One Cent Canada 1859

Oups, my mistake. Sorry about that.

First post edited.

To CCF! I'll say Fine.

pangolin,

Don't know if you know about this site: https://www.coinsandcanada.com/
John1

pangolin .... R/P 9 means repunched 9. The Vicky large cent started in 1858 with planchets thinner than the Brit 1/2 penny, but the same diameter and, naturally, a lighter weight. The Royal Mint in London struck the coins and tried to use the same presses and force that they used for the 1/2 p but the thin bronze coins ate up the dies. It took so long to get things right at the Mint that they onlly were able to strike 900k of the 10 million needed before 1859 rolled in. They didn't want to make up more master punches for making the dies, so they just ground off the "8" of the master punch, so all dies just read "185" and they had to be finished to complete the date..

Each die had the be handpunched with the 9 and it took 2-3 whacks with the punch to fully impress the 9 into the die. After each punch attempt, the punch itself had to be hardened with heat and quenching and the die itself had to be softened (annealed). It may have been hours, days or weeks before the next attempt at punching in the 9, and the guy wielding the hammer and punch didn't always get the punch just right. As a result, you will find all mannner of positions and repunches with the 9. Just look at the Haxby site to see how many different spacing and repunches that there are. You have near, far, high, low, tilt right, tilt left. Each die only lasted an average of 40-50,000 coins, but there were dies that may have only lasted 1-2,000 before the die broke, so some repunches are quite scarce. Yours looks to have doubling on the tail/knob of the 9, but the photos aren't clear or large enough to see things clearly. Take a loupe and look.

Yes, RP or R/P means repunched. However since EVERY 1859 is technically repunched so, when I said that your 9 looked repunched, I meant that there was some offset in the punches so that the R/P can easily be seen. The list of 1859's that you put in your response are the formal names of some 1859's that are scarcer than the others and they are number DP#1 thru DP#5 .. but they are names only. There are so many 1859's with visible offsets that can be seen by the naked eye, that there is very little increase in value for some of them. Your coin is an F-12, maybe 15 and it will cost more to have it certified than it will ever be worth, if it is a fairly common one. Get a loupe and carefully examine your coin and compare it to the Haxby site. On that site, there is a rarity section and, if your coin is above an R-2, then MAYBE it will be worth more than the cert & mailing costs. There are many many 1859 varieties and only a small percentage are worth anything to write home about, unless you start getting up to VF+ and XF and above. Remember that there were 9 million 1959's minted, 100% more than the next most common date.

@okiecoiner

Thanks for your explanation.

I have no intention to grade a penny that worth not much. However. I did get a loupe and found (maybe) a 1859 with a 9 width. I will start a new topic about it this evening.

F-15 with nice original surfaces.