Owner Comments:
S-3852, Marsh 28x (assume R7 - Ultra Rare)
Spread 4 5
Acquired from: Heritage
Means: Auction 232251, Lot 64553
Date: 22 December 2022
Ex: Douro Shipwreck
Critique: Wow! When I first saw this somewhat worn, stained, sad-looking specimen up for sale, I instantly determined that I had to have it, at any price. Well, any price I could afford. This amazing little coin has so many interesting features that it's hard to know where to begin. So I suppose I will just start with the information listed on the holder itself.
The date is actually quite difficult to read and interpret, but I believe, as the NGC grader apparently did, that it truly is an 1845 gold sovereign. The holder is the very lovely "Shipwreck Blue" label by NGC, and it's certified as coming from the famous Douro sinking in 1882. See the extensive account of that event on my 1881-M coin. Most coins recovered from shipwrecks have quite a bit of staining and crud on the surfaces, and this coin is certainly no exception. Just based on wear alone, I think this coin deserved to be AU53 or possibly AU55, but apparently the grader knocked it down based on negative eye-appeal. Can't argue with that decision. The reverse in particular has extensive staining, which I suppose modern collectors refer to as "toning" and which I refer to as "unattractive discoloration." The obverse has some unpleasant rusty material clinging to the rims in the northwest and east. But what's really scary are what look to be drops of blood coming out of Queen Victoria's eye, nose, and ear! There are more drops of this blood in the southeast area, including within the date. An item involved in a violent collision at sea where many people lost their lives, that seems to be dripping blood from the orifices of Her Majesty, is enough to dissuade any superstitious collector from bidding. But I decided to take a chance anyway.
Finally, the holder lists this as being the variety having E/E in "DEI", and close inspection would seem to confirm that. Apparently the engraver initially punched the E a bit low and to the left, and then decided to adjust that with a re-punch. I base this estimate of which location was punched first according to what I've noticed on many other re-punched sovereigns, where the first punch appears to lie on top of the later punch. In any case, this small adjustment is not at all what is usually referred to as E/E in Marsh 28D, and later years in Marsh 43A and 44D. In those cases, a very serious blunder occurred where the E was initially punched way too high near the rim, and after the re-punch the top half of the offending initial punch was polished away. The kind of minor repositioning of a letter in the legend like on this coin is extremely common on early date Vic sovereigns but is not always considered a significant variety.
OK, so far my observations are interesting, but wouldn't cause Michael Marsh to get very excited. But here's where that changes ... If one carefully examines the numerals in the date, it's clear to me that each one has been over-punched. The numbers 1, 8, and 4 are re-punched with the same value, however the final number is absolutely a combination of a 3 and a 5. The straight top of the 3 definitely stands out against the top flip of the 5, and the descending strokes of the 5 on the left and the 3 on the right are clearly and unmistakably present. So this is a full overdate, which is quite uncommon. What makes it even more exciting, is that the numerals making up '1843' are clearly smaller than those making up '1845.' So this is one of the extremely rare examples of a complete overdate involving different sizes. And if everything is considered together, this full re-punch involving two different sizes and two different dates is spectacularly rare. The question then becomes, which date was punched first, and which was over-punched later? In my experience, the initial date always looks to be on top of the latter date. This is contrary to what might be expected, until you consider that the die image is a 'negative' to allow metal on the planchet to rise up when struck, and the initial punch would be somewhat deeper than the latter one, thus making the earlier date seem to be on top of the later one. Since the smaller date '1843' seems to be lying on top of the larger date '1845', then that would indicate that this is truly a coin minted in 1845 and not some unfortunate accident minted in 1843.
So how did this happen? Where did this hybrid coin come from? I have a theory. A very large number of coins were minted in 1843, and they probably knew about this in advance and prepared a large number of working dies. If those dies lasted longer than expected, by 31 December there may have been a few unused dies left over, which bore the date 1843. Not wanting to discard perfectly good dies, the mint simply stored them away in drawers somewhere. In 1844, they only minted about half of the number produced in 1843, and had plenty of dies on hand to produce the required amount. But in 1845, they ramped up production again, and perhaps sometime in December they realized that they were out of new dies. At this point, the mint director remembered the few dies stored from 1843, and instructed the engraver to re-punch them with the new larger 1845 date. If my theory is correct, then this coin does not represent a mint error, since it was created deliberately. One possibly worrisome consideration is that, while errors in punching the letter E in 'DEI' are known for 1845, none have ever been reported for 1843. That would make it seem like this was indeed an accident produced in 1845 where the engraver mistakenly picked up the 3 punch instead of the 5 punch, and then this would be a mint error. However, the difference in size of the two dates would seem to be the deciding factor, and I prefer the deliberate overdate explanation. If true, then this coin would be the first example of an 1843 obverse die with the letter E of DEI re-punched.
Another bizarre feature of this coin is that there are very obvious raised fingers of metal in between the denticles underlying the date. These never appear anywhere else on the obverse, only under the date. Could this have been some subtle marker that the mint director added to indicate the use of a previous year's die? Can't think of any other way to explain them.
As far as I'm aware of, nobody has previously reported a "large 1845 on small 1843 overdate" gold sovereign, and it is unlisted in the latest 2021 edition of Marsh's book. I've seen pictures of the 1843/2 and 1843/8 varieties from the Bentley sale, and they are not at all the same as this coin. As far as rarity is concerned, both Marsh and the anonymous person who amassed Bentley worked for decades assembling their respective collections of sovereign varieties, examining several thousand coins each, and neither one of them ever encountered an example like this. I've personally looked though hundreds of 1845 dated coins in most of the modern auction archives, and never found another. So it would seem to be excessively rare, possibly unique. How interesting it would be if this forlorn little coin rescued from the bottom of the sea turns out to be the only known survivor of this fascinating overdate. Only time will tell if another one eventually surfaces somewhere.