Coin Enigma

Dear Sap, I am relying on your input because the other experts out there have not ventured an opinion so far, sorry about my impatience). I have checked out Indian rupees and Seychelles. I do not feel an answer here. I think this coin was minted probably 1966 to 1968 pre-distribution. Could it be part of a trial run not intended for distribution? From what I can gather this coin was minted in London, before South Wales. As a point of reference I found this coin in change early 1968, when I was eight years old. I have been searching for an answer to this enigma for forty plus years and it is becoming a little obsessive. Please do not give up on helping me to discover the truth. Also I offer the challenge to any other experts or passionate coin collectors out there, please help with your opinion. The only bad answers are those not shared. davep.

The security edge is part of the collar die; it is applied at the same time the coin is struck. Wayward planchets aren't the explanation.

It almost certainly would've been struck in 1968. Ockham's razor - it's far more probable that just one "wrong die" (the security edge collar die) would be used, rather than two (the edge and a reverse with the wrong date) at the same time.

India was never going to be an option - Indian coins have always been locally produced, not struck in London. I think the Seychelles rupee might be the answer - the same size, from the same mint, and it was actually struck in 1968, too.

Logically, if one were struck, more should have been, too - mint errors are rarely detected after just one. Someone else should have found one by now. I'll ask Brissyboy if he's seen or heard of this particular error when I see him tonight at the coin club we both go to.

In 1968 the British were very conservative, did not like change. Decimalization was seen as Europeanization in a way that people today oppose globalization. The Royal Mint always has been very serious about quality control.So if this coin was a mistake and given its place in history, such a mistake would probably approach the no date 20p.The band of dots-dashes in the groove are continuous except for about a quarter inch which is blank. I have no idea if this is relevant.I can understand a security edge on a dollar coin in a poor country and a decorative edge in a wealtheir economy. There is no reason to have a security edge on a low denomination copper-nickel coin. I do not see a reason to fake such a coin. The more Ithink about this the more confused I get.davep.

Thanks Sap for letting me know about this topic. I'm afraid I do not have enough knowledge of world coins to offer a possibility for the die used for the collar.

Have you considered some of the Caribbean colonies for possible matches? It is the same time period that The Royal Mint struck the Bahamas 5c/New Zealand 2c mule. The comparison shown above of the edges certainly look similar, and your explaintion for the small missing section of dots in the groove is plausable.

My only other thought at this time is, could it be an inner ring of a bimetal coin and the groove is the locking mechanism for the inner and otter rings. Not too sure what bimetals if any were around then and being struck by Royal Mint.

Whatever davep, you have a very unique coin and I would be looking at having it recognised as a mint error variety/mule for the 1968 10p with the group that produces the UK coin catalogues.

Wayne

Actually, most countries (including Britain) normally produce circulation coinage in the year stated on the coin; some of the predecimal coins were actually antedated; some coins bearing the "1967" date were actually struck in the period 1968-1971. Some other countries (such as France) even have laws preventing inaccurate dates from appearing on the coinage - which is why you can find French euros dating back to 1999, even though the euro coinage wasn't introduced until January 1 2002.

Britain's formal changeover day, Decimal Day, was 15 February 1971. But Britain did something unusual - it introduced the new coinage and withdrew the old ones gradually over the preceding years, rather than hitting the country with a single massive change all at once, as happened in Australia and New Zealand when they went decimal. The 5p and 10p coins, which were the same sizes, weights and compositions as the old shilling and florin respectively, were introduced into circulation in April 1968. Basically the same presses that had been making shillings and florins in 1968 simply switched dies to the new 5p and 10p.

I'm snowed in in Ohio. Have been looking through my coins which I collected in my youth and retrieved from England on my last visit. I found another security edge. Its an Essex Walthamston 1811 Halfpenny with the legend vincit amor patri ae. More correctly I think it is described as a token. As a point of interest I remember going up Big Ben as a child, they used stacks of large cartwheel pennies as weights in the mechanism. Later, davep.

try a Hong Kong dollar, these had a security edge and were produced at The Royal Mint - they are slightly larger than a 10p which would account for the slight difference in size. It must date from 1968 as during the early part of 1968 some 17m florins (dated 1967) were being produced.