1882 Canadian Cent

1882 Obv 1a/1 single serif N. Since there were both Obv 1 and Obv 1a (and later Obv 2's) used, when they were making the working dies, they didn't differentiate between what the working die had already been started as. The hub (master punch that makes/strikes the working dies) takes 2-4 separarte presses to fully make the deep working die impressions. These separate strikes/presses can be hours, days, weeks, months apart ... the hub has to be hardened and the working die annealed (softened)after each cycle. Since there were both Obv 1 & 1a hubs around, a working die could have been made using one session with an Obv 1 hub and 2 with a 1a hub. The 1a and 1a/1 working dies are the most common. A straight Obv 1 working die a litle tougher to find.

Since the 1881 and 1882 dies started life from the MASTER punches made for 1876, all the hubs used had single serif N's in Canada and Regina. For 1881, every single working die, except one, had manually repunched N's that made the single serif N's corrected to make them full-footed. In 1882, the Mint threw the 1876 Speimen Master into the mix. This specimen Obverse had fully-footed N's and was a true Obv 1a (not an 1876-type Obv 1). Because of this being thrown into the available hub mix, you have Obv 1's, 1a's and 1a/1s with either a single serif or full serif. From what I have been able to observe, you find many more scarcer varieties on the Obv 1 full-serif working dies and the Obv 1a single-serif ... although all are about equally easy to find. Since I collect varieties, it's not the N serifs that make a difference, it's the other repunched details. A person could spend many years just concentrating on the 1881 & 1882 mintages ... there is a huge number of varieties available, some very very scarce.

mcshilling: I didn't even add to the mix the Obv 2/1's for 1882 ... there were 3 working dies that made them, one very scarce. The most common one has essentially no doubling in the legend; one has minor doubling on in the legend and major doubling of the denticles betrween Vict and Canada. The scarce one has major doubling in the legends of Canada, Regina and Gratia. We put types 1 & 3 in the 2011 Charlton .. the 2nd one we didn't. So for 1881 and 1882, you have any number of large-offset handpunching of the N's for 1881, a single serif 1881, major & minor hub-doubling of the 1881, and many handpunch corrections in the other legend letters for 1881. For 1882, you have single and full serif Obv 1's, 1a's, 1a/1's, Obv 2's and 3 Obv 2/1's .. let alone the myriad of other varieties that are there for 1882 (a total of 8 Obverse types alone).