High priced 1931 drop 1 London Penny?

[Basil]

I see he has the 31 Dropped 1 Indian for $6,500.

https://www.wynyardcoins.com.au/shop/australian-pre-decimal-coins/pennies/australia-1931-dropped-1-indian-obverse-penny-variety-xf40/

[Mister T]

Yeah that's one of them - the other two were cheaper.

[Basil]

Ok,i'll try and find them on his site.
When i was at School in the 1960's many of the Sydney Dealers had them for sale so i guess there were 10 or 12 around at any one time but they kinda disappeared post 1970's with the 1930 Penny attracting all the attention,making a comeback now with the Internet.
IIRC in the early 1960's they were around A£50,the same cost as a 1930 so an expensive Coin,but as i posted before the 1930 started doubling in price from the mid 1960's on so the 1931 Dropped Indian seemed to lose interest with the average collector from then on.

[Mister T]

I saw them in what catalogue they publish.
But yeah, I guess it wasn't in Renniks so the dropped 1 Indian die faded.

[fred lever]

Yeah I suspect you guys are right about the Renniks killing quite a few rare coins.
I've been rabbiting on for years about the 31 indian not being in the  catelogs, you can all go and wonder why we have this ingrained brain washing in the coin industry:
if its not in the ( pick your choice of book) catelog it doesn't exist!

Goldie and Basil are correct, the older cats DID have the indian drop 1 31 in them.
Both Andrew Crellin and I have had a bash at describing how the coin came about, you have all read Andrews web site and my articles in CAB.
Most of our research is based on Mulletts notes on the die progressions from 1929 to 1932.
Regarding the number existing, I think a few more than realised, Klause Ford  has nearly always had one on hand for sale, he knows what they are!
I have one, theres a couple for sale elsewhere so all we have to do is find the other 15!! I'm joking.......
When you read about the disaster the mint was having trying to get hubs and dies working for any length of time without cracking its possible only a couple of hundred got to the out bag into circulation with possibly only 20 or 30 known in collections. Yes I reckon there may be some in those big barrels of copper or unrecognised in collections................if its not in your catleog it does not exist!.......................................anybodies estimate is as good as mine.

Fred.

[nealeffendi]

Bob Roberts told me about a decade ago that he had handled 50 of them over the years. The late Ian McConnelly had 2 (picked cheaply from dealers books), I have 1, Fred has 1 etc etc so they are rare (very rare), but not extremely rare. See at least 10 each year for sale, maybe a bit rarer than the 22/21.

[Basil]

'Echidna' has at least one as well and Posted Pics. on this Forum but the links are broken.
Wynyard Coins had 3 earlier this Month so they are out there.

[Basil]

This one is for sale on Ebay but has been ID by one of the Forums Dealers as an altered date.
All genuine Coins(so far) have a dot after the 'S' in 'GEORGIVS'.
Jungle out there.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1931-Penny-Indian-Die-Dropped-1-Australian-Penny-EF-aUNC/192329446262?_trkparms=aid%3D444000%26algo%3DSOI.DEFAULT

[Basil]

3 Genuine Coins. Die Marker after 'S'.

[Basil]

3 Genuine Coins. Die Marker after 'S'.

[fred lever]

This is of course of interest to me having read so much and done so much work on the 1930/31 dies and punches.
I'm not taking sides just interested.
I took the ebay  image of the coin in question and applied the same test procedure as I use with 1930's to determine which reverse hub it appears to be from. I count 174 rim beads. This, and the alinement of the ALIA indicates the coin has a 174 bead London die derivation.
So, that leads to a couple of questions.
1/ If the coin is a 'altered date' as suggested WHAT was the date on it before alteration?
Note that as far as I can work  out the "London" style hub 174 bead was only used on 1924, 1927, 1929 and 1930 dated dies. (and the 1931drop1!)
So take a pick from those dates and tell me which was it before altering?

2/ The obverse. There were two "Indian" dies noted to be used in the "1931" pressings (A2B16-107 and A2B16-108) so possibly 2 types of Indian pressing may be seen. Also the die marker, the dot next to the S,  is a PIT in the die that may or may not have always been there. Therefore a statement that "all drop 1 reverse, Indian  obverses have the die marker" wont stand up in court. Some or most may have the marker, but not ALL. The only way you can say ALL, is to view EVERY coin to confirm that.

So, if a coin is to be called suspect because it may be "date altered"
1/ I want to know what date coin it was before that and how was the alteration done?
2/ Not all drop1 L+I may have the Sdot on the obverse, so that is not a proof of fakeness.

Somebody help me please.
Comments?

Fred.

[Basil]

Somebody help me please.
Comments?

Fred.

Its above my pay grade Fred !,all i can say is that so far all genuine Coins have the Dot after 'S' so i guess Dealers over the years have assumed that the original Obverse Die had this Pit/Chip when they started stamping the dropped 1 Reverse out.

Interesting Coin.

[Unicorn]

Do the curved base letters assist in that query Fred?

[fred lever]

Hi Uni, i'm always carefull with those curved base letters and linking them with anything.
The whole problem is to understand WHY the bases curve and IF this occurs during the formation of 1/ the pressing of a hub from the master punch (assuming the master punch has flat bases) or, the pressing of coining die from a hub, OR the pressing of coins from the die!!
I have coins that have both flat and curved feet on the one coin!
Some very learned people have demonstrated HOW the curving does occur (Saxton) and do point out that curving can occur during the coin strike.
Thus we can have some coins of a one type with flat, slightly curved or real curved depending on how lots of things were happening at the time.
I reckon that curving happens for all sorts of reasons at all stages of a punch/hub/die/strike progression and its dangerous to say something like all coins of a type WILL or Must have a certain type of foot.

If a Master punch had curved feet then sure ALL the derivative hubs and dies WILL  be curvy (unless by some miracle you get straightening!) but that's about as close as you can get to saying ALL of a type of coin WILL be curved/flat. Someday some researcher will do an intensive look at the subject but that needs looking at 10's thousands of strikings to get statistical satisfactory findings, not look at 100 coins and guess.

Fred.

[Unicorn]

Thanks for the Fred. There's certainly plenty of food for thought.