1965 Mis-Struck Gillick Portrait Gold Sovereign

[LawrenceChard]

1965 Mis-Struck Gillick Portrait Gold Sovereign

I came across this interesting mis-strike a while ago, but only just got to see the photos:

 

It now looks like some raised lettering on the mis-struck portion, but that makes no sense to me.

The reverse looks quite normal:

Although it does have a number of curious marks and evidence of some kind of damage, but not in the area which corresponds with the obverse "damage".

It's alloy composition is within the expected range, although the silver content is notable for a modern (QEII) sovereign:

I hope Doug might have ironed the Niton results test sheet before he photographed it.

Lastly, another photo of the obverse:

I can only conclude that some debris got between the obverse die and the blank before it was struck.

We should have got a photo of the affected part of the edge!

😎

Edited October 7, 2022 by LawrenceChard

[RDHC]

Interesting- thank you. Does the mis-strike add value? Personally I think it detracts and simply makes the coin somewhat ugly, but others will probably disagree. And doubly interesting to have the long-suspected silver content of Gillicks confirmed, if this is a representative example.

[dicker]

Thanks for the excellent photos and XRF results.  I concur that some debris is probably the cause. 
 

The mis-strike area is roughly rectangular - I have no idea what debris would have gummed up the die, but looking at the strike:

- The debris was not hard enough for to prevent the gold impressing into the die

- But it was hard enough to impact the fields around the letter and dot and also cause a distorted 

My random best guess is that it was some material (cloth) left in on the die after it had been cleaned.