5th Variety of 1931 Penny discovered

[Basil]

This is the Coin from Ebay last year that Eric said was a fake,with this angle it looks like they are replacing the 31 area with a new piece of metal but i may be wrong,not up with the latest techniques for altering dates on coins.

https://www.australian-coins.net/showthread.php?tid=5506&page=4

[nealeffendi]

Yurist
However, if you insist that a faker would nevertheless be interested in creating a reproduction of the 1931 dropped '1' Ind. Obv. penny to target the novice collector, then wouldn't it be much easier to take a 1931 Indian obverse penny and simply drop the 1?  Why go to the trouble of using a 1929 Indian penny as a donor?  

So far, none of the theories that the Unicorn Pennies are fakes seem to hold any water.

Surely replacing the 1 on a normal '31 Indian  to fake a dropped 1 Indian wouldn't work as they are from different master hubs?

[Yurist]

Hi Neal, You're absolutely right.  

Echidna is talking about low quality fakes that are designed to target novice collectors who won't worry about the hub details.  For this customer base, a faker may well get away with using a 1931 Indian aligned date donor coin.  That's really the easiest option, as you only need to drop the '1'.  However, these 'el-cheapo' fakes are hardly worth the effort as they don't have broad appeal and don't command a high price.  That's probably why they're not very common.  

With 1931 pennies, it's really only worthwhile making a high-quality fake that will sell for a substantial price.  Such coins would normally need to get past an expert, and a master faker obviously takes this into account.  So, the notion of a faker starting with a CBL donor coin to create a high quality reproduction of an FBL coin is utter nonsense.   That's why it's highly unlikely that the CBL Unicorn Pennies are reproductions of the FBL 1931 dropped '1' Indian obverse penny.

[fred lever]

Hi Echidna, so far from that picture all i can see is a grubby suspicious looking coin.
Leaving all the stuff about the positions of the numerals and what date coin it may have been or what hub strain the coins may be.
 
Now pull the rabbit out of the hat for us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Show us the picture of the date area with all the gunk cleaned away and revealing how the 1 or the  3 are attached to the field of the coin.
I am sure you have already done this.

I have fake coins that clearly show evidence:

1/ where the field metal has been scraped about to get enough material to form the change about the numeral (like change a 6 into an 0 for a 1930).

2/ where the field has been scraped flat to remove a digit(s) and new digits glued on. The new digit(s) are then sat on a bed of adhesive and the part line or excessive glue may be seen.

How has this date numeral been done?
I am busting to see all revealed.

Fred.

[Goldseeker]

Is it me or an optical illusion as the "1" from the "31" looks as though it is raised rather that flat as per the "1" of the "19"?

[echidna]

Hi Echidna, so far from that picture all i can see is a grubby suspicious looking coin.
Leaving all the stuff about the positions of the numerals and what date coin it may have been or what hub strain the coins may be.
 
Now pull the rabbit out of the hat for us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Show us the picture of the date area with all the gunk cleaned away and revealing how the 1 or the  3 are attached to the field of the coin.
I am sure you have already done this.

I have fake coins that clearly show evidence:

1/ where the field metal has been scraped about to get enough material to form the change about the numeral (like change a 6 into an 0 for a 1930).

2/ where the field has been scraped flat to remove a digit(s) and new digits glued on. The new digit(s) are then sat on a bed of adhesive and the part line or excessive glue may be seen.

How has this date numeral been done?
I am busting to see all revealed.

Fred.

Hi Fred

I dont have the coin, just the pics.

[echidna]

Is it me or an optical illusion as the "1" from the "31" looks as though it is raised rather that flat as per the "1" of the "19"?

Yes its not flat like you would expect - it looks like its its curved.
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[autocoupler]

I have not found the chip defect in any FBL reverse.

Probably a bit off topic now but, here you go Fred. Looked at the first page on ebay, all CBL, didn't check the other 3 pages though. Then looked at just 6 examples I had and found this. They may be rare :shock:  :blush: :angel:

[fred lever]

Oh thanks Auto for taking the trouble,   yep looked through ebay and i'm tending to agree with your #158.
I think we could call that a FBL.
This is a split decision as the die shows a bit of distortion, look the bottoms of the F and L's are not ruler flat and the E's have that slender slightly curvy look about them.
The point is the master HUB in 1923 had dead flat feet and thick well formed letters.
The derivative copy hubs started to go a bit wonky as time went by. As deterioration set in the beads on the rims went from lovely round dots to teeth shapes and the flat inwards feet of the digits curved more and more.
The point here is that a "close to the master hub" derivative has the chip in the field on the loop of the 9.
That suggests that the MASTER hub was damaged pretty early on and getting a clean hub copy from the Master was then not possible.
(yes just like the Indian mishap back in 1916 when they stuffed the obverse master and we had wonky pearls in the kings crown)
Hence every hub and die for years had wonky 9's until the completely fresh tooling arrived from London in 1931.
I have started an article focusing on this blunder. "The London 9 Virus" sounds pretty punchy for a working title!
Thanks, Fred.

[fred lever]

Re #156 from Echidna.
Oh dear me.............................!
If I had that coin I would be putting an armed guard around it!
Well that is, if I closely examined it and found NO EVIDENCE of the 3 and the 1 being: welded/glued/chiselled/sprayed/punched/whatever onto the parent metal of the coin.

My reason is this.
While looking at the images of that coin i felt I had seen the odd reverse layout of the digits before.
I have about 1000 times. The position of the 1, 9 and 3 are in the same unique position as the small run of 1930 date coins have.
You will note the "3' is in that odd laid back angle.

IF the coin was not a bodgy concoction, which would be proven by cleaning and microscopic examination, what we are looking at is a coin pressing from the same hub series as the 1930! The copy hub 193 which produced the next hub/die train with an "0" punched in giving  "1930" for the known 1930 pressings could easily have had a 193 batch  brother punched with a "1" to give some "1931".
That is exactly what the press shop guys were doing in order to get something, anything , to work, to keep production going in 1931.

Thus we would have an excruciatingly rare pressing.

What  a pity..........

Fred.

[serenitystan]

Is it me or an optical illusion as the "1" from the "31" looks as though it is raised rather that flat as per the "1" of the "19"?

Yes its not flat like you would expect - it looks like its its curved.    :i_agree:    I know the owner of this so called Unicorn and the owner of No5. There both modern day snake oil salesmen...This is my last post until Yurist puts up some decent pics like the one Echidna did of the 29 where you could see the grain in the bronze around the numerals ...
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[interest]

A very old newspaper article my late Uncle had

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[Basil]

Interesting,there is a similar article from the early 1960's when it was annouced we were heading towards Decimal Currency,Author says similar things about the dropped Indian but it was still in £'s value.
The original Numismatic Society of Australia(Australian Numismatic Society?) was formed before WW1 and was active during the late 1920's early 1930's and according to 1930 Penny researchers made official visits to the Melb. Mint. during and after this time.
It beggars belief they did not know about the dropped Indian at that time as the 1932/1933 and probably even the 1934 Pennies were under close scrutiny with Numismatists,Dealers and Collectors looking for Indian Obverses that did not exist.

[fred lever]

Basil my knowledge of Coin Societies and similar organisations prior to the 1960's  comes from the pamphlets and catelouges I have collected. My memories are not that good, however........................
What always intrigued me was that whatever was printed in the "Renniks" series of catelouges  became the standard.
Despite coins like the 1931 drop 1 being mentioned and listed in many places prior, when the Renniks became the "engraved in stone" standard the 1931 Drop 1 became invisible!
Other cat  printers and album makers then toed the line and the 1931 drop 1 became non existant.
"If it aint in Renniks it don't exist"...................
That attitude carried on for decades with people like me whining and wondering why.
There were a few people that actually  collected circulating coins and printed their results like Dean, he knew what a 31d1 was!.
Other collectors like myself made their own lists , book, cats based on what they could actually see.  Oddly enough, as myself, most have nothing much to do with the coin industry, clubs, societies, auction houses, grading services and all that stuff.
 Funny thing about that!
Fred.

[Basil]

Yes Fred,that article 'interest' posted is very similar to the one i read as a Kid,early 1960's,it was primarily about the 1930 but in the last paragraph the Author mentioned the dropped Indian and its rareity and also that the Die broke.
Interest's Uncle's article mentions Computer Discs so i guess it is post 1970's,i would love to find the original 1960's article,its out there somewhere.