Post mint or sunken cheeck 1920 penny

[josie]

The check is sunken is this post damaged or it is just worn,

I have other coin same date 1920 and worn but I think its not sunken.

[scottishmoney]

The GV pennies were notorious for shallow relief, most notably on the reverse where you will notice a halo around Britannia which is from the obverse stamping on the coin. For this reason the Royal Mint changed GV's head size on the coin, but it only bandaged the issue. The first coins I have noticed the halo is not present on are the 1936's, which of course were struck in huge quantities.

Despite the striking challenges above, I believe this piece likely exhibits post mint damage.

[josie]

Thanks scott for another info .

It must be the metal use in those series and the die.

[Red Riley]

The GV pennies were notorious for shallow relief, most notably on the reverse where you will notice a halo around Britannia which is from the obverse stamping on the coin. For this reason the Royal Mint changed GV's head size on the coin, but it only bandaged the issue. The first coins I have noticed the halo is not present on are the 1936's, which of course were struck in huge quantities.

In my experience, the problem was mostly solved by 1921 and with the exception of the 12Hs didn't seem to start until 1914. Nonetheless, the change to the modified effigy took place in 1926 with the small head follwing in 1928, presumably to cut down on the amount of care involved in avoiding the ghosting. In all honesty, I have yet to see a small head penny with any significant ghosting, some coins of George VI actually being rather worse in this regard.

What is also noticeable is that the coins from 1914 to 1920 are sometimes very indistinct on both sides with 1920 being quite the worst year. I suppose it's possible that the loss of experienced staff during the first world war contibuted in no small measure to the decline in quality of the coinage, but in all honesty I can think of no modern British series that has been issued with such a low quality of workmanship as the George V penny.