Hey All, Looking for some verification on a 1972 m sovereign that I suspect is the overtype variety. History: https://coinworks.com.au/1872-1-Sovereign-Melbourne-Mint~6567 Differences: https://numistip.com/view/1872m_full_sovereign_719.html https://numistip.com/view/1872-1m_overdate_full_sovereign_717.html Bluesheet: https://bluesheet.com.au/Gold/Full_Sovereign/Shield/ Gnarly damage on the reverse, bottom of obverse looks more worn closer to the date but unfortunately I don't have a 72-S to compare with... the vertical of the 2 appears to 'look' thicker than the vertical of the 7 though... Anyone had experience telling these apart before?
Ok, yeah I see it. It's kinda cast out over the top of the existing numeral. Pity for me. But good to see it in any case... Other photos I've tried taking also not 100% clear w/ contrast and detail at that zoom level... Thanks jultorsk
i would say no, but that is based on your pictures, problem is your looking for confirmation when you should be looking to disprove your theory. the base of the 2 should have lines under it where the base of a 1 would be, yours doesn't appear to have that. in addition your coin appears to have damage to the 2 that is not uncommon 2 seconds with an eye piece/coin in hand and i can tell you definitively , 10 minutes of squinting at your picture and i am 95% confident
Thanks serial, I agree, The 1 seems to generally be slightly taller overall and so either the bottom of the 2 should show it, or the top of the 2 should show it where the flat of the 1 sticks out of the curve at the top of the 2. Then the left-right bias would either show the verticle of the 1 in the top left arc of the 2 or, off the side of the bottom section in the wedge above the base of the 2, and neither that, nor any evidence at the top and bottom is visable from what ive seen with the phone camera zoom from any angle, moving it around to try to identify it. I think its just damaged in a way it isnt obvious, but yeah, now that i have seen jultorsks valid ones, it really doesnt appear to have any of the details to claim its a 1872/1.
what surprises me is that with the distinctive die cracking in jultorsk's examples it would appear that 2 different dies were used for this particular coin and that would indicate to me a larger than normal population. problem is that pre 1900 gold coins were routinely melted down during international trade and the use of the altered die was a proactive that was made to try and produce more coins with out having to create extra dies. i expect that the die didnt last long in the process given the cracks appearing, bottom line is that if you do get one of these coins i would suggest it would make a good long term investment coin with 2 distinct variants out there
they would on all coins, that looks like a "type 1" if you note the fading die crack on the 7. that probably was one of the last coins struck before the die exploded. it would go a long way to explain why they needed to use modified 1871 dies because the operator obviously was destroying dies and they still had coin to strike. so when he went through the 1872 dies they would have taken 1871 dies that were left over and modified them for use
