1943 Australian Penny Minted India

Those prices are valid if the coin hasn't been cleaned.
It looks like it has at some point in its life.

Yes & the article goes on to speculate that because the coins produced in India were different to those made in Melbourne & that Melbourne was unlikely to have made unique dies specially for India, "the dies from Melbourne presented the Bombay Mint something of a technical challenge. Perhaps its coining presses could not render the high-relief designs properly so the Bombay Mint elected to prepare new tools more suitable for its equipment." It would most likely have been this newly prepared Indian master obverse die that was missing the "I" mintmark & which produced working dies that initially were also missing the "I" but which was soon incorporated.

As well as longer denticles, the coins made from these dies in India show a much more robust chin on the kangaroo than coins made elsewhere. It is also likely that the Indian prepared reverse die didn't have the final year in the date but only 194 because originally the 1943 coins were missing the "I" as well (although again it was soon included) & their design matched that of the 1942 coins. However, in 1943 this design was apparently not considered suitable (maybe the difference in denticles was noted) and was soon replaced by a revised Bombay reverse that had shorter denticles than the previous design & this was used to strike the bulk of the 1943 pennies.

So the missing "I" certainly seems to be a genuine mint manufactured variety unlike the missing "I" from the 1916 halfpennies in examples I've seen where in certain lights the ghost of an "I" can be seen indicating that in this case, the absence of an "I" was produced by die fill.

I remember reading about that cheeky buggers!

P.s. S. Debt your information is great! Thanks for sharing

For nealeffendi: Here is a selection of 1942 & 1943 pennies. Among other differences, the Melbourne & Perth Mints have obverses where the vertical stroke of the P in IMP is aligned with a rim denticle whereas in the Bombay coins the vertical stroke of the P in IMP is aligned over the gap between rim denticles. There are also differences in the serifs. On the reverses the Perth coins are distinguished from the Melbourne coins by the Perth coins having a dot after the Y in PENNY. The Bombay coins also have a dot before the P in PENNY.

Sov' D.
The 1943 "no I " that you have pictured has a distinct shadow where the "I" should be. An interesting filled die coin but not the same as the 1942 "no I". Some 1942 coins in my collection have a similar problem (but can be distinguished from the genuine article as the true no I coins all came from the same die and have distinct die markers). I doubt the existence of true "no I" coins for 1943.

Yes I agree with nealeffendi that there is something suspicious about the 1943-I "no I" coin that I pictured but I don't think the story is as simple as just a filled die although that might be part of it. In the close-up I've outlined in yellow a u-ish shaped depression that is in the vicinity of where the "I" should appear but it only covers the bottom half of the missing "I". Why isn't there something that explains the missing top half?

Perhaps the die became filled & then the bottom half was over-filled leading to the depression in the coin. Is this possible?

Another peculiarity of this coin is the twist in the bases of the denticles from the R in REX through IMP to the R in GEORGE. Does this have anything to do with the "missing I"?

Except for the horrible stain, the 1942-I "no I" looks OK but please tell me what these distinct die markers are that distinguish genuine "no I" coins from "filled I" coins so I can check mine.

Thats correct its a different animal,i had forgotton all about the dot but many sold do not have the dot so they are a filled/damaged die of some sort and not the real McCoy.