1921-P Gold Sovereign Perth Mint - With Flattened Rim Section + Weak Obverse Strike

[LawrenceChard]

1921-P Gold Sovereign Perth Mint - With Flattened Rim Section + Weak Obverse Strike

I got this coin to check recently with "weird" written on its packet.

There are a couple of features, which might be slightly concerning to the inexperienced, but otherwise it is a perfectly normal, genuine sovereign:

The top section of the rim looks flattened on the reverse, but there is not sign of damage or crushing after production. I do see this effect on a small proportion of sovereigns. While I cannot picture precisely what causes this, and therefore can't describe it, I believe it is related to the interaction between planchet (blank), die, and collar, just before and during striking.

A lot of the hair and other detail appears to be missing. This is quite typical "weak striking" often seen on branch mint sovereigns of this period. On this coin, it is the obverse which is weakly struck, while the reverse appears to be well struck with consideable detail.

Logically, it does not make much sense for one side to be well struck, but the other side to be weakly struck. Perhaps this is due to worn dies, but the appearance suggests weak striking, so that is how I describe it. Even though it sounds counter intuitive, I believe this is the cause.

To complete the picture, the Niton test results are perfectly within their normal expected range.

My notes may look a little confusing, but those on the left were at 30 seconds, those on the right were at 60 seconds.

The Niton was being slightly temperamental, but I am satisfied the actual reading were reliable.

I posted this partly because I recently received a photo by e-mail, with a similar feature, but I could not find these photos at the time.

😎