Value of 21 missing penny major varieties

[fred lever]

Auto, that estimation of dies of mine used for the 1952 pressing was a bit off! The bit of my brain that has not succumbed to senility remembered that Paul Holland did a forensic job on the 1952 Perth Mint pennies and lodged a Journal paper. I had downloaded this many years ago and filed it in my library. I am now reading this and am humbled. Paul does a masterly work on the Dies and tooling and  in correspondence with Anthea Harris  they found at least 7 master dies and 210 reverse dies initially and on further study of the mint records upped that to a total of 300 (page 26).
Paul gave a pretty good summing up of the die types and the 2's used and settled on 6 types (table page 35) and felt that anything else was a distortion of die or strike. his discussion then goes on for pages regarding  coins reviewed and concludes with a summary (page 38). He acknowledges the help  of Anthea Harris, the Perth mint and Mike Locke in presenting the paper. There is also a References List and the names Harris, Mills, Dean, Skinner, Clarke, Hanly, Sharples and Greig are mentioned.
The paper is so well researched that any hapless scribe as myself should read it before opening their mouths. I am.
This means that there may be dozens of variations discernable to the eye to do with both the  2 and the Adot from the 300 odd dies used.
Fred.
PS at the moment I cannot tell you WHICH Journal the paper is in as I have not entered the source in my data base.
The paper was "Date Numeral Varieties of the 1952 Perth Minted Pennies" Paul M. Holland.
Got to be around 1998/2000.
Maybe someone can hit me on the side of the head and tell me.

Oh, thanks, it was the NAA, Vol 11 2000 and you can download on the NAA web site.
Fred.

[Mister T]

Likewise did anybody prior to Dean's time mention the existence of English/Indian obverses or mention that 3 different reverse masters existed for Geo V?

I've wondered about this too - was there any mention of them prior to the 1960s?

[autocoupler]

This means that there may be dozens of variations discernable to the eye to do with both the  2 and the Adot from the 300 odd dies used.

Thanks for the info Fred. Wow, 300 dies! There were over 12 million A. coins minted, I'm now wondering how many D type Melbourne reverses were used? Cheers.

[fred lever]

Auto, a good old fashioned rule of thumb was to assume 50,000 coins per die.
In the earlier years dies could fail instantly or with a few thousand pressings, I think Melbourne  was much more organised by 1952 and die failure getting rare. So that would point to 250/500 or so. Perth used more because they were finding there way a bit.
Would need research on the press books and die registers in the Victorian archives, something I cannot do.
Fred.

[autocoupler]

Have made a few adjustments to perceived values. All comments most welcome.

[nealeffendi]

The symbol > means greater than and the mintages for the '31 Dropped Indian and the '20 Dot Above English should have the < symbol.

[autocoupler]

Thanks for picking that up Neal.

[autocoupler]

A few adjustments 

[Unicorn]

Keep up the good work Auto!!!

[Basil]

Keep up the good work Auto!!!

...and from me,Thanks for making an effort to inform.

[autocoupler]

Thanks for the support uni and Basil. As you would already know, the figures are not exact and in reality will no doubt fluctuate either side of those quoted, but the main purpose of the exercise is to highlight the elevated value of these pennies when compared to the more common penny strikings of the same date and grade, but with different dies. 

The key thing for people to remember, is to be informed about the differences.

[autocoupler]

A few minor changes. There was one anomaly where a recent auction sale of $1800 + commission on a $200 estimate was recorded for a two coin lot consisting of a 1957Y. normal date and 1957Y. wide date, both graded by PCGS as MS64RB or CHU.

Don't know if it was the result of a bidding war between two bidders, or a pre sale top bid by an internet bidder who desperately wanted it, which was thrown straight on the floor when the live session commenced.  

It all becomes clearer when looking at the population report, the wide date is the highest graded but, the total number of graded 1957Y. pennies is just 22, so early days. 

In light of this a smaller adjustment in value was recorded, but who knows?

[Unicorn]

Thanks Auto. Please continue your updates as you see them fit!

[echidna]

The market for these varieties is a bit fickle at the moment.
My 2 cents worth - I'd value the 1952 pennies slightly higher.
ie UNC examples of the square ,wedge and tilted serif.

Yeah Nobles practice of letting everyone know the top bid during the auction is a shocker.

[autocoupler]

Thanks for the input echidna, your knowledge adds to the credibility of any list such as this. Now that you've mentioned it, I do remember the recent sale of a right tilted 2, 1952A Melbourne reverse graded AU50 which I recall sold for $200. I will make the appropriate adjustments.  :good: