1891 LL LD Looking For Grade Opinions

Okie I'm pretty sure there was never a repair to the "N" in REGINA.
When they started minting 1888 cents there were no missing serifs on any of the obverse legend.
The first serif to chip off was the "D" in DEI which was repaired on several dies until they just gave up on repairing it.
The majority of 1888's have this serif missing on the "D" in DEI.
The next serif to chip off was the top serif on the "D" in Canada which is the same as the coin papeldog has shown above.
There was only one such die used in 1888 and any others that were left over were then used in 1891.
it was only in latter part of1888 that the serif on the "N" in REGINA broke off.
I've not studied the 1891 obverse 2's but have noticed they can be found with three configurations.
1. One with just the missing serif on the "D" in DEI.
2. The second one is the coin pictured above with missing serif on both the "D" in DEI and the "D" in Canada.
3. Lastly there's one with three missing serif's the two as in the second one and by this time the bottom stand on the "N" in REGINA broke off.
These three configurations of missing serif's can also be found on 1888 cents which Is one of the reasons I believe the ones from 1891 are carried over from 1888.
My computer is in being repaired at the moment but when It's returned I'll be able to post picture showing this progression.

Cheers, Bill

Hound dog. Okie coiner is correct the 1888 came with broken serif and a repaired n Regina Also the 1892 ov2 has a broken serifs didn't a repaired n in Regina I have both kinds of 1888 and 1892. But I didn't know about the d's. I also have 2 of the 1891 repaired n's

The 1888 with the broken serif was described in Dies & Diadems, pages 80 and 81, in 2009, along with the various other damage to the punch that happened to the obverse C2 punch.

The 1891 with the full serif was also in D&D. Based on the coins I had at the time, I described it as having a re-punched in the die serif. I still think it was re-punched, but acknowledge that it may have come from a an older punch. It is difficult to say for certain.

Similar to what happened in many other Victorian years, I think some of the obverse C2 dies were left over from previous years and used up in 1891 and 1892. I published that opinion in my 2012 catalog of the 1890 & 1892 dies. Given the numbers of dies sunk in 1891, and the numbers used, I don't think all of the C2 dies used in 1891 were leftover from before.

The 1892 C2 full serif cents were described briefly in D&D and in more detail in my 2012 die catalog. I do very much think this die was left over from 1888.

D & D was a book written about the entire large cent series, and it was based on hundreds of coins. That was a very good start, but it was not based upon full die studies needed to fully understand each date. I very much expected others would conduct those full die studies and, based on those complete die studies, D & D would eventually need a bit of tweaking. In fact, I tweaked the 1890 and 1892 discussion when I published those die catalogs.

From the preface of D & D, written in 2007; "I should point out that die research is always limited by the coins available to examine and by no means have I seen all of the Victorian cents now existing. I readily acknowledge that coins may appear that cause us to add to, or modify, the matrix-punch-die hierarchy presented in this book"

Thanks. I expect the specimen book to be out in a few months. The manuscript is complete and now just working through the publishing/printing issues. I think it will have interest to any large cent collector, whether you collect or care about specimens or not.

I will not be selling it. I have donated the book (and all proceeds) to the RCNA to sell.

I just looked through 35 '91 Obv 2's and didn't see a single one (R/P'd N in Regina), including the small dates.

And I just finished looking at another 25 (so 60 total Obv 2's) and found 2 or a little around 3% of the Obv 2's. These all were more or less random, so I would think that would be fairly close to a good estimate. If you counted the Obv 3's for '91, I'd guess that it would be about 1% or so for the R/P'd N for '91.

I have searched hundreds of listings and looked at many coin shows and I have only seen 2 and never one in MS. I would love to see if anyone has been luck enough to score such a find and share with the community.