drakesterling

PCGS also acknowledge that particular variety, but it is a special request under the mint error submission, so can be a little expensive to do:

https://www.drakesterling.com/news/post/pcgs-graded-sovereign-from-1872-m-with-medallic-die-alignment

Hi @DrK can we see images of the entire coin? The short and long tails coins wear differently, and can often be identified by the way the wear presents on the dragon.

Various medium tails are known/alleged to exist and have been described in past editions of the McDonald catalogue. If you can find a copy of one, you can check there if they haven't already been described? I'll check when I'm back in the office next week too.

The decision was made to not specifically describe medium tails as new varieties, as it was unclear whether the medium tail was a different die or simply one where the shallow incused tips of the tail had been filled in the die.

An 1884 Melbourne half sovereign. Mintage 48,000 pieces. This one is PCGS XF45.

A 1908P half sovereign, with an ultra low mintage of just 24,668 pieces.

Australian halves are generally harder to find in high grade than UK ones. This 1893 is from Sydney and is graded PCGS MS61.

Here's another early half sov. The 1864 comes in two varieties, one with a Roman 1 in the date, and the other with the Arabic 1 in the date.

An 1855 Sydney Mint half sovereign

The first sovereign. This one is in low grade (PCGS VF20), but the date has been very popular with collectors the last few years.

All Sydney Mint sovereigns in MS are tough, even the common dates. Here's an 1866 in PCGS MS62.

The last of Sydney's sovereigns. This one is graded PCGS MS63.

Like some sovereigns, the 1864 Sydney Mint half sovereign can have a Roman "1" or Hindu-Arabic "1" in the date. The coin photographed has the Hindu-Arabic "1".

On 05/10/2022 at 20:26, Oddjob said:

Same minting error as a 1890 sov from your collection?

Yes, that's right. You have a good memory.

Australia's first sovereign, the Adelaide sovereign.

This half is genuine. As for the weaker strike, possibly they saw the cracked reverse tooling, and decided to keep using it anyway, just at a lower strike pressure so that it wouldn't crack some more!