I am struck by the lackadaisical quality control of the mints producing LC's, at least until Ottawa took over in 1908. Doubling abounds, as do broken features on dies. Die lives were miniscule by comparison to American standards of the time, and we were striking the harder cupronickel alloy compared to their bronze. Haxby observes 103 obverse dies and 214 reverse dies for 1859, to mint what was described as a "huge number for the time" of 9.6 million, the same year the US minted 36.4 million IHC's. It is, admittedly, fascinating to see such an abundance of features I'm used to identifying as uncommon variations in the design accepted as the status quo.
Nice pickups Dave. Something to watch for at future shows, the scarcer 1876H variety is the one with the full-footed serifs on the T of VICTORIA. The 1910 is what I would proabably grade as AU-50 - the vertical beads in the crown are starting to merge together and the little inner buttons on the chain are gone - that said, Edward VII strikes are notoriously weak, even from those minted in Ottawa. That 1916 is AU-55, in my opinion, but lots of nice colour in that one. You make this easy - you take fantastic photos!! Some of the Victorian strikes tone to a gorgeous, lustrous black. I can send you lots of EF grade Victorian coins if you want to see variations in colour.
Edwards and Georges are an absolute hoot to differentiate between weak strike and Circulated. I'm nowhere near accurate on it yet; I need to see a bunch more strike variances to learn the differences.
....which brings up another aspect about which I know too little - how these were handled after being struck. Were they bagged, for instance? A rim-rim hit in a thrown bag can create a pretty sizable ding, but they generally have a characteristic shape unlike the typical circulation ding. From the 1916, for example, circled in red is rim damage likely caused in circulation; circled in blue is a ding I could see caused by the impact of another coin in a bag: I love how these things are prone to radial cracking: ...and the leaves must have been a constant source of stress. You can see a crack developing in the center of Leaf #10.
They were handled in many ways, ultimately ending up in a bag. See at about 10 minutes into this old video... and you'll need your bib for the final moment of the video.
1882 H Newfoundland Fifty Cent, mintage of 100,000 (apologies for pictures through a very scuffed holder, but a beautiful coin!)
just bought these 2 toned beauties from Gbroke from here. sellers pics... Canada 1967 dime... Canada 1968 dime... I like the toning on these.
Short of pieces falling off, I don't know how a die can get any more terminal than this. The radial cracks reach at least the rim gutter in 4 different places.
Check out this Broas Brothers Civil War token - the variety is well known in the CWT community. The obverse die is absolutely destroyed, and the reverse was clashed so hard you can nearly count stars on the Indian head dress... http://www.civilwartokens.com/Listi...630-L-7a-R2-Raw-MS62-New-York-Civil-War-token
What an awesome piece. I'm guessing the clashing and the die destruction might be related. Detail pics from the 1896:
Canadian toned 1953 50 cents. just bought off Ebay for $9.15 +$5.00 shipping. I could not pass this up. sellers pics...