Questions About Victoria Pennies

While your 1859 has a better reverse than obverse, it's nowhere near an XF-40 and has been harshly cleaned. There are between 300 & 400 varieties of the 1859 Cent and certainly not all have been priced, let alone documented. Try to find copies of Hans Zoell's old pamphlets from the 1960's/early 70's. There were 5 editions, the last 3 of which separated into Major & Minor varieties. His books cover all coin denominations. Jachk Griffin wrote a very comprehensive book for his time in 1992, which has since been reprinted by Charlton ... Die Varieties on the Large Cents of British North America. The 65th Edition of Charlton's guide (2011) will be out next month and will have Victoria Large Cents as the Variety section in the back. More varieties will be noted there (75-100 or so). ALL 1888's will have D/P'd 8's and in any combination with the others .. it's a neat variety year, but most all are common. I would suggest that you visit the Canadian Coin Reference Site (CCRS) for good large cent (and other) data. Here rae a few sites that you will find helpful:
http://varieties.piczo.com/?cr=3&rfm=y
http://www.piczo.com/Dan-in-Crystal...=&cr=6&rfm=y
There is good info in each, but there hasn't been much updating as of late, because people were pirating the sites, stealing images and then republishing info on their own. I would also highly recommend Rob Turner's book "Dies and Diadems", as well as his first two on the Provincial One Cent coinages for 1858's & 9/8's. If you are going to get involved in Large Cents, you need to have those books in your library. Just one coin could (and should) pay for the approx $100 each cost .. cheap at twice the price.

I wish it was a 9/8. The loop tells a different story, thats just dirt/corrosion.