More Pennies

[oldcopper]

On ‎9‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 11:29 PM, Peckris 2 said:

When I went through bank bags in the late 60s (ok, not a scientific survey! but nevertheless...) I found :

1912H - too many  to list

1919H - probably around 10

1918KN - 2

1919KN, 1918H - none

Draw your own conclusions.

I think Coincraft's catalogue mention mintage figures for 1918/19 H/KN's but I haven't got it to hand. From memory the rarest is as expected the 1919KN and it may be more19H's than 18H's were minted. I don't know where Coincraft (if it were them) got the figures from as I haven't seen them anywhere else.

[mrbadexample]

4 hours ago, PWA 1967 said:

Not much happening on here lately 🙂

Another recent upgrade that probably most people dont want or look for although i think they are scarce due to only being another dot / flaw and looking at a lot of 1922 pennies to try and find them.

The only one i have seen that sold at auction was in the Workman sale.

1922 DOT and again like the 1909 DOT in the updated Freeman.

That’s a nice one Pete, can you post the obverse please? 🙂

[PWA 1967]

14 minutes ago, mrbadexample said:

That’s a nice one Pete, can you post the obverse please? 🙂

I dont have it to hand Jon and didnt take a picture of the OBV but has the die crack the same as the others i have seen 👍

This is the other i have and shows the die crack 🙂

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by PWA 1967

[1949threepence]

11 hours ago, PWA 1967 said:

Not much happening on here lately 🙂

Another recent upgrade that probably most people dont want or look for although i think they are scarce due to only being another dot / flaw and looking at a lot of 1922 pennies to try and find them.

The only one i have seen that sold at auction was in the Workman sale.

1922 DOT and again like the 1909 DOT in the updated Freeman.

 

Quite apart from the trident dot, Pete, that coin has a superb reverse strike. 

[oldcopper]

9 hours ago, oldcopper said:

I think Coincraft's catalogue mention mintage figures for 1918/19 H/KN's but I haven't got it to hand. From memory the rarest is as expected the 1919KN and it may be more19H's than 18H's were minted. I don't know where Coincraft (if it were them) got the figures from as I haven't seen them anywhere else.

Quoting myself, first sign of madness.

I've looked at Coincraft now and they combine the H and KN mintage figures:

1918 Royal Mint - 84 million

1918 H+KN - 3,660,800

1919 Royal Mint - nearly 114 million

1919 H+KN - 5,209,600.

So 1918 provincial issues should be rarer than 1919; which if 19KN was lower mintage that 18KN, means 19H much higher mintage than 18H, which backs up the findings.

I'm surprised the RM went to all the trouble of contracting out when the extra output only added up to a few percent.

[Peckris 2]

1 hour ago, oldcopper said:

Quoting myself, first sign of madness.

I've looked at Coincraft now and they combine the H and KN mintage figures:

1918 Royal Mint - 84 million

1918 H+KN - 3,660,800

1919 Royal Mint - nearly 114 million

1919 H+KN - 5,209,600.

So 1918 provincial issues should be rarer than 1919; which if 19KN was lower mintage that 18KN, means 19H much higher mintage than 18H, which backs up the findings.

I'm surprised the RM went to all the trouble of contracting out when the extra output only added up to a few percent.

Yes. I've always thought the 18H and KN weren't much different in terms of rarity. Which makes the 19H very much more common given the comparative rarity of the 19KN and greater mintage overall. That's backed up by my own experience from the late 60s.

[Rob]

4 hours ago, oldcopper said:

Quoting myself, first sign of madness.

I've looked at Coincraft now and they combine the H and KN mintage figures:

1918 Royal Mint - 84 million

1918 H+KN - 3,660,800

1919 Royal Mint - nearly 114 million

1919 H+KN - 5,209,600.

So 1918 provincial issues should be rarer than 1919; which if 19KN was lower mintage that 18KN, means 19H much higher mintage than 18H, which backs up the findings.

I'm surprised the RM went to all the trouble of contracting out when the extra output only added up to a few percent.

End of the war and surplus capacity? Presumably Heaton and KN diverted resources to war work from 1914-18. But a universal shortage of labour as men were either conscripted or volunteered might also be a reason. Did both Birmingham mints have presses that had been temporarily sitting idle, but could be used while the RM equipment was repaired, given the large output and reduced servicing during the war years. Did H & KN strike coins incognito during the war years using RM dies? I don't know the answers, but if anyone can shed light on the wartime operations at the various locations it would help.

[1949threepence]

On 9/22/2019 at 11:29 PM, Peckris 2 said:

When I went through bank bags in the late 60s (ok, not a scientific survey! but nevertheless...) I found :

1912H - too many  to list

1919H - probably around 10

1918KN - 2

1919KN, 1918H - none

Draw your own conclusions.

Did you ever get a 1953 in your change or a bank bag, Chris? I seem to remember once reading that there were a few knocking about in circulation at that time, and whilst very scarce, were not impossibly difficult to locate if you looked hard enough. That's why I was quite surprised that in the survey of 117,000 I mentioned, only one 1953 turned up.

[secret santa]

In 1968 between university and starting work I used to go through £5 bags and found one 1950 and a couple of 1953s.

[PWA 1967]

All the 1953 pennies were struck for the sealed plastic set that you still see thousands for sale now.In the 1960s the ones taken out would of been very few due to plenty tatty ones from all the previous years being used instead due to little value. 

[Peckris 2]

1 hour ago, 1949threepence said:

Did you ever get a 1953 in your change or a bank bag, Chris? I seem to remember once reading that there were a few knocking about in circulation at that time, and whilst very scarce, were not impossibly difficult to locate if you looked hard enough. That's why I was quite surprised that in the survey of 117,000 I mentioned, only one 1953 turned up.

Yes - one 1953, in VF. I didn't find a single 50 or 51, but I have the feeling they were special cases, being imported back from the West Indies. I also found two 1926ME's, but I put that down to two things: 1) the first was change from a bus conductor in early 68 before the craze had hit full swing 2) they were harder to spot (especially for novices!) compared to the other 1926, where the 19KN was easy peasy.

I agree that finding a 53 would be difficult, as any in circulation would have had to be 'liberated' from the plastic set, which was the only form they were issued in. None were struck for currency.

[1949threepence]

1 hour ago, secret santa said:

In 1968 between university and starting work I used to go through £5 bags and found one 1950 and a couple of 1953s.

 

2 minutes ago, Peckris 2 said:

Yes - one 1953, in VF. I didn't find a single 50 or 51, but I have the feeling they were special cases, being imported back from the West Indies. I also found two 1926ME's, but I put that down to two things: 1) the first was change from a bus conductor in early 68 before the craze had hit full swing 2) they were harder to spot (especially for novices!) compared to the other 1926, where the 19KN was easy peasy.

I agree that finding a 53 would be difficult, as any in circulation would have had to be 'liberated' from the plastic set, which was the only form they were issued in. None were struck for currency.

But presumably the one's you did find were from far less than £487.50's worth, which is what that stack of 117,000 pennies amounted to? 

[1949threepence]

37 minutes ago, PWA 1967 said:

All the 1953 pennies were struck for the sealed plastic set that you still see thousands for sale now.In the 1960s the ones taken out would of been very few due to plenty tatty ones from all the previous years being used instead due to little value. 

I'd bet the cases were routinely broken open to spend the lot, scarce penny included. Would have been to big a temptation to resist, especially for kids, or if you were a bit hard up.

[PWA 1967]

16 minutes ago, 1949threepence said:

I'd bet the cases were routinely broken open to spend the lot, scarce penny included. Would have been to big a temptation to resist, especially for kids, or if you were a bit hard up.

Yes i am sure your right ,i would of ripped mine open straight away 

I didnt quote you Mike as i knew you would of known it was more for anyone else reading it who didnt.

More a percentage thing really just between 1937 - 1949 there were 622 million pennies minted ,so the ones ripped out would of soon got lost.

[oldcopper]

Final update on the H/KN mintages, James Sweeny in his book "A Numismatic History of Birmingham Mint" gives the calculated mintages of each Heaton year (which he says are "based on RM and Heaton's records, and are deemed acurate by the RM"):

1918H - 2,572,800 which gives 1918KN - 1,088,000

1919H - 4,526,034 which gives 1919KN - 683,566

by subtraction from the Coincraft combined totals.

[1949threepence]

41 minutes ago, oldcopper said:

Final update on the H/KN mintages, James Sweeny in his book "A Numismatic History of Birmingham Mint" gives the calculated mintages of each Heaton year (which he says are "based on RM and Heaton's records, and are deemed acurate by the RM"):

1918H - 2,572,800 which gives 1918KN - 1,088,000

1919H - 4,526,034 which gives 1919KN - 683,566

by subtraction from the Coincraft combined totals.

That makes very plausible sense.

[Peckris 2]

11 hours ago, 1949threepence said:

But presumably the one's you did find were from far less than £487.50's worth, which is what that stack of 117,000 pennies amounted to? 

Blimey, yes! I went through a hell of a lot of 5/- bags of pennies, but probably still short of £100 worth.

 

11 hours ago, 1949threepence said:

I'd bet the cases were routinely broken open to spend the lot, scarce penny included. Would have been to big a temptation to resist, especially for kids, or if you were a bit hard up.

One flaw in that argument - the plastic sets were rated much more highly then than now. They were selling for at least a fiver in the late 60s (look at your Coin Monthlies..) which must be near £50 in today's money, but you can pick one up now for less than a tenner. Mind you, for a kid with little pocket money perhaps it was a different story.

 

8 hours ago, oldcopper said:

Final update on the H/KN mintages, James Sweeny in his book "A Numismatic History of Birmingham Mint" gives the calculated mintages of each Heaton year (which he says are "based on RM and Heaton's records, and are deemed acurate by the RM"):

1918H - 2,572,800 which gives 1918KN - 1,088,000

1919H - 4,526,034 which gives 1919KN - 683,566

by subtraction from the Coincraft combined totals.

That's interesting. That makes the 19KN less than half as scarce as the 18KN, and I've always thought it much more scarce when you look at the numbers available for sale, and the numbers found. Mind you, the catalogues never had a 19KN so much more valuable, except perhaps in UNC.

[1949threepence]

What do you reckon, obverse 8 or 9?

 

[jelida]

18 minutes ago, 1949threepence said:

What do you reckon, obverse 8 or 9?

 

I would say obverse 9, the second photo of his ad is a little clearer and looks like double incuse lines to the leaf veins, the single raised line veins tend to look narrower in photos.

Jerry

[mrbadexample]

I was going to say 8. I haven’t seen the other photo, but the nostril looks shallow and the legend not as thick as obverse 9, to me. 🙂

[1949threepence]

17 minutes ago, jelida said:

I would say obverse 9, the second photo of his ad is a little clearer and looks like double incuse lines to the leaf veins, the single raised line veins tend to look narrower in photos.

Jerry

 

8 minutes ago, mrbadexample said:

I was going to say 8. I haven’t seen the other photo, but the nostril looks shallow and the legend not as thick as obverse 9, to me. 🙂

Thanks chaps. I was poring over it off and on for several hours and switching between the two. Unfortunately there's no blow up facility with this one, so you can't get to see it really close up.  I thought the same as you, Jon, but not sure. 

To be fair, it's a nice coin eitherway. Great toning.  

[shane carew]

Obv 9 by looking at the nostril alone. The lines need the coin to hand to be sure of.

[mrbadexample]

2 hours ago, 1949threepence said:

 

Thanks chaps. I was poring over it off and on for several hours and switching between the two. Unfortunately there's no blow up facility with this one, so you can't get to see it really close up.  I thought the same as you, Jon, but not sure. 

To be fair, it's a nice coin eitherway. Great toning.  

Might be worth asking the seller for better pictures Mike?

[secret santa]

I think I'd plump for obv 9 too - the letters look thick enough.

[shane carew]

There are better pictures of the coin on the original ebay listing 223650940409