Sovereign Errors, Overdates and Varieties

[GoldDiggerDave]

10 hours ago, GodsMoney said:

I've seen this legend mentioned, what's that referring to please when it says first and second legend. Also as @Allgoldcoins mentioned above DISH.S2 I'm guessing this is another referencing system for coins?

DISH reference book/s

David 

Iverson

Steve

Hill 

S = Sydney 

2 is the type for the year, not just the legend type 

1st and 2nd Legend is the rotation and position of : 

1st legend : is further away from the queens head 

2nd legend : is closer to the queens head 

there are numerous types some not referenced even by the great DISH 

there’s all sorts of classification, the hooked and the angled J as mentioned above ,  can have JEB with or without the stops, ascending J’s, lower J’s arched etc etc.  

 

 

Edited July 24 by GoldDiggerDave

[Orpster]

11 hours ago, Allgoldcoins said:

Nice close ups, you don't happen to have a hi-res image of the whole coin I could use? I want to have a close look at the legend.

  

[Booky586]

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help identify this fault/flaw on the edge of a 1931 Perth mint sovereign?

[paulmerton]

7 minutes ago, Booky586 said:

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help identify this fault/flaw on the edge of a 1931 Perth mint sovereign?

Either a die crack or possibly a retained cud. I'd suspect the latter, but it's hard to be sure from just a straight-on photo.

A retained cud is where the broken-off part of the die is still held together with the rest of the die by whatever holds the die in place, but as it's separated it will naturally end up being higher than the rest of the die's face when the coin is struck. So like an ordinary cud error, some of the metal from the blank flows up into the void, but because the broken part of the die is not missing, you still see the design imparted onto it.

[Booky586]

31 minutes ago, paulmerton said:

Either a die crack or possibly a retained cud. I'd suspect the latter, but it's hard to be sure from just a straight-on photo.

A retained cud is where the broken-off part of the die is still held together with the rest of the die by whatever holds the die in place, but as it's separated it will naturally end up being higher than the rest of the die's face when the coin is struck. So like an ordinary cud error, some of the metal from the blank flows up into the void, but because the broken part of the die is not missing, you still see the design imparted onto it.

Thanks @paulmerton.

The small detached section is slightly raised compared to the rest of the coin surface so the "retained cud" description fits very well.

[Foster88]

@Booky586 you probably already know this but a lot of the George V Australian sovereign dies were used to mint many more coins than their London counterparts. So things like this aren’t surprising to see.

[paulmerton]

8 minutes ago, Booky586 said:

Thanks @paulmerton.

The small detached section is slightly raised compared to the rest of the coin surface so the "retained cud" description fits very well.

Different coin here, but same concept.

https://youtu.be/WrOEDYT7O9U

[Allgoldcoins]

4 hours ago, Booky586 said:

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help identify this fault/flaw on the edge of a 1931 Perth mint sovereign?

This coin looks to me to be a copy / restrike of a 31P, there is a lot wrong with the reverse striking which suggests it was not struck from an original die?

[Booky586]

28 minutes ago, Allgoldcoins said:

This coin looks to me to be a copy / restrike of a 31P, there is a lot wrong with the reverse striking which suggests it was not struck from an original die?

That's worrying.

I always assumed I was looking at a very weak strike and haven't looked deeper. Can you share your concerns?

[Allgoldcoins]

18 minutes ago, Booky586 said:

That's worrying.

I always assumed I was looking at a very weak strike and haven't looked deeper. Can you share your concerns?

Always difficult from just one photo, but I have never seen a genuine sovereign which exhibits such weak strike characteristics which didn't turn out to originate from some form of mould taken from a genuine coin. The neck area is missing, as is the area directly behind georges arm, the tail is also concering, and definition to high points on george such as chest and leg isn't there. We do have a very well struck ground line with the P nice and clear, I would normally expect the mintmark to suffer first on a weak strike.

I wouldn't mind seeing some more photos.

[Spyder]

For comparison, here is mine, also has pretty weak strike behind the arm ,cloak area

[ZRPMs]

Please excuse my poor picture's. They were taken free hand in poor lighting but a couple of pic's of my 1931 P

Edited October 3 by ZRPMs

[Allgoldcoins]

26 minutes ago, Spyder said:

For comparison, here is mine, also has pretty weak strike behind the arm ,cloak area

Yours is very similar, and having looked around tonight, there are others that exhibit similar characteristics, but there looks to be more going on here than just a weak strike. Its certainly very interesting to see how sovereigns as bad as these could see the light of day.

[Foster88]

@Booky586 @Allgoldcoins

If it helps:

 

 

[Foster88]

34 minutes ago, ZRPMs said:

Please excuse my poor picture's. They were taken free hand in poor lighting but a couple of pic's of my 1931 P

The reverse of yours seems to be less of a weak strike compared to @Booky586 and @Spyder’s 1931 P.

[GoldDiggerDave]

14 hours ago, Booky586 said:

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help identify this fault/flaw on the edge of a 1931 Perth mint sovereign?

The weak strike for Perth sovereigns at this time looks correct, they had to reduce the sticking pressure to get more coins minted per die set. 

`the obverse is showing a large amount of die break within the legend, the imperfection on the reverse rim could very easily just be the die breaking down.  

[ZRPMs]

6 hours ago, Foster88 said:

7 hours ago, ZRPMs said:

Please excuse my poor picture's. They were taken free hand in poor lighting but a couple of pic's of my 1931 P

Expand  

The reverse of yours seems to be less of a weak strike compared to @Booky586 and @Spyder’s 1931 P.

Not sure why, must be something to do with the lighting, but it looks better struck in the pictures than in the hand. It is however a stronger strike than @Booky586's and @Spyder's but in comparison to other years isn't as good. There's no reference to weak strikes in The Gold Sovereign series book as revised by Steve Hill. The 1931 P is a scarce one and the mintage is only 1,173,568. It is lowest mintage of the George V and the last year the Perth mint produced sovereigns. It may just be that rather than get new die's made, they could just have limped through the last year with poorer die's at a slightly lower pressure. Not sure.

[ZRPMs]

3 minutes ago, GoldDiggerDave said:

The weak strike for Perth sovereigns at this time looks correct, they had to reduce the sticking pressure to get more coins minted per die set. 

`the obverse is showing a large amount of die break within the legend, the imperfection on the reverse rim could very easily just be the die breaking down.  

My thoughts as well, being the last year.

[Booky586]

Thank you @Allgoldcoins @Spyder @ZRPMs @Foster88 @GoldDiggerDave for your comments and photos for comparison.

Spyders coin is a very close match to mine, if fact I think I can see the start of the same error/flaw on the edge of his coin:

PCGS have a coin on their website (graded MS65+) which looks like its come from the same die too. The 2 coins are below for comparison, all the errors/flaws and die cracks seem to align as well as the weak strike.

 

On the reverse there are die cracks through the lettering. On the obverse there is a die crack through St. Georges cloak as well as vertical lines on the obverse which looks like its raining on his horse. I thought these were scratches on the blank/planchet but it looks like its come from the die.

The coin is in storage but I'll get it measured and weighed next time and report back if there's an issue, but I'm feeling more confident about it's authenticity now I've seen other die matches.

PCGS photo source: https://www.pcgs.com/valueview/george-v-1911-1931/1931-p-sov-s-4002/5063?sn=113604&g=58&h=auctionprices

[Foster88]

4 hours ago, ZRPMs said:

Not sure why, must be something to do with the lighting, but it looks better struck in the pictures than in the hand. It is however a stronger strike than @Booky586's and @Spyder's but in comparison to other years isn't as good. There's no reference to weak strikes in The Gold Sovereign series book as revised by Steve Hill. The 1931 P is a scarce one and the mintage is only 1,173,568. It is lowest mintage of the George V and the last year the Perth mint produced sovereigns. It may just be that rather than get new die's made, they could just have limped through the last year with poorer die's at a slightly lower pressure. Not sure.

The 1931 Perth isn’t the lowest mintage of George V, ‘smaller head’ obverse sovereigns.

The 1929, 1930 and 1931 Melbourne sovereign has much lower mintages.

But you are right that the 1931 Perth is scarce to find as many of the later George V sovereigns were melted down. The mintages have very little reflection on how many actually survived.

[ZRPMs]

3 minutes ago, Foster88 said:

The 1931 Perth isn’t the lowest mintage of George V, ‘smaller head’ obverse sovereigns.

The 1929, 1930 and 1931 Melbourne sovereign has much lower mintages.

But you are right that the 1931 Perth is scarce to find as many of the later George V sovereigns were melted down. The mintages have very little reflection on how many actually survived.

Sorry for the confusion. I was only on about the Perth mint as I was just trying to make reference to why perhaps that mint might have used Die's that might have been replaced under normal circumstances. Perhaps the Perth mint should have only minted the same number as the Melbourne but for some reason they minted twice the amount from the die's they had than they should have. Not sure, only trying to fathom why the strikes are of a poorer quality.

[Foster88]

3 minutes ago, ZRPMs said:

Sorry for the confusion. I was only on about the Perth mint as I was just trying to make reference to why perhaps that mint might have used Die's that might have been replaced under normal circumstances. Perhaps the Perth mint should have only minted the same number as the Melbourne but for some reason they minted twice the amount from the die's they had than they should have. Not sure, only trying to fathom why the strikes are of a poorer quality.

I wonder if it had something to do with the dies being made in London and shipped to Australia. Both RM in London and the Australian branch Mints knew that they would be slowing down and eventually stopping so they just didn’t make any more branch mint dies.

It could be that they compromised quality over quantity.

The Australian Mints might have tried to get as many coins as possible out of an individual die, which could be why so many look like they have a weak strike. I don’t know anything about the production process back then, I’m just guessing.

I wonder if @LawrenceChard has seen many later George V Australian Sovereigns with a weak strike?

[LawrenceChard]

10 minutes ago, Foster88 said:

I wonder if it had something to do with the dies being made in London and shipped to Australia. Both RM in London and the Australian branch Mints knew that they would be slowing down and eventually stopping so they just didn’t make any more branch mint dies.

It could be that they compromised quality over quantity.

The Australian Mints might have tried to get as many coins as possible out of an individual die, which could be why so many look like they have a weak strike. I don’t know anything about the production process back then, I’m just guessing.

I wonder if @LawrenceChard has seen many later George V Australian Sovereigns with a weak strike?

Yes, very noticeable on many of them.

😎

[ZRPMs]

3 hours ago, Foster88 said:

I wonder if it had something to do with the dies being made in London and shipped to Australia. Both RM in London and the Australian branch Mints knew that they would be slowing down and eventually stopping so they just didn’t make any more branch mint dies.

It could be that they compromised quality over quantity.

The Australian Mints might have tried to get as many coins as possible out of an individual die, which could be why so many look like they have a weak strike. I don’t know anything about the production process back then, I’m just guessing.

I wonder if @LawrenceChard has seen many later George V Australian Sovereigns with a weak strike?

Exactly.

[dicker]

It’s an interesting Sovereign.

Definitely struck and with other 1931 P there are striations above the horses head that are evident, and a few other evident features. The cape however really does disappear into the coin.

I do wonder if the Perth Mint reduced pressure when minting these Sovereigns to prolong the life of the dies? Or just persisted with very worn dies.  The lack of definition reminds me of the current level of definition in modern “Copper Coloured” Sovereigns