was al 1831 sixpences minted in medal style

[chris]

i am a new collector of sixpences and noticed that my 1831 had been minted in medal alignment. is this the same for all sixpences minus pre 1787 as the rest of the dates i have are minted in coin alignment

thanks

[Rob]

i am a new collector of sixpences and noticed that my 1831 had been minted in medal alignment. is this the same for all sixpences minus pre 1787 as the rest of the dates i have are minted in coin alignment

thanks

All the William IV sixpences I have seen have had an inverted die axis and there is no mention of this in either ESC or Davies, so this is clearly irregular. First of all, is it genuine? There are quite a number of Geo.III forgeries about, but I haven't seen any William IV. Post a decent picture to establish whether it is genuine and we can take it from there.

[chris]

i am a new collector of sixpences and noticed that my 1831 had been minted in medal alignment. is this the same for all sixpences minus pre 1787 as the rest of the dates i have are minted in coin alignment

thanks

All the William IV sixpences I have seen have had an inverted die axis and there is no mention of this in either ESC or Davies, so this is clearly irregular. First of all, is it genuine? There are quite a number of Geo.III forgeries about, but I haven't seen any William IV. Post a decent picture to establish whether it is genuine and we can take it from there.

here is a scan of the coin

they arnt the best scans i could get but i had to downsize them which has made is low quality

[chris]

all my post 1787 sixpences are all the same way up minus this 1831 which is the opposite way up from the other minted coins

[Rob]

And the reverse?

[chris]

And the reverse?

her ya go

obviously ive had to turn the coin so its the right way up

[Rob]

And the reverse?

her ya go

obviously ive had to turn the coin so its the right way up

I think we may be talking with our wires crossed here. When you say you had to turn the coin, do you mean the date is behind the top of the head, or is it behind the cut-off line on the neck?

Edited July 3, 2009 by Rob

[chris]

And the reverse?

her ya go

obviously ive had to turn the coin so its the right way up

I think we may be talking with our wires crossed here. When you say you had to turn the coin, do you mean the date is behind the top of the head, or is it behind the cut-off line on the neck?

the date is behind the top of his head

im guessing this is normal.lol

[Rob]

And the reverse?

her ya go

obviously ive had to turn the coin so its the right way up

I think we may be talking with our wires crossed here. When you say you had to turn the coin, do you mean the date is behind the top of the head, or is it behind the cut-off line on the neck?

the date is behind the top of his head

im guessing this is normal.lol

That's normal. Until the Jubilee Head sixpences of 1887, almost all machine made coins were struck with an inverted die axis. There were a few exceptions to the rule such as the 1787 issues and some inadvertent errors. This inverted die axis is known as en-coin. The term en-medaille you mentioned at the start of this thread refers to coins where the two sides are the same way up. i.e. if you turn over a coin on the vertical axis from left to right it will still be the same way up. An inverted or en-coin die axis will be correct if you turn it over on the horizontal axis i.e. from top to bottom.

I had assumed that the phrase "and noticed that my 1831 had been minted in medal alignment. is this the same for all sixpences minus pre 1787" was an accurate description of what you wanted to say. As all pre 1787 sixpences have an inverted die axis, by logical extension you were talking about a normal die axis otherwise known as in medal alignment.