A Specimen 1850 Upper Canada Half Penny?

A few more images of the coin

I don't think it is a specimen token, - not enough sharp detail in the tops of the cornucopiae, despite the fact that the lettering is nice and sharp.
, it is a very nice example, with even toning.

to the Community!

Regular grading standards don't apply to these issues.

Dragon Slayers are so deep in detail that XF is often mistaken for MS. Well struck MS's do imitate "regular" coin SP strikes.

Yours shows nice details in some areas, but not a SP strike. The die crack in the K in toKen is a dead give-away, along with doubling on the lettering.

I am XF40 with environmental damage - that looks like someone tried to scratch off (further damaging the coin).

For reference the first was graded MS60 by CCCS (would get 63/64 at NGC)
Second is NGC MS64 (proudly the finest known crosslette 4 half penny)

@Wade:
For these tokens, both those produced by The Royal Mint and the Heaton Mint, a die crack doesn't necessarily eliminate it being a «Specimen/Proof» strike.

One of a number of examples that I observed with this 1/2 Penny 1852 ( Royal Mint / PC-5B1) Proof that was in the Robins collection:

Love all the pictures, thanks for sharing!

@Wade:

I don't want to go into too much detail, as this is a relatively complex subject, and one for which I've written part of a chapter to be devoted to it in a forthcoming book.

So, regarding the example I published the reverse above (PC-5B1), this is a special case whose presentation strike is beyond doubt.

Firstly, this pair of dies is not yet known for striking circulating tokens. More importantly, they are in the possession of museums around the world, including two tokens in Australia's Museum Victoria.

And in this case, we're lucky enough to know the origin of the tokens. Indeed, since they were produced when Charles W. Fremantle was Director and Controller of The Royal Mint in the 1870s, following requests to present them at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879-1880, as well as at the Melbourne International Exhibitions in 1880 and 1888 (Rob Turner tackles the subject in his book «Past & Nearly Perfect - The Pattern, Trial, Proof, and Specimen Large Cents of Canada»).

Quality control at the time, although much improved, still left much to be desired, and it was not uncommon to find incomplete letters, specks, die cracks and other defects on this type of strike.

However, there are other cases where I'm a little more perplexed. I'm thinking in particular of the variety Courteau #303 (1 Penny 1857), for which there are several examples with a magnificent strike, but whose obverse die was completely broken.

The TPG have never really made up their minds about them, since from time to time they are designated Proof or Regular Strike. In this latter case, my current opinion is that it's probably not a classic Proof/Specimen strike, but neither is it a regular strike. So I wouldn't know what to call them myself, and more importantly, it's open to debate.

@Wade:

The strike pressure used is not necessarily the same, so dies are prone to cracking more quickly. Especially in this case, when it's a single die crack, it can sometimes happen quite quickly (From the hub strike, or to the token strike).

I'm talking about the 1 Penny 1857, not the 1/2 Penny. I had previously published on the forum an example that was in Don Flick's collection (The first photo) (But there are even worse cases of this pair of dies) and was graded more than once by PCGS (Currently PR-65 BN, and Ex. PCGS MS-64+ BN). And for the Courteau #303, unlike the 1/2 Penny 1852 pair of dies I mentioned earlier, this one is also known to have struck regular tokens.



Or this one (Currently NGC MS-66 BN):



And from the Robins collection (Currently PCGS MS-64 Red):