Calling Canada coin collectors

Blackhawk

Before I left the hobby nearly a decade ago, there were examples of a clear rppm (repunched mint mark) on the 1872-H canada silver 5 cents that were being shown - I myself had one at the time. Under magnification, it appears to be a large H over a small H punch. At the time, despite the protests by some Canadian “power” collectors that this was not actually a real RPPM, I noticed that if one came up for sale on ebay, it would sell for strong money (multiples of normal), even if not identified as a repunch in the auction, and sometimes to the same characters who were contending that it was not a mint error.

Just taking a look around, especially at websites devoting themselves to Canadian coins...those that show every variety and die crack, I found that the 1872-H/h RPPM is still not listed. It’s kind of a weird deal, and the whole situation makes me think that the tail wags the dog in Canadian numismatics. Take a look for (if you can find an example online), and at, close-ups of the RPPM. I find it hard to believe that this is being ignored - it would be as if the US coin collecting community, through “advice” from big named and established collectors and dealers, decided (at least for public consumption), that there is no such thing as a three legged buffalo nickel.

It makes me think that when the right people buy up enough examples, a new “discovery” will be found and listed in the reference books, but they won’t be quite as reasonable at that point.

What are your thoughts on this? Remember, there are detailed photos on the RPPM...what are the current explanations of what sure appears to be a smaller mint mark under a larger one?

If you have any of these, and don’t believe them to be RPMM, even though I’m mostly out of the hobby, I’m a buyer at a price slightly over normal coins of the date. Why not sell now? No use in holding on to normally struck coins when you could get a little premiun for them. lol

bronco2078

Sounds Juicy

It is a smaller market so maybe easier to corner a slice of it.

syl

There are a number of Heaton (H) coins minted for the Royal of different denominations. Many of them had the mintmarks repunched or just hand-punched to begin with. Some years have ALL the mintmarks repunched (from the hub) or large/small. As such, they are not a variety, since they all looked like that. 1872 was one of the commonest dates struck, at 2 million, for years to come. Your theory about some kind of iregularity doesn't hold water. It's like the folks that call the placement of the 1898H large cent being worth more because of its placement. The H's were all handpunched into the working dies so, at about 60-70,000 coins per die, there are 15 different places, specifically, for the H to be.... high, low, left, right, canted, etc.

bosox

Not my series at all, so I can offer nothing specifically about 1872-H five cent pieces.

Having studied the large cents in detail, I can state that in most years the mintmark was punched into the matrix. 1882 cents, for example, had the mintmark double punched into the matrix, so every die and every coin has a double punched mintmark.

I will also offer that the Victorian silver series have not really been studied in the same detail as have the one cents. The expense of the silver coins gets in the way of serious die studies.

YQQ

will check mine tomorrow.
but Syl,s comment holds a lot of water...

Blackhawk

Syl’s explanation sounds plausible until you see that other repunched Heaton mintmarked Canadian coin varieties are listed in Canadian guides. Come to speak of it, what about all those 1859 Canadian cent date repunch varieties...Victorian coins one and all, and apparently all those digits were hand punched, and much of the mintage has some sort of repunch...and a large mintage too.

Maybe the Canadian dealers haven’t identified the 1872-H/h five cent as a variety yet. 🤔

bosox

I think we are all saying the same thing, more or less. In Canadian Victorian coinage, some things (like the 1882-H cent mintmark) were re-punched into the matrix, so all the dies and resulting coins had the same re-punched feature and are not varieties. Other things were manually re-punched into the dies, so each die was different and they are varieties (such as the re-punched 9's on the 1859 cents), be they minor or major. Not having studied them, I have no idea which category an 1872-H five cent falls into.

syl

I have reread my initial post to this thread and I did not mean to be caustic or accusatory. If I did, I apologize. I am not a 5 cent silver or 10 cent person .. I, like Bosox above, am a large cent variety peron. But the rationale behind mintmark and digit/letter repunches or overpunches still holds true. As Bosox states above, many of these "corrections" happened at the matrix, which made the hub modified. As such, EVERY working die and coin would look the same ... overpunched, repunched or re-engraved. There would be no "variety" since they were all the same. Historically, varieties get listed because of their scarcity or amount of offset ... and, as such, there is a price differential. If they all look the same, then there is no variety or price differential. Anything done by hand to a working die took 2-4 whacks with the hammer and punch, sometimes each punch separated by separate periods of hardening of the punch and annealing of the die .. maybe days apart. Grabbing the wrong punch (size or font) or not putting whacks 2, 3, or 4 EXACTLY on top of the initial strike caused some type of offset. If that die didn't produce many coins, then that variety would be scarce and, probably, more costly.

Maybe a 5 or 10 cent silver variety collector needs to weigh in concerning scarcities from the Heaton dies furnished to the Royal Mint. Maybe the mintmaster didn't like what they got from Heaton and modified/corrected what Heaton sent. Maybe Heaton saw problems and modified them themselves. But "what gets listed and what doesn't" is usually based upon scarcity, not minute differences or, with no differences at all due to the same hub, no listing at all. If every date of every denomination or every difference for each of the coins from 1858 til now were to be published, the book (or books) would be too heavy to lift.

Blackhawk

Found in my coin photos. Pardon the pics...the close-ups were taken through my microscope.

bosox

Interesting. Just looking at the three photos here (the photos expand to see them better):

https://www.pcgs.com/valueview/victoria-1858-1901/1872-h-5c/4319?sn=30959&h=pop

I would say the mintmarks were re-punched (strengthened) by hand in some of the dies, so each working die was different. All three of the PCGS coins are from different dies and all three have differently re-punched mintmarks, including one like yours. Since all three have a re-punched mintmark, it raises the questions in my mind, "how many of the 1872-H dies had the mintmark re-punched?" and "which dies are the scarcer ones?"

Some collectors collect by die and will get into these re-punched mintmarks, as they seem (based on three coins) to be unique to the die. Based on my experience with cents, most collectors will not, particularly if most of the dies had re-punched mintmarks and because an 1872-H five cent in EF costs $100 (not $15 like many of the cents).

It is kind of like the 1898-H cents, which had the mintmark punched into each die by hand; the mintmark is in a slightly different place on each die. A very small handful of collectors collect 1898-H cents by die. The vast majority do not and mintmark placement plays no meaningful part in their price.

Again I haven't studied these coins. I have just looked at these three and yours.

YQQ

Ok fellows check these images. very interesting conversation and no doubt, Syl and Bosox are experts.
Sorry the Images are not better. But will try next day or so to come up with better.
the H is positively at least doubled, if not tripled
wondering why I missed that originally before it went to CCCS to be "packaged"
Geeee, I better check all the other 5 and 10s with an H and maybe quarters too.

in the meantime, play with these.

Blackhawk

I don’t know if they still do, but Charlton Canadian Coin guides had/have a section at the back which rotates through various issues of Canadian coinage, and shows/lists the identified varieties. Perhaps nobody had ever done a study of the 1872-H fishscale...that would explain why there’s not much information available to the average collector as far as varieties go,

1960NYGiants

The 2010 issue listed some silver 5c varieties but no repunched 1872's - the author(s) stated that they couldn't list everything do to limited # of pages allowed by the publisher. The 2019 issue doesn't list any RP H for 1872 either.

YQQ

Blackhawk,
re: 5 cent varieties in Carlton 5 cent section.
its funny I think, but on page 273 of that issue, I believe there is a Image of the double H. But, no mention of it.
it does say that the location of the MM is random.
Yesterday I spoke to a fellow in England who has one 4 sale. He said he would join this forum.

YQQ

Gene,
have a look at it and comment please.
I am not sure, but I seem to remember that Scott Cornwell (ICCS) took the pix.