5th Variety of 1931 Penny discovered

[Yurist]

This is a "Unicorn" according to Yurist.
I think its fairly obvious that there has been something done in the date area.
A depression in the surface is visible especially around the second 1.
Plus discolouration which is limited to the date area only.
(Dont remember where the pic came from - probably sold on Ebay).

Indeed this is appears to be a photo of a Unicorn Penny.  Keep in mind that these pennies were minted for experimental purposes and the '1' was most likely added later to a die that featured a blank "193_"  date type.  In fact, it is for this very reason that we have the 'dropped 1' varieties of the 1931 penny.  Experimental coins were minted with a range adjustments made to the working die during production and the depression around the '1' may be attributed to this.    The depression is not common to all of the 8 Unicorn Pennies I have recorded.  I can, however, see numerous other distinct features in the date that point to it being an authentic Unicorn Penny.  You can read my article in the JNAA for a comprehensive date analysis and draw your own conclusions.  







Not sure if this is a "Unicorn" also but it has had work done :
Depression around the last 1 and discolouration around the date area only.
The 3 is just all wrong and the last 1 is different.
(I think this one was sold on Ebay last year)

Point is that it demonstrates that 1931 dropped 1 Indians are being faked.  

I agree.  It certainly looks like both the 3 and the 1 have been altered.  Most likely a 1929 donor penny was used.   What gives it away is the sharp-pointed nose on the leftmost '1'.  Both the Unicorn Penny and the benchmark 1931 dropped 1 Indian penny have a blunt nose on the leftmost '1'.   

Yurist - why don't you provide some proper high res pics so we can see the date area of all of them ?
Are they all like this - with evidence of alterations ?

Sorry to rain on your parade Echidna, but no, Unicorn Pennies do not normally feature a depression around the date nor have evidence of alterations.  I will be happy to upload some hi res images for you to look at upon my return to my computer next week.  In the meantime, you might consider identifying the donor coin that you believe was used in creating the alleged altered date Unicorn Penny (first image above).  I think you might have some difficulty in finding a perfect match.  

[Yurist]

Yuri,i'm not getting into a pii....contest with you,by your Posts so far you do not have a background in pre-Dec. Coins as far as i can tell,what puzzles myself is your motivation with this variety,even if it is a genuine Coin you seem to be on a single minded Crusade for some reason and let your Ego take control when someone questions your assertions,why?,what's in it for you?
I'm not the person you should be attempting to influence,i'm a Hobby collector,albeit with over 50+ years experience,i don't have a reputation to protect and i'm not trying to make a name for myself in the Coin world so my comments on this are just a general interest scenario as far as the 1930 Penny goes.
Instead of having a go at me address the concerns that some of the Coin experts on this Forum have with your Coin,for starters show that the 31 dropped Indian shown above is not a fake.
Whether you have discovered a new variety or not that article you somehow managed to have published is Schoolboy stuff,Gilbert Heyde would be spinning in his grave.

Basil, I have been collecting coins (with a special interest in the Australian penny) for over 40 years.  Not sure if that qualifies as 'background' by your standards, but it is what is it.  My only motivation with this coin is to set the record straight after 55 years.  I strongly believe that this 5th variety of the 1931 penny has been confused with the benchmark 1931 dropped 1 Indian and that there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that Dean's original observations were in fact correct.  I have dedicated many months of research into this matter, the results of which I simply want to share with the numismatic community.   However, when confronted by imbecilic comments like your "article you somehow managed to have published", I begin to wonder about the education level of the person making them.  Honestly, I would much prefer to have a constructive discussion with you about the merits of the coin in question.  But don't try to trample over something I feel passionate about and expect not to step on some  thorns along the way.  If you restrain your bigotry and open your mind a little, you may actually learn something.

[Basil]

Yuri,i'm no Dr. but i have qualifications(long time ago) in the Counselling area and you are not just passionate about this topic you are bordering on OCD,i just don't get your angle and why its so important to yourself to prove your are correct to a bunch of ,to you,anonymous Posters.

Anyway i'm not wasting any more time on this,i'll leave it to the experts down the track.

....good luck with it but stay away from padded Rooms and people faking Coins,they end up in Court or Jail or both.

[serenitystan]

Yuri,i'm not getting into a pii....contest with you,by your Posts so far you do not have a background in pre-Dec. Coins as far as i can tell,what puzzles myself is your motivation with this variety,even if it is a genuine Coin you seem to be on a single minded Crusade for some reason and let your Ego take control when someone questions your assertions,why?,what's in it for you?
I'm not the person you should be attempting to influence,i'm a Hobby collector,albeit with over 50+ years experience,i don't have a reputation to protect and i'm not trying to make a name for myself in the Coin world so my comments on this are just a general interest scenario as far as the 1930 Penny goes.
Instead of having a go at me address the concerns that some of the Coin experts on this Forum have with your Coin,for starters show that the 31 dropped Indian shown above is not a fake.
Whether you have discovered a new variety or not that article you somehow managed to have published is Schoolboy stuff,Gilbert Heyde would be spinning in his grave.

Basil, I have been collecting coins (with a special interest in the Australian penny) for over 40 years.  Not sure if that qualifies as 'background' by your standards, but it is what is it.  My only motivation with this coin is to set the record straight after 55 years.  I strongly believe that this 5th variety of the 1931 penny has been confused with the benchmark 1931 dropped 1 Indian and that there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that Dean's original observations were in fact correct.  I have dedicated many months of research into this matter, the results of which I simply want to share with the numismatic community.   However, when confronted by imbecilic comments like your "article you somehow managed to have published", I begin to wonder about the education level of the person making them.  Honestly, I would much prefer to have a constructive discussion with you about the merits of the coin in question.  But don't try to trample over something I feel passionate about and expect not to step on some  thorns along the way.  If you restrain your bigotry and open your mind a little, you may actually learn something.    As for DEAN,back in 64 he would not have known if a CBL or FBL was up his arse!!. He said all 1931 pennies have CBL and has viewed 6 1931 dropped indians with CBL...Which is WRONG. They have FBL + acute CBL..As i said before..Whats the difference between the Unicorn penny + a Unicorn???..Nothing as there both fiction...I have pics and records of past sales going back 30years and have never..And i state NEVER seen a 1931 dropped indian with full CBL + no dot after georgvis on the obverse...And now all of a sudden 8 have popped up and more on the rise...You can't con a old school street smart Sydney kid... :sun_bespectacled:

[nealeffendi]

Not to question your street smarts but 8 of a new variety popping up isn't unheard of. think of the 1916 mule or the 1920 dot above English, once someone found one a bunch more popped up. As for Yuri having OCD or whatever my attitude is that he has a Magnificent Obsession in his passion (then again that also applied to David Gee :laughingneqw:)

[JeffH]

Thank God a response without being hidden in multiple, nested quotes.

[serenitystan]

"YEAH'' but 8 1916 mules did not pop up in 1965 + 8 1920 dot above English did not pop up in 2003..They came over a long period of time. One by One..Fools rush in where angles dare to tread...Look left,right and left again before you cross...All is not what if seems..etc,etc...

[Unicorn]

:laugh2: 10 points Jeff!

[Basil]

I'm not wasting any more time on this,whether it is a new variety or not there is something not right.I don't know if its people trying to make a name for themselves for some reason or they are trying to popularise it for monetary gain,maybe its something else but something is not right,it smells.

This topic sure livened up a quiet Forum,thanks to Yuri for that.

[fred lever]

Re post #79.
I quote from this post a paste of text:

   " As for DEAN,back in 64 he would not have known if a CBL or FBL was up his arse!!. He said all 1931 pennies have CBL and has viewed 6 1931 dropped indians with CBL...Which is WRONG.

Oh Dear, I find that summing of John Deans' reputation a bit harsh!
I view John Dean as one of the great observational collectors of Australian coins.
I would rank him with Saxton, Holland, Briggs and others who reported and wrote on what they saw on hundreds if not thousands of samples of coin dates from 1911 to 1936.
Dean was the first person to log and assemble, in print, a list of penny reverses  versus description of FBL and CBL.
This book was the motivation for many collectors of the time (1964) such as myself to look further into coins.

I found the nested reply and cut and pasting of similar text in post  #79 a bit confusing as to who wrote what.
If Dean saw curved base letters on a 1931 coin than that's what he saw.
To wholesale condemn an author on the basis of disbelieving one entry is ungracious and surely needs an apology?

Fred.

[Basil]

Not me Fred,Dean was one of the Coin Guru's when i was at School,i have/had a couple of his Books.
I should apologise to Guri thou.,reading back on some of my Posts i was a bit harsh,i'll have to stop posting when i'm drunk(and also bidding on Ebay Coins.)
Still i think he will cop plenty of worse scrutiny than my meagre efforts over his little project here,one of his mentors,lets call him the 'Pennysomething', must be close to being sued.

[echidna]

"Unicorn" pennies showing differences in the placement of the first 1 and the 3.
First image - the 1 leans to the right and points between circles in the ring.
Second image - the 1 leans to the left and points directly at a circle in the ring.
First image - the 3 clearly does not touch the line.
Second image - the 3 is closer to the line and touches it.



Another "Unicorn".
The first 1 is even further to the right.
The 3 is tilted more to the right and and placed higher.

These images are relatively low res and not ideal but that's all we have for now.
The high res images promised by Yurist are needed to sort out this mess.

[fred lever]

Hi Echidna.
Nicely observed re the digit placing.
The point about digits is they can wander around all over the place as amply demonstrated in the past by David Briggs.
Briggs has many coins photographed in his copper book showing this.
Some coins have so many presentations of digit position you just give up calling them varieties.
We used to say "3 tilt left, 3 tilt right" and so on but that just covered the gross positions.
Where the mint guys were hand punching hubs and even individual dies then the list grows and grows.
Throw into that distortion by metal flow and more importantly the apparent change in position and shape by actual WEAR on a coin and you have an endless perceived list of differences. You have to go down Basils' rabbit hole, into the padded chamber and out through the looking glass to keep up with it!
There is nothing new or wonderful about digits moving or letters curving, the main fun is working out if this is wonky placement of digits on a hub or die, OR, striking distortion while pressing out hub, die or coin.

Fred.

[echidna]

Hi Fred

What you say is right.
However the "unicorn" penny would be the product of one die only, if it were real.
And the date numerals should line up.
I can imagine the last two digits moving around if there were multiple dies.

[fred lever]

Hi Echidna.
Yep, exactly the point.

Coin is a reverse die  with a drop 1, said to be paired with a Indian obverse.
That's a 31D in the normal parlance.

The reverse die shown with distorted letters (CBL) and a 1 in a different position (say tilt left?).

The obverse die shown with no particular die marker. (i'm not interested in die markers that are not there, that proves nothing).

So, to me, while a obverse die was left in the machine for lots of trials , the reverse (any date circa 29/30/31) dies were being swapped in and out and this "3D with tilt drop 1" pairing did not survive long, hence not many striking made the cut.

There is no mystery with 29, 30 and 31 varieties, mysteries only exist, when observers do not understand the mechanics and the engineering behind the workshop trials.

The other point of contention, authenticity, fakery and all that i'll leave as a separate issue because it has nothing to do with understanding hub and die progression. IF coins with a indian obverse and a drop 1 tilty curvy reverse are found not to be glued together fakes then i'll add a "b" version to 31D if I expand the existing A, B, C, D table.

From the padded room...........Fred.