwilling Numismatist said:

Even thicker, I have an 1819 in this box too! 

That's been to hell & back 😆

I think it's probably a cast piece rather than a forged die. The legends are neat.

Edited Wednesday at 04:50 PM by Ukstu

[Unwilling Numismatist]

4 minutes ago, Ukstu said:

That's been to hell & back 😆

 

Most of the stuff I buy seems to look like that  

[Rob]

On 1/19/2026 at 2:07 PM, Ukstu said:

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 🤔

The one consideration you have missed is the possibility that the overdate (or letter) was not punched deep enough into the die to pass the lowest point of the previous digit. Using the same reasoning, consider the 1817 GEOE/R shilling. I refuse to believe the engraver thought 'Here'a correct legend, I'll just create an error by 'correcting' the R with an E so that some nerds 200 years from now find something to get excited about'. Clearly the E would have been put in first, but the correction wasn't sunk deep enough. Easy to do if you are looking at the lowest point in the field as a reference point rather than the bottom of a very small deep pit.

[seuk]

Hi Guys! 

I'm still around but haven't had much time for coin study lately. 
Gary was about to start a new cancer treatment which unfortunately proved to be in vain. As he knew he might not be recovering, he offered me to buy his collection of counterfeit George IIIs shillings at a very fair price. So I jumped on a plane and spend a pleasant evening with him where we wrapped the coins in rolls with paper and looked at some of his vast collection. Next morning the very day he would start the new treatment, I returned to Denmark - and never heard from him again.

I haven't yet had a chance to look at the coins, of which there are apparently over a thousand. Instead, I've been working with my own collection in the hope of being able to refine the group divisions and perhaps arrive at a more correct classification for the whole series. Only when that's finished, I will start classifying Gary's coins.

[Coinery]

Poor Gary, but absolutely fantastic that you’re still around and working with the counterfeit coinage. Nice to hear from you.

[Ukstu]

That's sad. I lost my mum to a brain tumour in 2021. By the time she was diagnosed it was stage 4. Three months she lived from diagnosis to passing away. Affected us all deeply.

Thank you for replying. I look forward to seeing your future research when you are publishing your findings.

Stu.