1933 Overdate Shilling

[Mister T]

What's under the left of the crossbar of the 4.

[echidna]

Looks interesting but the gunk/discolouration makes it difficult to see whats going on.

[Basilstate]

Yes,not my coin but i gave it a good 'bath' anyway but those stains seem ingrained.
Will post better Pics.if i can borrow a Pro. scope down the track.

[Basilstate]

Another Coin from the same owner as the 6d,this time its a Shilling with what looks the residue of a 3 at the top of the 4.
I only have 6 or 7 1934 Shillings so this is the first eg i've seen with doubling of the date.

[echidna]

Remnants of the underlying 3 are visible.

The 1933/4 overdate shilling is a real coin.
What is needed though is an example with a big overdate similar to the threepence.

[nealeffendi]

Hi Basilstate, they are great images of the date on the sixpence. I'm a bit concerned however with the type; it is the standard (narrow) version of the date and the examples that Echidna has posted were from the scarcer wide date variety. Both of my examples are from the same die as Echidnas (has the die marker line in the scroll betwixt CE and AU) and as yet no other die has been confirmed.
So has Echidna or anyone had a good look at their standard '34s to see if signs of an overdate exist on any of them as well?
And another thing.... what concerns me about the wide date version is the fact that it is a wide date, yet the "thing" that suggests the upper left edge of a 3 would have required the 3 (or a 2 if 1932) to have been a really wide date, so a really wide date 1933 (or 1932) as the underlying die.
Thoughts?

[Basilstate]

Hi Neal,never took much of an interest in overdates until i got my first USB scope about 15 years ago so not much knowledge from my side of things.There was a Thread on one of the Oz Stamp Forums back then on the 1933 half O/D that got my attention so have been looking at all depression era Oz. Coins since then.
As far as the 6d goes i'll have to try and clean up the 4 as there seems to be something under there but may just be artifacts. I'll throw up scans of the Rev/Obv and add them to my post for future reference.

With regards to the Shilling O/D,as i posted before,it was ID back in the 1960's and regarded as a variety back then,at least to Sydney-centric collectors,but seems to have faded away since then.The first reference(that i noticed) to it since then was a Gold Coast(Brisbane?) Pawn Broker posting on the Coin Community Forum(not showing in the search function) a few years back but one of the Posters stated it was discounted as a variety by researchers.

[nealeffendi]

Hi Basilstate, after posting my last reply I found something that made me realise I might be wrong. I looked at the MS63 1933 shilling that Eric has listed and it struck me that the final 3 was punched in both at a wonky angle and too far right (too close to the right trefoil).  So if they can do that to the '33 shilling then the same would apply to a '33 (or '32) sixpence leaving the remnant to the right of where it should be had they done a pleasing job.
And of course if they suck at punching digits in they probably also suck at removing old digits (making us silly coin nuts thrilled to hunt for those defects 80 years later :winkextra:)
Like most here I had not even known about the sixpence overdate until echidna educated us a few months back, so like most I had not looked for the variety and like most I still have not looked closely at the standard narrow '34. So it may well exist.
Can anybody answer if the wide or the narrow variety was struck first? I'm just guessing the wide was and would account for the mint using up their leftover gear from 1933.

[Basilstate]

Like most here I had not even known about the sixpence overdate until echidna educated us a few months back, so like most I had not looked for the variety and like most I still have not looked closely at the standard narrow '34. So it may well exist.
Can anybody answer if the wide or the narrow variety was struck first? I'm just guessing the wide was and would account for the mint using up their leftover gear from 1933.

I have no idea regarding what Coins were struck first Neal,its wonder Researchers,beside Briggs i guess,haven't delved indepth into the Melbourne Mints activities/shenanigians during the Depression,they seemed to have been fixated with the 1930 Penny.
Yes,i have never heard/seen anything on the 34 6d o/d until Echi posted,the 3d got all the attention but i had heard  of the Shilling overdate and also read articles over the years where the Authors discounted it as a variety,just hub/die artifacts,at least they didn't call it 'spalling',LOL.
The thing that baffles our little group up here is why the Mint concentrated so much time/resources into the 1933 Half,i have well over 20 different final 3's and still counting.The only reason i can come up with is they were trying to perfect the adaption of the previous year(s) Hubs/Dies or training staff do do the same,back then there was no end in sight of the Depression and the War drums were beating in Europe.

[echidna]

About one in three or four "Overdates" has this dot, from what I've seen.

Maybe wishful thinking but this example maybe has something extra just to the bottom left of the 4.
Dont have it yet - still in the pipeline from the US...

[fred lever]

Re the 1934 "overdate" shilling.
CAB has published a little essay I did about the 34 and the mess created during hubbing to date change tooling.
September 2021 v24 no8, page 10.
In this I had a closer look at a tiny sample of coins and find an endless number of deviations around the date.
I also point out these are not overdates, there is only one overdate coin in the whole pre-decimal series the 22/21 3d.
With the advent of cheap USB scopes it is easy for collectors to examine the hubbing work done and display this on nice big screens.
I have only a dozen or so 34 shillings to look at, collectively you guys must have thousands so would have a better go at listing the individual dies by the deviations possibly in the way I started in the essay.
Cheers, Fred.

[Basilstate]

Re the 1934 "overdate" shilling.

I also point out these are not overdates, there is only one overdate coin in the whole pre-decimal series the 22/21 3d.
With the advent of cheap USB scopes it is easy for collectors to examine the hubbing work done and display this on nice big screens.

Cheers, Fred.

Fred...2 different Mint 'Bosses',40 years apart,said the 22/21 3d was 'spalling' so they must be correct...LOL.

Good to see you posting...

[nealeffendi]

I don't take Hendersons dismissal of the 22/21 seriously. He based  his dismissal on the basis that a branch of the Royal Mint wouldn't make such poor job. Totally ignoring all the overdates struck in London or the existence of any number of badly hub doubled coins, ground off trefoils and horribly degenerated dies that they kept using.
Fred though is right about all the rest not being true overdates; but only if you exclude all the dies created by imperfect dedating.

[Basilstate]

Fred though is right about all the rest not being true overdates; but only if you exclude all the dies created by imperfect dedating.

Brave decision Minister,i can see where Fred is coming from but for the last 100 years in Australia,to avoid ending in a padded room,Numismatists & Researchers have regarded these Coins as 'Overdated Dies',obviously how these Dies became óverdated before being used to strike the Coin is complex depending on Mint procedures in that era and the skill,or lack of it, of Mint Staff.
There is only one word for Melb. Mint procedures during the 1920/30's and that is slack,poor Record keeping and lack of skilled staff was only the start..

I have a great article ,that i can't find at the moment,may be on my XP Computer,on Overdates by a American writer that went into depth on how they occurred and used several Oz. Coins as egs.,including the 1930 penny which was a bit of a shock back then in the 1990's.
If i find it i will post but this Link is similar without the Oz. examples.

https://bestcoin.com/OverDate-Error-Coins.htm

[nealeffendi]

Interesting article Basilstate, learnt a new word; "Galvano". Were galvanos used in any stage either here or in London for producing any of our pre decimals? They seem to be a sort of electrotype used in conjunction with the pantograph to make masters.