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

.

13 hours ago, 5huggy said:

WOW - I  knew it looked large in your hand - BUT THAT BIG! 

at the right price too im guessing!?😉👍

13 hours ago, MoralHazard said:

Yes of course. Everything is a buy  - for a right price! 😁

I've got quite a few kilo coins including this Year of the Horse, what kind of price are people paying for them?

12 hours ago, 1817Karl said:

Lovely coin, beautiful condition, AU58 maybe? Loving the image also, shows the true coin...

Definitely AU58+, I've seen far worse MS coins, which is why I don't grade anything

My images are for archival purposes, this was a quick one so not quite there but I could easily make this look MS63 with photography which is what most sellers do. My lighting highlights the flaws not hides them!

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 🤣

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

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.

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

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.

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

To be totally honest minor differences in dies like this I record because they are interesting and different, they are going to be rarer for sure but I'm not sure the demand for slight varieties at this point in time is great enough to increase value by much,

I do think this could change in years to come, and of course that's just my opinion . You can definitely market it as such and see, but on a young head you're probably only looking at what 290-300 at current gold? 

Hi, yes I've seen quite a few touching the truncation like this in different years. I did record some severe ones like this as a variety. 

4 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

I don't think anyone really knows all facts about dies used and die numbers.

as you say you can often see the same error on several coins but maybe In extreme cases such as this, the die was replaced including the individual die number?

i have no idea if they did this, but if I were minting sovs routinely, I would do a small run of perhaps a dozen coins and check them before releasing the pair of dies for routine production. Any defective ones such as this could be melted, perhaps the odd one slipped through. You know workers do "strange" things sometimes😉

Yea I'm with you, it makes things interesting, at least for me

1 hour ago, sovereignsteve said:

it was probably spotted and rectified/replaced before too many coins were produced

This is the fascinating part for me, so actual dies were potentially changed during use? Pure speculation or do we have any knowledge or other examples of this?

When I've been looking through different dies before I never looked for this happening. I have found an error on a die number that then exists on 4-5 others that I've seen, so just assumed all dies would be the same apart from slight wear differences

6 minutes ago, augur said:

Maybe someone was bored and chopped with a blade into the date?

Quality control was far better at this point, how could a die with this make it into use? It it more likely then to be an error whilst minting?

I did think it may be a way of making sure the die wouldn't be finished and somehow made it into use but now checking I have 4 of this die number (102) and didn't record this when looking at those others.

Also it's strange that it goes over the 8 but under the 1 and 7 🤔

Anyone have an idea what could have caused this?

14 hours ago, DarkChameleon said:

Ebay will let you return tjings, post pictures to them to prove things were not right, talk to their people and yet won't let you post s bad review as they used to...that is the equivalent of accessory after the fact to let crooks continue, I had one item I bought at a great deal show on its tracking that it was printed out but never reached the post office..I got my money back but dealers can do that every time, just sell it from under you for more and do the lost in post bs....ebay let's them get away with it, I had a case of buying jewelry that was all solid 14k gold..when it arrived it was plated junk...started a case, won the case, posted pics to ebay to prove it..got my money vack, had to send the bad back for them to try and sell to the next person who might not see the flaking plate....ebay stopped me posting feedback to protect the next person along the line.

Yea I agree, I've never bought anything rare or good quality off ebay (shield wise).

The only thing I found was an 1880-S with A/V and won it, the seller messaged me and said he had been told via PM that it was rare and not to sell it, so he didn't post! 

I guess it's jus the thrill of the hunt, 1/10,000 may sell a coin they don't know what it is, like in my above story

20 hours ago, jacobkenn said:

Be intrested in seeing ebay picture

Please don't take this as a dig I dont want to make you feel worse 

But why would you buy a coin that in the back of your mind you knew it was fake only say this as your comment of hope it's real. EBay purchases always come with risk but it's up to us to limit them 

17 hours ago, sovereignsteve said:

Of course it's a fake; it's a 1917 on Ebay!

I assume the ebay pictures were bad?

Yes of course it was a risk but why not bid for a coin worth so much when the seller tells you they bought it from a large UK auction house? 

@jacobkenn not being rude but even with excellent pictures some of the best 1917 fakes wouldn't be discovered, they've fooled many a dealer over the years, but I'm sure you know this

He even posted images online of a valuation from bullion by post etc. I'm not fussed as I will get my money back, but it was of course worth a shot!