Sovereign Errors, Overdates and Varieties

[sovereignsteve]

5 hours ago, Foster88 said:

Could anybody tell me if this is the ‘wide date’ variety of the 1862 sovereign? 

The date spacing does vary quite a bit on this year's sovereigns. As I said before the mint engravers weren't very precise with their punching from 1860 to 1863.

However I would say it is a wide date variety, compare it to this PCGS graded example, although I have seen pictures of wider dated ones.

What do you think?

Edited August 31, 2019 by sovereignsteve
usual careless spelling

[Foster88]

3 hours ago, sovereignsteve said:

The date spacing does vary quite a bit on this year's sovereigns. As I said before the mint engravers weren't very precise with their punching from 1860 to 1863.

However I would say it is a wide date variety, compare it to this PCGS graded example, although I have seen pictures of wider dated ones.

What do you think?

Thanks for replying. 

It’s the gap between the 8 and the 6 which seems wider on it and the 2 looks a bit further to the right. I’ll post a better photo once I receive it.

What one person sees another can’t so I’m none the wiser really. Do you know wether these are rarer? I’ve found a few examples sold for a bit more having a wide date.

I’d be interested to know if anyone else has one of these in their collection.

[TheGoldSovereign]

On 28/08/2019 at 10:41, Foster88 said:

Could anybody tell me, is this the ‘big zero’ in 1860 that I’ve read about on the 1860 sovereign that is sometimes seen?

If so I wonder how rare it is.

 

The large 0 in date is often sold as being "rare", it is completely false, in fact the large 0 is the more common type

 

[TheGoldSovereign]

On 31/08/2019 at 21:35, Foster88 said:

Thanks for replying. 

It’s the gap between the 8 and the 6 which seems wider on it and the 2 looks a bit further to the right. I’ll post a better photo once I receive it.

What one person sees another can’t so I’m none the wiser really. Do you know wether these are rarer? I’ve found a few examples sold for a bit more having a wide date.

I’d be interested to know if anyone else has one of these in their collection.

I would agree that yours is a wide date, wider than the example @sovereignsteve posted I think. Unfortunately I don't have images of mine  but would classify yours are wide date.

[TheGoldSovereign]

I think this is very interesting and out of 1000s of errors I've not seen an example whereby I have both the original AND the corrected die

 

Both reverses are the same die, easily shown by the D over lower D in FID:

 

Coin 1

Coin 2

 

Then the obverses, one clearly has a lower 5 in date, the second coin you can see the original 5 lower with the corrected 5 over the top

Coin 1

Coin 2

 

[Foster88]

7 minutes ago, sg86 said:

I would agree that yours is a wide date, wider than the example @sovereignsteve posted I think. Unfortunately I don't have images of mine  but would classify yours are wide date.

That’s what I thought but I’m no expert. But thanks for giving your opinion, here’s a clearer photo (1st one of the same coin which you can see clearer now I’ve received it.) 

I’ve also bought another of the same date and wonder if you could tell me if that is a wide date? Also the number 2 looks like it’s been double punched. (2nd photo). 

[TheGoldSovereign]

5 minutes ago, Foster88 said:

That’s what I thought but I’m no expert. But thanks for giving your opinion, here’s a clearer photo (1st one of the same coin which you can see clearer now I’ve received it.) 

I’ve also bought another of the same date and wonder if you could tell me if that is a wide date? Also the number 2 looks like it’s been double punched. (2nd photo). 

 

As @sovereignsteve said the consistency of these years is absolutely awful, I have tubes and tubes of 1861 and 1862 coins where there are so many errors I just can't record them all yet. The spacing of the date will be all over the place, remember how many dies will have been made to produce the calendar year mintage.

Both coins have die cracks running through the digits, I don't see any overstamps there.

[sovereignsteve]

1 hour ago, sg86 said:

I think this is very interesting and out of 1000s of errors I've not seen an example whereby I have both the original AND the corrected die

 

Both reverses are the same die, easily shown by the D over lower D in FID:

Then the obverses, one clearly has a lower 5 in date, the second coin you can see the original 5 lower with the corrected 5 over the top

A quick reply as I can't be bothered to study and compare them in detail😉 You are in a better position then me to do that.

One thing to remember, the same pair of dies will not have been used together for their entire lives. IIRC the obverse dies wore out a lot quicker then the reverses.

Also I think I can see lots of small differences between the pair of reverses you illustrate. Enough for me to believe they aren't the same.

I'm not sure you're right about the two obverses either; the "2" for instance look completely different and the "5"s a little also. The allignment with the "2" with the "WW" is wrong, as well as the rim dots.

[Cornishfarmer]

@sg86 it never ceases to amaze me how you pick up things like this with all the coins you go through.     Do you do it by eye and memory or do you have a computer program that scans then shows the obvious differences in the coins?

[TheGoldSovereign]

13 hours ago, sovereignsteve said:

A quick reply as I can't be bothered to study and compare them in detail😉 You are in a better position then me to do that.

One thing to remember, the same pair of dies will not have been used together for their entire lives. IIRC the obverse dies wore out a lot quicker then the reverses.

Also I think I can see lots of small differences between the pair of reverses you illustrate. Enough for me to believe they aren't the same.

I'm not sure you're right about the two obverses either; the "2" for instance look completely different and the "5"s a little also. The allignment with the "2" with the "WW" is wrong, as well as the rim dots.

To be honest I agree looking again, I saw the error on the reverse which is exactly the same, and then made an assumption. I'll look again and see if the reverses are actually the same, because as you say it's more likely to have the same reverse die and different obverse.

The spacing of the date on the obverse is the most obvious thing yes, just very odd that the lower 5 looks exactly the same position/angle on the second coin! Either way I found it interesting

 

[TheGoldSovereign]

12 hours ago, Cornishfarmer said:

@sg86 it never ceases to amaze me how you pick up things like this with all the coins you go through.     Do you do it by eye and memory or do you have a computer program that scans then shows the obvious differences in the coins?

Yes purely by eye, but after looking at so many it starts getting very weird. I can have a pile of say 1853 and after getting through about 20 you can remember and match previous dies, I lay them out next to each other and come back at the end to find 4 from the same die, same alignments, spacing, die cracks and other flaws etc.

I probably need to get out more 🤣

[TheGoldSovereign]

Best coin, A or B?

They both have the same error on E in DEI, unfortunate that they aren't nicer but hey ho, need to decide which to keep.

Also as a side note both these coins have the rarer letter 0 for zero type, just thought would mention as someone was posting about this the other day and the large 0 variant

 

A

 

B

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by sg86

[augur]

5 hours ago, sg86 said:

Best coin, A or B?

B

Not by a great margin but less wear and more detail.

How many coins with this extended horizontal bar in the letters have you identified by now, half a dozen?

[Xander]

I would keep Coin B. 

[sovereignsteve]

1 hour ago, Xander said:

I would keep Coin B. 

+1

not much between them, which is why you're asking for opinions, @sg86 I guess.

Overall, points win for coin B IMO

 

[CadmiumGreen]

Coin B would be the preferred of the two. Thank you.

[TheGoldSovereign]

Thanks, I'll go with B then 🙂

As for the error @augur this is recorded as a rotated E I believe by Marsh, but I don't agree I think it's an E over a much higher E, because I've seen the error on a different date before and you can see the top of the E but the rest looks exactly the same

[augur]

1 hour ago, sg86 said:

I think it's an E over a much higher E, because I've seen the error on a different date before and you can see the top of the E but the rest looks exactly the same

Yes, clearly visible on the picture; half an E in but much higher

On 06/09/2019 at 15:06, sg86 said:

Did the other strange letters (I believe R and G) have a similar cause?

[Lindeman]

I think I have found the right spot on the forum to ask your collective sovereign wisdom! 

Recently via @Numistacker ‘s fine services I sent an 1857 Vic Young Shield Sovereign into NGC asking for a variety designation.

, as it clearly has signs of a clear double - die / overdate variety.

While it came back as genuine, and AU50, I was certainly disappointed that NGC assigned no variety at all, despite (in my view) this being a clear overdate on 1857. 

Here are some pics. Would love to get your view: was I over ambitious expecting NGC to grant a variety here ? In Marsh there is no specific call out for this...

Would PCGS have been a better bet here? 

Cheers 

Lindeman 

[Xander]

8 minutes ago, Lindeman said:

n Marsh there is no specific call out for this...

I think you have to request a designation from them plus give a reference for them to check, like, Marsh or Spink. They charge a fee for this.

[Lindeman]

@Xander We requested the variety and paid the fee...but I did not quote any reference ( they surely should do some of the work!) 😉

I am learning...

[Xander]

1 minute ago, Lindeman said:

@Xander We requested the variety and paid the fee...but I did not quote any reference ( they surely should do some of the work!) 😉

I am learning...

I think Numi recently got them to agree to accept Marsh or Spink as an authority on varieties and put the reference on the label.

I have a 1/2 Sov with Spink ref on the label. 

Yes, Marsh doesn't mention it right enough, it's possible they couldn't find any reference for it. 

[sovereignsteve]

it's not an overdate variety. The whole date has been double struck, it's a mechanical striking error.

[Lindeman]

Thanks guys. Good to learn the difference @sovereignsteve. I’m glad I got it graded still because at least I will remember why I graded this one out of my (limited ) shield collection. So Steve - if I was ever to sell this coin, what would be the correct terminology “ double struck on the date “? 

[TheGoldSovereign]

Yes I was going to say @Lindeman this isn't an error or variety it's just been double struck, very common.