1919 Double Dot imposter?

[Basilstate]

I'll throw these up whilst i have them out,they are in another Forum on here as well.
Looks like Oct. 1961 Coin Chart is the earliest mention i could find with the 1919 DD in mainstream by 1964/65.

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1919 DD.Benchmark Catalogue.

"In July 1920, the Melbourne Mint sent three pairs of 1919-dated working dies to the Sydney Mint so it could prepare for the ceremonial striking of its first penny in October of that year. These were experimental dies that were lightly used to test the presses for the 1920 Penny production and the reverses were marked with an additional dot above the top scroll to distinguish their production from the Melbourne minted 1919 //. Penny."

"The obverse dies were of the English type, the only ones held by Melbourne at the time. The 1919 .//. Penny that resulted is a scarce coin with perhaps a mintage of around 25,000 and marks the first 'unofficial' Sydney-struck penny. Records show that the 1919 .//. reverse dies were destroyed in 1924."

http://www.benchmarkcoincatalogue.com/#85
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Not sure who wrote this but its from a Forum.
"I might be able to help.
The earliest reference to the 1919.//. that I can find is in John Deans Australian Coin Varieties Catalogue (1st Ed.). On page 38 at P19G the description is: Melbourne. Dot under bottom scroll, dot above top scroll. English die obverse, curved-base letters reverse. (Dots occur in various positions.) This coin is regarded by many collectors to be a false variety. The top dot is almost always surrounded by depression, as if a punch-die has been used. The 1920 double-dot variety bears no resemblance, nor is there any other mint pellet in the Australian series that bears resemblance. It is, despite these doubts, a very rare coin and necessary to a complete collection.
The prices were 140/- for F, 200/- for VF, 15 quid for EF and 25 quid for UNC.
Kersting (1965) includes the 1919.//. in his list at 4, 6 and 10 quid for F, VF and Uncirc respectively. I'm fairly certain that Kersting was published some months after Dean.
J Hunt Deacon (1961 and earlier) didn't mention the double dot for 1919 so it is safe to assume that the variety was unknown (or dismissed as a false variety?) to collectors until after early 1960s.
I have looked in catalogues such as Spinks (I looked at every issue from 1919 to the late '20s) and old coin society journals (NSW and SA) to find any reference to the variety and came up with nothing to indicate that it was even suggested as a possible variety. J Hunt Deacon was the doyen of Australian coins and a member of all the societies for decades (so I presume that any unidentified varieties would soon come to his attention)."
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After a lot of stuffing around i got a copy of the Coin Guide,2nd edition,from the National Library.I had to tick a box saying it was for personal use so i better not download the whole Booklet here just yet.
Interesting that the author only lists one grade for the 1919 DD and in a foot note at the end of the Penny section says he has never seen an eg.This is proably correct as when i found mine in 62/63 it was a rare Coin,2nd only to a 1930 Penny and valued several times that of the 1925.The 1931 Dropped Indian was not included in most Books & guides at the time.
The folowing are a few notes from a family friend that was involved in Stamps/Coins at the time and from what i've read and been told.They started hitting the Sydney market in some sort of numbers from the early 1960's and by 1966 they were a reconized variety with the price dropping as more were found,by the end of the Decade the 1925 had caught and passed it value as pre-Decimal feeding frenzy started.There would be a story as to why they were ignored for so long and the numbers turning up in the Sydney market in the early 1960's point to a large collection or hoard being dispersed.This was not unusual at the time as the Menzies/Holt credit squeeze caused major dramas for Families and small Business's and nearly caused GM to walk out of Australia.Dealers had a field day as Stamp & Coin collections were cashed in,one Author nicknamed the period "Penny Drawfulls" as households spent loose change to survive as the Reseve Banks decision to stop Banks lending trickled down to the average Family.





Its also included in Derek Fosters 2nd edition ,no date but it was printed in 1964 or 65,they were a mainstream Coin Australia wide by then.



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[autocoupler]

Excellent info Basil, thanks for posting. Interesting, the book value of a 1919 double dot graded VF in 1961 was 20 quid, roughly equates to $1000 today I'm guessing. By 1965 the value had halved to 10 quid.

[Basilstate]

Excellent info Basil, thanks for posting. Interesting, the book value of a 1919 double dot graded VF in 1961 was 20 quid, roughly equates to $1000 today I'm guessing. By 1965 the value had halved to 10 quid.

Hi Auto,yes valuable Coin in the early 1960's,only second to the 1930 up until 1965/66 when they were being found in numbers.
The claim from researchers that the Sydney Mint had 3 1919 DD Dies supplied from Melb. was around in the 1960's but i also read that only 1 was used.

I had some good offers for my paper run coin but my Mother wouldn't let me sell it.
Dealer near central Railway took a photo of it when i told him i can't sell it,first one he had seen but did know of its existence.
He had one of those vertical cameras that slid up and down on rails,high tech for 1962/63.

[pra666]

The false double dot has been removed by PCGS.
The important thing to consider is whether a dot appears due to a deliberate change to a die or whether it is die to die damage in the form of a small die chip or rust spot. If we look at all the different 1919 dot below pennies it is clear that they have two features. First they have the curved base lettering known to be from the "cloned" 1919 dated dies [the dot is believed to be an indicator of this] and the dots, while not appearing in the same position and not identical in size, are all extremely large, much large than most of the dots seen on the 1920 pennies.
The upper dot on the true 1919 double dot appears to be repunched, i.e. two dots overlapping and in slightly different positions.
The apparent dot above the top scroll on the false double dot is tiny and nothing like the dots on 1919 pennies. On closeup pictures looks like a die chip and has been referred to as that or as a rust spot in the past, with that die cracking explicitly mentioned (such as Mike Locke's penny variety page or Paul Holland's article in JNAA #28, 2017).

[Basilstate]

:welcome:

Hi Pra...your comments are fairly close to the opinions/views i grew up with as regards the 1919 DD.

The 'false' DD was ID as a Die Chip back in the late 1960's when they first appeared,AFAIK it was only a few Dealers trying to make a fast buck that claimed they were 1919 DD.They(genuine coin) were an expensive Penny back then.

[gweidion]

I find these variations interesting, like the VAMs for Morgan dollars but overall they seem to be for niche collectors. I have little to no interest in Penny collecting. I do like Morgan dollars but wouldn't be prepared to pay much for a variation, certainly not hundreds of dollars. At least Morgan dollars are 80% silver as opposed to less than a cent's worth of bronze. I know which I'd prefer to have.

[Basilstate]

It just personal choice Gweidon,everyone has their own likes and dislikes as regards hobbies.

I collected Pennies and halves as a School boy in the early 1960's as that's all i could afford,it continued into my adult life and expanded into all Aust. Pre-Dec. Coins.
I purchased RAM Silver in the 1980/90's when funds allowed but major culture shock when Ebay started in Oz.,they were selling for less than i paid for them so that ended my Silver buying which continues,with some exceptions,to today.

Anyway enough waffling,back to the 1919 DD Penny,iconic Aust. coin.

[nealeffendi]

I doubt that there was a horde of 1919 .//. that was released in the early 1960s that made them not so rare. For one thing it is darn hard to find one in VG grade, most are below VG and once you get to F grade they are almost non existent. Now a horde would need either mint rolls (Uncirculated) stuck away when issued (not possible as they are worn) or some crazy person going through millions of pennies to pull them out  and then perhaps they held them until they passed and they were banked by their relatives (highly unlikely).
Or just like the /./ English 1920 nobody was looking for them and now in the past 20 years a few dozen have been found. It is now the situation that in grades above VF there are probably more /./ English 1920 pennies than 1919 .//. PCGS has graded 11 of the 1920 /./ English in VF35 to 58 but only 10 1919 .//. In VF35 to AU55.

[Basilstate]

I doubt that there was a horde of 1919 .//. that was released in the early 1960s that made them not so rare

Hi Neale,something happened in the early 1960's to cause these pennies to be ID..Remember the search for the 1930(and the 1925 but thats another story) was going on since 1944/45,hard to believe dealers/societies/numismatists etc would not have ID it back then.
Agreed most 1919 DD are heavily circulated and dispersing of a horde is a long strectch but it coincides with the announcement of the date for the conversion to Decimal currency.At the same time the Menzies/Holt credit squeeze was going on so it may be thousands of people cashing in their coins at that time.
Remember the Decimal currency committee was set up in 1958(59?),the smarties were sorting coins daily before the public became aware when the date for conversion was announced in 1961(62?) and made front page news.

Coin variety i've been interested in since i was 11 or 12 years old so happy to read any opinions/views on its history.

Cheers all.

[pra666]

The claim from researchers that the Sydney Mint had 3 1919 DD Dies supplied from Melb. was around in the 1960's but i also read that only 1 was used.

Thanks Basil, that is interesting. I now see where this comes from. The claim is not supported by the evidence. John Sharples' reasoning is as follows: Three penny die pairs with reverse dated 1919 were sent to Sydney. These were all "cloned dies" so had the dot below scroll, but not necessarily the double dot. These would have the English obverse as the Indian obverses had not yet arrived. The first pennies minted in Sydney were dated 1920 with dot above bottom scroll and Indian obverse. Now if the three English obverse dies and the 1919 dated dies were used at any stage, they would have been put in the presses whenever a die failed, i.e. at random. This means we would see 1919 (dot below or double dot) paired with Indian obverse (as there were many more Indian obverse dies at Sydney than the three English dies), which we do not. Also we should see a substantial quantity of 1920 dot above with English obverse. While those exist, they are rare, and unlikely to have originated in Sydney.

[nealeffendi]

Couple of quick points. The Sharples research was abysmal. I counted over 30 errors in just one research paper. As for the 1920 /./ English it was almost certainly a Perth striking. Its rim is nothing like the wushu washy flat rim that the standard /./ Indian that Sydney was capable of. Plus most of the finds have been in WA including the Raynes discovery 20 years ago. So struck in Perth, released locally and remained mostly there without many crossing the Nullabor to the Eastern states.

[Basilstate]

Couple of quick points. The Sharples research was abysmal. I counted over 30 errors in just one research paper. 

Yes Neal,but the rearchers were working off poor records often decades later,the Sydney Mint was renowned for having sloppy records and illegal activity.Melb. was probably better but their mintage figures were often doubted by 1960 researchers.

As regards the 1919 DD there was an article  written in the late 1960's,i was still at School so around 1967/68,where the Author stated the Coin was most likely minted in Sydney with only 1 Die used. 
My memory is hazy but i'm sure it wasn't in a book,probably a Numismatic Newsletter or Magazine,but even if i can find it again it doesn't mean the author is correct with his assumptions.

I agree the DOLS English is most likely Perth as there is a record(in another Thread on here) of the Dies they received from Melb.Not a great leap to assume someone added a Dot for the trial run.

[Basilstate]

The claim from researchers that the Sydney Mint had 3 1919 DD Dies supplied from Melb. was around in the 1960's but i also read that only 1 was used.

Thanks Basil, that is interesting. I now see where this comes from. The claim is not supported by the evidence. John Sharples' reasoning is as follows: Three penny die pairs with reverse dated 1919 were sent to Sydney. These were all "cloned dies" so had the dot below scroll, but not necessarily the double dot. These would have the English obverse as the Indian obverses had not yet arrived. The first pennies minted in Sydney were dated 1920 with dot above bottom scroll and Indian obverse. Now if the three English obverse dies and the 1919 dated dies were used at any stage, they would have been put in the presses whenever a die failed, i.e. at random. This means we would see 1919 (dot below or double dot) paired with Indian obverse (as there were many more Indian obverse dies at Sydney than the three English dies), which we do not. Also we should see a substantial quantity of 1920 dot above with English obverse. While those exist, they are rare, and unlikely to have originated in Sydney.

Hi pra...thanks for Info. but i read where the lower dot on the 1919 DD is a large misaligned one off and doesn't relate to other 'dot under' Melb reverses of the time.That applies to the top dot as well,the dots have no correlation to 1919 Reverse Dies or the later 1920 Reverse Dots.Seems to be some sort of a punch on 1919 Melb.'no dot' Dies.
Obviously i'm no expert on all this but have followed the various  views/therories/opinions on this Coin over the years.

As an aside back in the 1960's,sorry to keep going there but its when i had a passion for coins during the leadup to Decimal currency,there was an attempt by researchers to find exactly when the ship from India docked in Melb,even searching for the Bill of Lading. 
I can't remember where it all lead other than 2 guys arguing about it at our Coin Club meeting but IIRC Melb. did not receive,according to their records,the Dies until early 1920.

Edit..found the Sharples PDF,page 9-10 on the Oz Coins 1919-1924 

https://numismatics.org.au/naa-authors/john-sharples/

[Basilstate]

While i have the 1919 DD folder out i'll throw these Pics. from John Gartner's 1964 Coin catalogue book up for future reference.
This book was the Bible,probably because of John's Philatelic community standing, for many Coin dealers,at least in Sydney,as we headed to Decimal currency and the surge of interest in Oz pre-dec coins.

This was the peak of the 1919 DD interest/popularity,1962/63/64/65, 2nd only to the 1930 Penny in value but started to slide when more egs. were found.
John listed it as Melb. Mint,it wasn't until the late 1960's,AFAIK, that the Sydney Mint theory evolved.  

As an aside John was one of the few from that period that cast major doubts on the Melb. mintage figures,the 1925 Penny was one coin in his sights,scarce but not rare,plenty around compared to the 32 Florin or 33 Shilling.
Apparently the Melb. Mint didn't have counters on their machines,i still can't believe that claim,and relied on the weight of minted coins to estimate mintage to the nearest 1000.

[Mister T]

Interesting that the scarce 1942 and 1943 varieties were so highly priced. I guess they were new discoveries too.