British 1926 Bronze Penny

[Prosit]

I have been working on a date set of British Pennies a short while but have made excellent progress due entirely to AndyG.  Thanks a million! 

I notice in my Krause the 1926 doesn't show a mintage number and it is listed for US $30 in Fine and US $175 in Very Fine.  That is a considerable jump.  Anyone know the story of the 1926 Penny? Why it is expensive and how many were made? Was it later melted? or just a small mintage year from the start?

Dale

[villa66]

There is a tough variety of the '26 cataloged as KM826, but yours--like mine, unfortunately--is more probably the KM810. Might scope out the catalog again and see,

v.

[Prosit]

Ahhh  I see it now; the KM 826 is a modified head type...whatever that means.  The normal one KM 810 had 4.499 million made and is not expensive until above XF.

I would be willing to bet my 1926 is KM 810    So I really won't be needing that KM 826.

Just for a learning experience; How do you tell the difference?

Dale

[villa66]

I had forgotten how to distinguish between them, so I'd fished out my old Coincraft's. They say the modified head lacks the periods at the designer's initials, and the initials themselves are further toward the rear of the truncation.

Maybe the easier diagnostic for me, though, is that they say the colon between GRA and BRITT changes position from one variety to the other. On the old obverse the colon is midway between the A and the B; on the modified obverse, the colon is very close to the A.

Thanks for the brush-up. Now I'm going to check my duplicates, pointlessly.

v.

[@josephjk]

There are pics somewhere in the middle of this page

http://www.coins-of-the-uk.co.uk/pics/pen4.html

[capnbirdseye]

there is a slight difference to the space between the two colon dots, on the modified head they are noticeably slightly wider apart

[Prosit]

I definitely have the normal one. Thanks!
Dale

There are pics somewhere in the middle of this page

http://www.coins-of-the-uk.co.uk/pics/pen4.html

[Globetrotter]

Here a full documentation

[Mister T]

I don't have a book at hand but the mintage wasn't overly high I don't think, but 1926 is not a rare year.