Here's an interesting coin I picked up recently--a Norway 1932 1 Ore. What got my attention was the curl jutting from beyond the "3"--not normally seen on this date or underneath any other 3 digits. I immediately wondered if it was an overdate. Overdates for Norway's coins aren't well-documented, so I made a detailed photographic study to understand what this might be. A. and b. are two shots of the date area under different lighting conditions. In both pictures, the mark under the 3 is pretty bold, although lower relief, and the curve doesn't quite look like the "2" digit of this coin. If this coin were an overdate such as 1932/29, you might expect to see some remnants of the date under both digits. And indeed, there are some extraneous marks (white arrow) underneath that 2--again not seen on other coins of this date. So if that's a 2 under the 3, what might explain the different shape? For one thing, the 2 digit punch used on these coins from 1929 was different than seen on this coin. In figure c. I have included an overlay of an outline from the 2 taken from a 1929 ore coin--it looks closer, doesn't it? The angled termination of the stroke could be due to polishing out part of the 2 stroke after the re-dating. And in fact, there are raised lines due to heavy die polish around the date (black arrows), which also explains the lower relief of the mark. I specialize in overdates, but I'm normally hesitant to attribute one without documentation. But this time, I think the photos and overlays make a strong case for a 1932/2X.
Nice. I have no knowledge of Norwegian overdates, orr anything Norwegian for that matter. It's an intersesting piece though.
Great write-up Kurt. Certainly does appear they buffed out the previous date on the master hub. A great example of the poor quality control at the Norwegian and Swedish mints during this period.
Having visited the Kongsberg mint museum, I noticed that hubs from this time only have the "19"; the last two digits are added to individual dies. And you're right--standards were pretty lax on Norway coins. There's quite a variation of placement and even size of digits used on the same denomination for the same year. Thanks!
Hmm, but if they were to buff out the old date on the individual die, where it is incuse, that would mean that area of the die would be lower in profile than the surrounding field? Which would mean the area surrounding the last two digits would look like a slight mound on the coin.
Ah...I see what you're getting at. Yeah, I suppose they have to grind down the "19" as well to keep it looking tidy--it does look lower relief than the 32. I've never seen this done, of course. The only coins where I've seen a 'mound' are on some heavily blundered dates on Colombian coins.
Some countries dated their working dies much longer than the United States, which stopped around 1908, adding the whole date to the hub. Here's a picture I took at the Kongsberg mint museum, which shows a working hub (with only the 19), followed by a working die where the "57" was added directly to the die.
