This is a somewhat unloved series that garners little attention from most quarters it seems. I rather like it, and have gotten into a couple of bidding wars in the past over the scarcer dates in top condition. I dare say that some are downright rarities in those states. IMHO when considering the equivalent of MS 63 or better that the following dates are quite the challenge: 1848/7 1848/6 1854 1878 DRITTANIAR 1893 Jubilee Head possibly gem/ MS65 1869 Left off were the 1847 which may be unique and low grade with inscription and the 1862 and 1863 which seem to be much more available than the others up through 65 and above. Honorable mention in 65 and above is the 1882. Any others readers might suggest? Here is possibly the nicest 1878 DRITTANIAR you will see; I apologise in advance for photos that make the obverse look terrible. However it is ex-Spink SNC and graded MS64 by PCGS:
Funny diesinker's error, whatever the story is. I could imagine someone using the wrong punch and punching a D instead of B at the beginning, but that totally extra R at the end is curious indeed. Maybe they started to do the R at the beginning of REG, but forgot the space and the colon that were supposed to precede the word break, and then they just skipped forward and did those without going back to remove the mistaken punch?
I'd love to own that coin. Not only is it a nice type exemplar on its own- the error/variety is great.
A quick reprisal: Evidently excepting a possible few holdbacks at the Royal Mint, essentially the entire mintage of the DRITANNIAR 6 pences were sent to Cyprus to pay for expenses of the "newly acquired" colony there - it was seized from the Turks (who evidently maintained superficial control until 1914 and the complete takeover). Some of those expenses were supposedly to cover leftover bills and debts left by the departing Ottomans. What is unclear is whether other 6 pence coins were also sent there & have only heard of the DRITANNIAR coins being sent; BTW, these are all die number 6. Another fairly scarce coin is the 1878/7 sixpence of the same year....
Do you mean that slightly textile-like appearance? I assumed that was pixelation of the image, since I thought we’re seeing a photograph of the computer monitor the photos are displayed on. Or so it seems, based on some of the other artifacts seen in the corners of the images. That’s either a photo of someone’s monitor, or a screenshot. Not a direct photo of the coin. Those lines might be jpeg and/or pixel artifacts… I think.
I haven't looked too closely at the whole series but besides the 1874 sixpence, I got the impression that most pre-1860 were pretty uncommon in decent condition.
Yes these are a bit scarce but the ridiculous prices fetched for higher grade more common pieces is quite ludicrous. The "king" of all of these is probably the 1893 Jubilee piece graded above 62 level and second likely the 1854 with the '48s not far behind.
A worldofcoins post says "The whole mintage (10 188) with the wrong inscription was sent to Cyprus. Of these, 6160 were returned to London when the error was discovered."
Ah very good - I did not know that last bit. I thought it interesting that at least according to one source the majority of these coins were used in payment to Ottoman civil servants that had not been paid by the Turkish Central government. I had not realized, even having lived in Cyprus as an adolescent that many of these "workers" stayed on and that Turks generally ran things on lower level up until completion of annexation in 1914. I also wonder how far something less than 4000 pieces went in paying bills since that would be: 4000 x6 = 24,000 pence or 100 pounds sterling. And as alluded, I have not seen discussion of other "normal" sixpences being sent out & imagine they were. Also what happened to those specimens that were returned to Britain? Were they then paid out again ever eventually or melted? Possibly the OP coin was from this group, but no way of telling as there was no provenance in the Spink listing.