? small 9 1899 Penny

[Coinery]

Apologies, but I can't for the life of me find the original thread with Declan's 1899 pennies in it, so here's a new one!

I wanted to re-read the original to make sense of what I was trying to achieve by overlapping the two images with transparency?

The below image is the two pictures overlapped with transparency, not that clear unfortunately as one of the images is, as Declan himself declared, pants. However, I think it shows the last nine to be a different size. It is probably much simpler, and much easier to see this in the bottom image (if this was the only point of the exercise???).

I'm wondering whether in the narrow date coin, with what appears to be a full-sized last 9, the bottom tooth had been damaged by the 9 (others will know, of course) and that subsiquently they shaved a little off the bottom of the 9 for future dies? Just a thought, as the other components of it look identical, excepting the length of the tail?

I wish I could remember what I was trying to achieve!

[declanwmagee]

Nice work, Stuart!

The question is, if, as we have always assumed, the wide date isn't deliberate, and therefore doesn't qualify as a design change, what were they doing changing the 9 to make the wide date possible?

[Coinery]

Nice work, Stuart!

The question is, if, as we have always assumed, the wide date isn't deliberate, and therefore doesn't qualify as a design change, what were they doing changing the 9 to make the wide date possible?

I don't think it was to make the wide date possible. I'm wondering whether they quickly made the 9 smaller because it was too much of a jam to get the full-size 9 in, due to the curvature. I wonder if maybe a bead or two got damaged on a couple of dies, leading to the decision to shorten the 9, making the wide-dates a possibility? I don't think the wide-dates would've been possible with the full-size 9.

I overlapped the first and second 9 of your close-date and they were identical, so full-size 9's were definitely used.

All speculation from me, I'm no expert in these things, just always find them interesting!

[Accumulator]

Nice work, Stuart!

The question is, if, as we have always assumed, the wide date isn't deliberate, and therefore doesn't qualify as a design change, what were they doing changing the 9 to make the wide date possible?

I don't think it was to make the wide date possible. I'm wondering whether they quickly made the 9 smaller because it was too much of a jam to get the full-size 9 in, due to the curvature. I wonder if maybe a bead or two got damaged on a couple of dies, leading to the decision to shorten the 9, making the wide-dates a possibility? I don't think the wide-dates would've been possible with the full-size 9.

I overlapped the first and second 9 of your close-date and they were identical, so full-size 9's were definitely used.

All speculation from me, I'm no expert in these things, just always find them interesting!

The thread was here. Actually it started out as a discussion on the 1900 penny!

These were my close and wide date 1899's:

[Accumulator]

As far as I could tell, both wide and narrow date varieties had a shorter 2nd '9':

[Peckris]

As far as I could tell, both wide and narrow date varieties had a shorter 2nd '9':

Yes - inevitable really, when the date uses the entire height of an exergue that, like all exergues, is |) shaped.

[Coinery]

Thanks Accumulator, that's cleared that up! I think the last 9 on Declan's close-date is larger than the other last digit 9's shown, I'll go back to the images and chop and overlay...see what comes out.

[declanwmagee]

Right....so they changed the last 9 regardless of spacing - that makes more sense - and the fact that the last 9 was a different size is what made the wide date possible - not deliberate, but possible. Therefore not a design change - a variation, rather than a variety.

Phew. As you were, gentlemen...