1881-H Doubled "N" In Regina And Spur

I think that I commented on this somewhere on another coin site a few weeks ago. When the 1881 working dies were reading to being prepared, a decision was made to reuse the 1876 matrix and punches to manufacture the dies. Every 1876, also made at Heaton like the '81's & '82's, had single serif N's on the punches that actually struck/made the working dies. Because of that, each and every 1881 Obv 1 working die had to have the N's handpunched in over the single serif N to make it appear full and complete. Many of the handpunches (and it takes 2-4 separate whacks separated by days or weeks due to the hardening & annealing that is required for the WD blank and the punch) are not directly on top of each other, some well offset like yours. For 1881, you will find triple punched, quadpunched and other anomolies quite frequently. Yours is not a "spur". It is mearly a lo/hi repunch with the underpunch showing through. Some 1881's will be R/L, L/R or hi/lo but they are all due to the handpunching that was done to convert 1876 single-serif N's into full-serif for '81 & 82. A spur is caused by something else and only shows on the inside, as well as a different shape and length.

It looks to me like one of the overpunches was rotated CCW making the serifs appear longer, both top and bottom, depending on which side was affected by the rotation.