5th Variety of 1931 Penny discovered

[Basil]

Bloody Unicorns! :laugh2:

Its all your fault for encouraging him Uni...LOL.

Its all suss for sure and even if it is a genuine variety its no big deal anyway,99%+ of the Coin collecting population will never see one.
Still,interesting to see where it all leads.

[fred lever]

I have a question for you coin forum members and its a survey really.

Have a look at your 1931 drop 1 coins with the London reverse.
Tell me how many  have curved base letters.

I have about 20 FBL in my junk copper and no CBL.

Fred.

[echidna]

I have a question for you coin forum members and its a survey really.

Have a look at your 1931 drop 1 coins with the London reverse.
Tell me how many  have curved base letters.

I have about 20 FBL in my junk copper and no CBL.

Fred.

Hello Fred

Mine are all FBL.

[serenitystan]

I have a question for you coin forum members and its a survey really.

Have a look at your 1931 drop 1 coins with the London reverse.
Tell me how many  have curved base letters.

I have about 20 FBL in my junk copper and no CBL.

Fred.

Hello Fred

Mine are all FBL.      DEAN must have all the CBL 31 drop 1 Londons from his 1965 review...

[Basil]

I have a question for you coin forum members and its a survey really.

Have a look at your 1931 drop 1 coins with the London reverse.
Tell me how many  have curved base letters.

I have about 20 FBL in my junk copper and no CBL.

Fred.

Hi Fred,i have about 50-60 1931 Coins so will check them all next W/end.

Since this Unicorn thing i've been checking dropped 31's on Ebay and all are FBL so far.

[fred lever]

Thanks Basil, appreciate that, yep been looking at web too no CBL sighted yet.
Also have trawled through hundreds of archive photos no CBL.
The logical uncovering of CBL 31's should be just like the  uncovering other rare vareties, like the dot over bottom scroll 1920 thing and the 2000 dollar/10cent.  May be area specific.
Now that people are looking actively for CBL 31, as this is the largest forum in Oz, somebody here should find one!

Fred.

[drakesterling]

Hi Yuri, are those hi-res images you mentioned previously available?

[fred lever]

I have done a bit of work on pennys inclusive 1929 to 1931, in regards to the appearances of the reverse and obverse types and relating these to the die types and  serial numbers, following Mullett. Also a little bit about Bill Mullett and his tenure at the Melbourne Mint.
That work resulted in  a bunch of articles that are a summary of the work and hopefully will be printed in CAB this year.

The bulk of the work is far too large to actually fit in a magazine, there is a large spreadsheet of die appearances by source and serial number year by year from 1911 to 1936 that only strange types as myself would be interested in.
Keep an eye out on the CABs for those, support the magazine as well!

Like any special interest mag  such as "Restored Cars" by Eddie Ford,  these magazines  continuance relies heavily on subscribers and advertisers.
If they do not get subscriptions they will fold it is simple as that.
Fred.

[Unicorn]

:good: Good work Fred, I hope to be able to get a copy of them when they come out. Most interested.

[Yurist]

Hi All,

Sorry for the somewhat long delay on the hi-res images.  The Covid-19 lockdown got in the way of my scheduled return home.  

Anyway, I've now had time to upload some of the hi-res images I had on file to my website.  

Please see: https://sites.google.com/view/1931dropped1indianpennyvariety/home/image-archive

[echidna]

" 
" 
Coin #8 and #2.
The alignment of the 1s are different.
The shape of the 3s are different.
Sorry Yurist - at least one is an altered date.






" 
1929 pennies have this small mark in the first 9.
It is visible on Yurust's images (which are not really high res) if you look closely.
Exactly what you would expect for altered date 29s.

Yurist's article says:
"Interestingly, the '9' in the Unicorn Penny is very similar to the counterpart '9' in the 1929 Indian obverse penny"
But then you say:
"We can also exclude the 1929 penny given the distinctly different date characteristics compared with the Unicorn Penny"
If the 9 is the same then what you are referring to is the first 1.
The first 1 was also replaced and your article doesnt even consider this as a possibility.

Yurist they are all fake - altered date 1929s.

[fred lever]

Hi Echi, that "mark" in the 9 is a DEFECT in a hub that has carried on to appear in various striking dies.
One has to stop thinking about coins alone and consider the master to hub to die evolution that produces the coins.
The mark in the 9 is a CHIP off the surface of a HUB extending down into the loop. On your excellent image this even shows the outline of the missing metal in the BOTTOM of the trough forming the loop of the 9. That indicates your coin was struck very soon after the chip detached.
Being a minor fault and in a time of desperation (1929)  the chip has been ignored by the press guys and in any subsequent hub to die pressing in later years (1930, 1931)  will reapear.
What you are pointing out is a HUB IDENTIFICATION mark and thank you for that, i had overlooked it.
I'll call it the "Echi" or "Spike" mark for attribution!
That is the sort of ID marking that assists in getting a clearer idea of the evolution of the hub-dies series.
There are other ID marks that carry through hub to dies the most famous being the "small pearl" in the King's crown on pennies that carried through from 1917 to 1927 on many dies.
Damm now i have to go back through hundreds of images of 1929-30-31 reverses looking for that marker and relate it to die ID numbers!
Cheers, Fred.

[Yurist]

" 
" 
Coin #8 and #2.
The alignment of the 1s are different.
The shape of the 3s are different.
Sorry Yurist - at least one is an altered date.






" 
1929 pennies have this small mark in the first 9.
It is visible on Yurust's images (which are not really high res) if you look closely.
Exactly what you would expect for altered date 29s.

Yurist's article says:
"Interestingly, the '9' in the Unicorn Penny is very similar to the counterpart '9' in the 1929 Indian obverse penny"
But then you say:
"We can also exclude the 1929 penny given the distinctly different date characteristics compared with the Unicorn Penny"
If the 9 is the same then what you are referring to is the first 1.
The first 1 was also replaced and your article doesnt even consider this as a possibility.

Yurist they are all fake - altered date 1929s.

Of the 8 'Unicorn Pennies' that I identified, one ('UP8') contains some unique date features.  I was able to confirm this recently and addressed it in a separate page on my website at:

https://sites.google.com/view/1931dropped1indianpennyvariety/home/further-research

There's a lot of commentary (including Mullet) suggesting a rather chaotic state of affairs at the Melbourne Mint during the time when these coins were struck.  There was a considerable amount of botching going on with a 'trial and error' approach employing different dies, tooling and date figures being cut from of older hubs and placed into new ones.  Experimental coins were being struck, a few of which (like the 'Unicorn Penny' and probably some sub-varieties like the UP8) found their way into circulation.  

It is also very likely that the 1929 reverse hubs were involved in these experimental strikes.  So, it is not surprising to see some of the markings from the 1929 coin appearing in the Unicorn Pennies.  

For the sake of completeness, I will try to obtain zoomed hi-res images of the dates to confirm the mark in the '9'.  In the meantime, I have superimposed your 1929 image with the Unicorn Penny (see attached) and noticed a misalignment of the leftmost '1'.  In my article, I noted this as a difference in spacing between the '1' and the '9'.  

I suggest that it is much more likely that adjustments were made to the 1929 hub at the Mint (in producing working dies for the 1931 Unicorn Penny) than someone altering a 1929 coin to reproduce the benchmark 1931 drop '1' Ind. Obv. penny.   If we are to consider the latter (your) version, then using a 1929 penny as a doner coin would involve removal of the leftmost (blunt nose) '1', the '2' and the rightmost '9' from the 1929 coin and replacing them with a pointy noise '1', a unique '3' and a dropped '1'.    

Of course, achieving such substantial alterations without leaving any apparent trace would be nothing short of incredible artistic precision.  However, it would also be incredibly ironic that a master of such calibre was then so careless about placing the dropped '1' in the right position.  I'm afraid that simply doesn't follow.

[Yurist]

[attachment=3952]

[Basil]

Yurist Quote.."There's a lot of commentary (including Mullet) suggesting a rather chaotic state of affairs at the Melbourne Mint during the time when these coins were struck.  There was a considerable amount of botching going on with a 'trial and error' approach employing different dies, tooling and date figures being cut from of older hubs and placed into new ones."

That's correct but it wasn't just the Mints,it was Aust. wide chaos as the average Joe struggled to survive and the Mints were no exception as their budgets shrunk and demand for Currency collapsed.
I used to live and breathe Coins as a School Boy in the 1960's but i have never read how the 'dropped 1' Penny came into being and why it  was released into Circulation in the first place,how hard is it to align a date?
Apparently someone got up in Parliament in the early 1930's,we are still trying to find out who and whether it was Vict. or Federal,and said the latest Coins from the Mint " are an eg. of a general malaise affecting Aust Society... etc". 

Anyway this Thread is getting way past my levels of expertise and knowledge but i still find it very interesting but can't help feeling something is wrong here.