More Pennies

[martinross44]

1863 Penny. Tell me I'm not seeing things....

[Coys55]

3 hours ago, martinross44 said:

1863 Penny. Tell me I'm not seeing things....

I'm not entirely sure what you are seeing, but it's not an H if that's what think it is. Or the face of Jesus either.

[Citizen H]

errrrmmmmmm? found this'un and in the spirit of thing with the penny interest (although I'm not 🤷‍♂️) I thought id show you all... its not my interest but may float someone's boat...

not sure if its a wonky 6 or misshaped 2 ???? or whatever I'm supposed to be looking out for?!?!??!

Victorian Penny 1862 👍

 

[martinross44]

12 minutes ago, Coys55 said:

I'm not entirely sure what you are seeing, but it's not an H if that's what think it is. Or the face of Jesus either.

Die number 5

[Coys55]

12 minutes ago, martinross44 said:

Die number 5

Ah, sorry. I don't think it's a 5 either TBH.

[martinross44]

Just now, Coys55 said:

Ah, sorry. I don't think it's a 5 either TBH.

It is much clearer on the original photograph, however I had to reduce it to very low res to get it passed the 500kb max image size!

[Martinminerva]

4 hours ago, martinross44 said:

Tell me I'm not seeing things....

You're seeing things. Another classic case of pareidolia, methinks.

On a genuine die 5, the die number is much larger than your "blob" and also slightly to the right of a border tooth. Your anomaly is to the left... See below:

 

 

Edited yesterday at 01:22 PM by Martinminerva
Extra pictures added

[martinross44]

4 minutes ago, Martinminerva said:

You're seeing things. Another classic case of pareidolia, methinks.

On a genuine die 5, the die number is much larger than your "blob" and also slightly to the right of a border tooth. Your anomaly is to the left... See below:

 

 

Appreciate your thoughts and feedback

[Coys55]

1 hour ago, martinross44 said:

It is much clearer on the original photograph, however I had to reduce it to very low res to get it passed the 500kb max image size!

Can you crop the original photo to the area of interest and then compress the smaller area to 500kb if necessary?

The freeware irfanview will do the job very well. 

[martinross44]

53 minutes ago, Coys55 said:

Can you crop the original photo to the area of interest and then compress the smaller area to 500kb if necessary?

The freeware irfanview will do the job very well. 

This is a cropped image already, taken from a digital microscope and compressed via tinyfy. Which apparently makes it look like I took the photo with a potato. 

[Coinery]

It really is a shame not to see clearer images, it does look 5-like. I do draw caution however from the fact that I can just as easily see an inverted A below the 8. 
Crystal images are an absolute must in these cases.

[secret santa]

Exciting news !

Terry Eagleton has just pointed out to me that a 1926 penny was sold at London Coin auction in 2025 described as a F195 Modified Effigy but is, in fact, only the second ever "recorded" instance of the rare Gouby D+d Mule, i.e a coin with the Modified Effigy obverse but the true 1927 reverse. Obviously it was not recorded by LCA, but it is indeed the second known example. The first example was discovered by Michael Freeman and bought by me.

If anyone on the Forum bought this coin. I would love to know more.

Auction 190, lot 2174.

[Martinminerva]

Hi Richard.

I saw it at the time and was considering putting a bid in but concluded it was a doctored specimen: the 6 on the LCA specimen is surrounded by lighter coloured metal consistent with it having been transplanted from another coin onto an original 1927 coin. 

Quite apart from that, it would have to be a different die too as on your ex-Freeman one, the 6 is over a gap between teeth and rotated slightly clockwise, whereas on the LCA one, the 6 is bolt upright and over a tooth. I can't believe two trial dies were produced striking one coin each! 

Happy to be proved wrong if anyone here did buy it and microscopy eliminates my suspicions...

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Martinminerva

[terrysoldpennies]

Fu

55 minutes ago, Martinminerva said:

Hi Richard.

I saw it at the time and was considering putting a bid in but concluded it was a doctored specimen: the 6 on the LCA specimen is surrounded by lighter coloured metal consistent with it having been transplanted from another coin onto an original 1927 coin. 

Quite apart from that, it would have to be a different die too as on your ex-Freeman one, the 6 is over a gap between teeth and rotated slightly clockwise, whereas on the LCA one, the 6 is bolt upright and over a tooth. I can't believe two trial dies were produced striking one coin each! 

Happy to be proved wrong if anyone here did buy it and microscopy eliminates my suspicions...

 

Funnily Enough I sent a message to Richard at exactly the same time as you posted here Martin saying exactly the same thing,  but that because both ME coins have the small Britanniar neither coin could have been modified post Mint as this obverse and reverse had never been present together on any other year penny  , So therefore both must be Experimental dies from the Mint

[Martinminerva]

I see what you mean, Terry. How curious... Would they really have made two dies for this experiment??

Just to add another spanner in things, here's a picture of a normal (albeit missing waves) 1931 reverse (from Richard's site) which also seems to have the smaller Britannia, longer teeth, thinner thumb, bigger gap from trident to teeth etc such as Richard has identified for these trial pieces.  Are there actually BOTH subtly different Gouby reverse d's known for all dates 1927 to 1936, perhaps as a result of hubbing variations, and so this could after all be a doctored 1927 piece???? Or is it just for 1931?  I'm going to have to trawl through all my GV pennies later!!

If anyone on the forum did buy it, PLEASE have a good look at it through a microscope!

[secret santa]

1 hour ago, Martinminerva said:

I can't believe two trial dies were produced striking one coin each! 

I can believe that more than one trial die was produced while they were considering the final design of the 1927 reverse and it's possible that several coins were struck from the new dies with strict instructions that they never leave the Mint - but they did !

[terrysoldpennies]

23 minutes ago, secret santa said:

I can believe that more than one trial die was produced while they were considering the final design of the 1927 reverse and it's possible that several coins were struck from the new dies with strict instructions that they never leave the Mint - but they did !

It might have been that two or more Working dies were struck with just the 192  with the last digit 6 being stamped on separately before use .

[terrysoldpennies]

37 minutes ago, Martinminerva said:

Just to add another spanner in things, here's a picture of a normal (albeit missing waves) 1931 reverse (from Richard's site) which also seems to have the smaller Britannia, longer teeth, thinner thumb, bigger gap from trident to teeth etc such as Richard has identified for these trial pieces.  Are there actually BOTH subtly different Gouby reverse d's known for all dates 1927 to 1936, perhaps as a result of hubbing variations, and so this could after all be a doctored 1927 piece???? Or is it just for 1931?

Minor modifications were probably quite often made, and I guess we will never know all of them.

Many years ago I looked into minor changes made to the 1958 Halfpenny with different teeth lengths and rim widths. All were done on a scanner so as to have exactly the same proportions with no distorted pictures, and the result was four types.   Even the ship size varies as shown with two differing coins spliced together. below