British Victorian RARIRITY PENNY -1860 TB/BB (mixed dies) Require to see others?

petitioncrown

1860 TOOTHED BORDER/BEADED BORDER PENNY

This is a very rare variety of penny where the obverse has a toothed border, but the reverse has a beaded border.

RMW

Quite the rarity there! Congrats!

asheland

Awesome!

JCMhouston

Lovely example, I don't have a tb/bb but do have a beaded border obverse and reverse is which is fairly scarce in it's own right.

zski123

Just purchased one PCGS MS62 BN. Your coin looks RD/BN. Very nice!

asheland

@zski123 to the forums.

zski123

@asheland Thanks!!

RMW

I only have the beaded border example, shown here but not submitted for grading yet (it will be soon).
I assume that I have the "common die pairing"( rare enough). Can someone confirm that, or (I hope) that it is a more rare die pairing?
And what grade do you think it is. Watch out for the die clashing which can be mistaken for marks,although there are some.
The mule TB/BB is a great rarity.

zski123

Just came today! I was lucky to get this one.

RMW

I REALLY hope I'm wrong.
REALLY.
I think the PCGS example is toothed on both sides. Compare the tooths to the beaded and mule examples. On the beaded ones you see a space between the beads and the rim.
Compare that to the last example.
The mule is notoriously tough to identify. I almost got caught myself. My advisor corrected me. In my case the graders got it wrong too.
Please get it checked.
I hope I'm wrong.

1960NYGiants

The OP is a 1d, zski123's is a 1/4d. The 1/4d looks tb/tb to me too.

RMW

Wasn't Sam Huff on the 60 Giants?
I didn't notice it was a farthing but the beaded parts near the rim are Round or close to round and I don't see that on the farthing , let alone the separation from the rim.

7Jaguars

I got beaten to the punch as I was going to say that many farthings such as this specimen are not as labelled. IMO TB/TB as well.

zski123

Not a good picture obviously.

RMW

Previous pics and this one are good enough to question the opinion of the grading services. They are far from infallible when it comes to non-US varieties , and this is an example, in my opinion. I would get it checked out by an independent expert in British Coinage who knows about this variety.
I would also do it quickly if you have an opportunity to get a refund, should I and others be right.

zski123

Thank you for the input and potential heads up. I sent magnified photos to a London dealer along and am taking it to a local dealer this evening. I'll let you know what I find. Thanks again!

RMW

Im glad we could help you out.
If you dont get anywhere, please let me know and pm me and I can get a professional opinion.

zski123

Thanks again. I did take the coin to a dealer in South Florida. He had one of his customers who has a degree of expertise look at it. He was confident it is indeed a mule. I'm still a little leery given I didn't speak to him directly. Some of the support he stated aside of from beads was the number on the reverse vs. obverse. I asked the dealer what specifically is the "tell-tale" count and he didn't bother to ask!

I have a dealer in London looking tomorrow and PCGS reviewing once again. It was a very expensive purchase for a non-mule and a great find if it is a mule. Hoping for the best but the worst I'll do is a refund and eat a little shipping cost.

RMW

I'm almost certain now it's not a mule but can always be proven wrong

7Jaguars

There is just not the appropriate separation of putative beads. Really you need to compare to one with actual beading. There is variance as always in the teeth, which are somewhat inexactly applied.

RMW

1860 was the first year Britain began mass producing coins in bronze. They were previously much more copper based .
They had a lot of problems with the dies that year and so there are all kinds of die combinations which exist, all with subtle differences from each other. The major die types are described in the British Standard Catalog , issued by Spink annually . In there, you can see what a proper beaded variety looks like. This coin doesn't make it in my opinion and would be of minimal value if TB/TB.

wybrit

I hate to tell you this, but that MS62BN farthing is only TB/TB. This is a real mule:

The recent Goldberg sale also had a real mule piece.

The TPGs are really hit or miss on this variety. I have had to notify auction houses that they are selling something they don't have when it comes to this.

7Jaguars

Thanks for the picture!

I don't know who the local expert they referred to was, but not expert in this one....

RMW

This one also looks like a mule, but from perhaps different dies from the first one, as some of the beads on the reverse are right up against the rim, wheras the beads on the first one are not.

RMW

Here is a BB?BB farthing.
Notice how on the TB the denticles look square or close to it, and attached to the rim, wheras the beads are oval to circular and away from the rim for the most part.

The Ms 62 is not like this.

wybrit

Definitely. There is clear separation of the beads from the rim. You will see this on all true farthing mules as well.

I'm not "the" expert on this, but now that I have a couple of real mules, I don't think it's that difficult of a call to make.

RMW

So zski123, I think you should ask for a refund.
TPG are not infallible when it comes to non US varieties .

Hussulo

Unfortunately my vote would be non mule as well. Im pretty certain one miss labeled one has poped up on this forum in the past, I don't think this would be the first time it has happened. Im not sure if the TGP would refund a buyer or if they would put it down to a mechanical error, but in the case of such coins it can make a huge d