The Origins of the 1930 Penny.

[fred lever]

Hi Guys, I do suspect there are more 1930 English in collections. As Neal points out coins can sit in collections and the fine points of the coin not known about. I wonder if every 1930 in a collection has been removed turned over and the obverse checked? In my records I note some appearances of English 1930, John Beck at Downies 1966, Nobles auction 1998, one sold by auction I cant quite remember but not so long ago as it was in a web auction, probably Downies. David Briggs notes 3 known, shows one of them in his book, its a bit ratty looking and is the one that appeared in the Downies auction I believe as the images are very similar.
I feel a bit sick, as decades ago I was handed a 1930 and by eye the reverse looked ok, nice VF, then I looked at the obverse and it was English and I hesitated as I had never seen a 1930 with an English obverse. The coin was handed back with the question lingering in the air. It may have been a 1933-36 altered date or it may have been real. I could have written out a cheque and chanced it but lost the opportunity through ignorance.
We do know that of the hundreds of dies that were scrapped as useless through 1920/1930/1931,  3 x 1930 date reverses and 4 obverses were issued to the presses in august 1931 and one of the obverses #78 was from a 21 hub and thus English. How could so few have been pressed? This is pure speculation but imagine running a press and a die say #74 fails, you shut down the press and change to die #78. You start up just get going and something else happens, the reverse die breaks, the drive belt breaks off the line shaft who knows and that press is offline. The job order get filled by another press and its all over. Simple, no need to make up complex reasons just how it goes in the press shop. I have pulled all the facts together and have submitted a longer 1930 article to CAB covering the myths and getting that out of the way have done a bit on the dies used and also started into the die markers that point toward identifying the reverse dies S74, S75 and S76.
Cheers,Fred.

[wwwww]

It's true that accurate record keeping in the past would solve many mysteries. I wonder if as you say wwwww, for whatever reason a small mintage of London obverses were minted and released much later, or even well after the 1930 penny gained universal notoriety. It could explain why they would have been plucked from circulation still with plenty of meat on the bone?

The Londons aren't significantly better than the Indians, especially with such a small sample size, I don't think we have enough data to draw any conclusions like that. Unfortunately we will probably never know the answer.

[interest]

I have just finished reading, "The 1930 PENNY, the final words & Die Varieties." by Fred Lever in the latest edition of C&B magazine.
Without doubt this articles dispels all Myths, Fables & Confusion.
Complete with photos, a few Tables which explain coin makers die marks explanations of each.
What to look for in the difference between real & fake coins.
No longer will the story , the coins were handed out to visitors or someone found a box of them in the back of the vault be tolerated.
If someone wants to know the complete explanation & story behind the 1930 penny this is the article to be read.
This needs to be put on Wikipedia.

[runway]

I have just finished reading, "The 1930 PENNY, the final words & Die Varieties." by Fred Lever in the latest edition of C&B magazine.
Without doubt this articles dispels all Myths, Fables & Confusion.
Complete with photos, a few Tables which explain coin makers die marks explanations of each.
What to look for in the difference between real & fake coins.
No longer will the story , the coins were handed out to visitors or someone found a box of them in the back of the vault be tolerated.
If someone wants to know the complete explanation & story behind the 1930 penny this is the article to be read.
This needs to be put on Wikipedia.

Absolutely :stop: