1831 British Penny with Purposeful Die Gouges???

Windycity

At first glance this simply looked like graffiti but upon closer examination these lines are raised. Had to be part of the die and had to be done on purpose. Anyone familiar with such die gouges?

ajaan

That is cool.

bronzemat

Thats pretty neat.

asheland

Interesting!

lordmarcovan

Indeed. Interesting, though I haven't got any clue what the story is there.



Could this have been done outside the mint with discarded dies? Doesn't seem likely (you'd think the mint would've cut all the way across a discarded die, unless someone was squeamish about attacking the king's portrait?) But it's hard to imagine what other scenario could have been in play.

coinkat

Very Interesting-Two things come to immediately come to mind:

The die was cancelled- so was this sort of a Royal Mint trial strike to see how the cancellation worked? Or was this done outside the Royal Mint?

Just curious- have you weighed the coin and compared it another 1831 dated penny?

I tend to doubt the Royal Mint would have allowed the coin into circulation, but perhaps a Mint employee... well decided they would personally see to it that it was destroyed...

Windycity

Posted images on VAMWorld where members are very educated about the minting process and dies. The general opinion there is the coin was "knifed" which means post mint damage where someone moved the metal skillfully with a knife which pushed the metal up and the some circulation wear smooths the impression made by the knife making it appear to be a raised die gouge. That explanation make more sense than die damage. Again, welcome more opinions. Pat

coinkat

That sounds reasonable...