Owner Comments:
S-3852C, Marsh 36
Acquired from: Heritage
Means: Auction 3099, Lot 31958
Date: 7 May 2022
Critique: Another painfully expensive coin purchased during a major, well-attended auction with too many rich bidders. Obverse shows pivoted hub doubling on Victoria and Dei. Very difficult to see without the benefit of the high magnification NGC PhotoVision pic. You'll have to trust me on this one!
It's easily seen the numeral 8 in the date has some serious problems. Under low magnification, when viewed from one angle it looks like a very small 8 was originally punched and then over-punched with a larger 8. But when viewed from another angle, it seems clear that the larger numeral is not a true 8. It looks more like a large 3 punch was modified to sort of look like an 8 by crudely gouging in a connection from the lower left knob to the center. I've seen this exact type of modified numeral 8 punch once before on an 1860 half sov, so apparently it was a common strategy employed when an 8 punch was missing. The 8 was used more often than any other numeral except 1 during the Victorian Era, so it would be expected to be in shorter supply than 3. And since 3 makes up about 75% of an 8, it would represent a quick fix in an emergency.
Careful examination shows that the letter G on the obverse is significantly tilted counterclockwise. At first this would seem to be a possibly rare mint error by the letter puncher, however as it turns out this misalignment is in reality the common case for this coin. It's actually quite rare to find the G aligned correctly. I've personally only seen a couple of examples. This is rather extraordinary, since over 10 million of these coins were minted. Most dies lasted less than 100,000 coins before being retired, so apparently the person who punched these letters had a problem with spatial orientation and routinely misjudged the positioning. It's surprising that so many millions of coins were produced without the mint director catching such an obvious problem.