1700 farthing, help needed.

[Teg]

Hi,

I recently acquired another William III 1700 farthing (variety no. 12), and am trying to work out if it is important or not. As usual with William III farthings a rough coin!

Next post a normal 1700

Teg

This is about as normal as basic 1700 Peck 667 gets:-

Not a specimen but OK.

Next post the differences!

[Teg]

Hmm,

I made separate posts because of the limit on attachment size - but they seem to have joined!?

Any way onward.

There are two interesting features on my new coin.

1) The type of letter L in GVLIELMVS on the obverse is from 1699, very rare to see it on 1700.

2) More importantly the date - and this is where I need help.

It looks like a 1 as a J date - ie with a top left serif. This is the type of date on Anne and later farthings.

From what I can see this change happened in the silver coinage from 1701.

Again from what I can see 1701 1/2ds do not have a new 1 shape.

So is this a real J for 1 variety? I would be happier to claim it if I could say that the 17 was from a sixpence die, but I can't.

[Rob]

Hmm,

I made separate posts because of the limit on attachment size - but they seem to have joined!?

Any way onward.

There are two interesting features on my new coin.

1) The type of letter L in GVLIELMVS on the obverse is from 1699, very rare to see it on 1700.

2) More importantly the date - and this is where I need help.

It looks like a 1 as a J date - ie with a top left serif. This is the type of date on Anne and later farthings.

From what I can see this change happened in the silver coinage from 1701.

Again from what I can see 1701 1/2ds do not have a new 1 shape.

So is this a real J for 1 variety? I would be happier to claim it if I could say that the 17 was from a sixpence die, but I can't.

I don't know about farthings, but there are a range of 1 types on halfpennies. A J, Roman I with wide and narrow serifs, top right, bottom left serifs both upright and slanting right, farthing size and bifurcated tops plus probably a few I haven't seen. You name it, there's probably one out there. Regards letter shapes, in the case of halfpennies just about every letter is overstruck somewhere and most letters with angular features are used to recut the legend. I suspect it is probably the same for farthings. A lot of letters were corrected using two part cuts e.g. a vertical in the form of an I plus a short cut for the horizontal features. Don't know if it helps, but should muddy the waters a bit.