The Canada large cent of 1881 with the mintmark of the Heaton mint described and illustrated below, appears to have the obverse of the ‘triple punched N’ illustrated on page 305 of the 65th edition (2011) of the Charlton Catalogue. However, the coin exhibits other characteristics that may or may not exist on the Charlton coin. These additional characteristics are described and imaged below. Should the coin be considered a new variety? All comments welcome. ‘Victoria’ exhibits the following: The outside top right of the ‘C’ appears slightly doubled; the inside bottom left exhibits a small notch consistent with doubling. The ‘T’ appears triply(?) entered at the bottom of the top left serif; the bottom left foot is weak and the top, appears slightly doubled from the middle to the left end. The last ‘I’ appears slightly doubled at the end of the bottom left serif; the ‘A’ is virtually missing both serifs at the bottom of the right slanting stroke. ‘Gratia’ exhibits the following‘: The top serif of the ‘G’ appears slightly doubled at the top left. The ‘R’ appears slightly doubled at the top. ‘Regina’ exhibits the characteristic tripled ‘N’ as shown in the 65th edition of Charlton, page 305. The reverse of this coin exhibits the following characteristics: The last ‘1’ of the date appears doubled at the left side of the upright. The mintmark appears to be a Large H/Small h type.
Did you look here? https://www.coinsandcanada.com/coins-prices.php?coin=1-cent-1881&years=1-cent-1876-1901
Further down in this forum is a thread concerning the 1882 Vicky cents. Almost all of what I wrote there in relation to the '82 holds for the 1881's, except the 5 different Obverses. The mint was still using hubs from the 1876's where all the N's were single serif at the left foot and multiply-punched to make them full. The H's are all RP'd and various letters and digits are hand-repunched into the dies. In addition, as before, there was machine doubling in addition to the RP'ing. Yours is not any new variety. It has been known for years and commented on in various coin sites for the last 20 years. Yours is a neat variety because it has almost every anomaly you can find on a variety coin.
Many thanks to Bill & Pickin for responding. Below, find images from a different 1881 H in my collection.
All of the anomalies are pretty common on the '81's. The hub(s) that made the dies suffered broken serifs and portions of letters as more and more dies were made. The hubs had raised elements just like old typewriter keys (if you're old enough to remember) and lots of small, thin sections broke off. Just remember that the hub was used to strike/make enough dies for all of the 4 million 1876's before making those for the 1881's and 2's.
