Peckris 2 Posted 3 hours ago Posted 3 hours ago On 12/6/2025 at 7:17 AM, SilverAge3 said: I found online two different 1920 pennies which suffer some major loss of detail in Britannia's face, breast, forward knee, they appear to be crumbling apart. The spear hand is very clear and defined, but just outside of the effigy. Both these pennies are mint state, and otherwise show nice detail. Yes - 1920 was the last year they only used the deep cut obverse portrait, which 'sucked' metal away from Britannia, and caused a 'ghost' of the portrait outline which you can see clearly in the top example; it's more common to see between 1911 and 1920 than fully struck up reverses. In 1921 about half the pennies use a shallower portrait which partly alleviated the problem, but it wasn't until the Modified Effigy from 1926 that they reduced the effect to small enough not to worry about. Quote
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