Owner Comments:
S-3852D, Marsh 46B (R2, Very Rare)
1 over Inverted 1
Acquired from: Heritage
Means: Auction 232252, Lot 65653
Date: 29 December 2022
Critique: The holder for this coin indicates that it's simply an ordinary 1863 sovereign, however on close inspection it can be seen to be the rare variety having the numeral 1 in the date re-punched. Marsh lists this as "1 over inverted 1", however it's obviously much more complicated than that. There actually appear to be three different sizes and orientations of the 1 here. There also appears to be strong hub doubling in the date and in the name Victoria. This doubling makes it difficult to determine if the numerals 8 and 6 were also re-punched, however it's very clear that a larger numeral 3 was re-punched over a smaller 3. I will need to examine more accurate pix in order to verify these suspicions. It seems that there are at least four different obverse dies where this error was made, since I've seen three other examples which are different from each other, and none show the "triple punched 1" that my coin does.
NGC census does not list any examples of this variety being graded, however they do show four examples of "Roman I" being certified. Marsh lists no such variety, so I assume the graders thought that 1 over inverted 1 looked more like a Roman I. It's easy to come to that conclusion, and I'm guessing that's what they would call my coin. Only four of them have been certified by NGC, with the highest grade so far being AU55. PCGS reports that ten coins of this variety have been graded with one in AU55 and one in AU58. However, as frequently happens with PCGS, the AU58 coin has been sorted and populated incorrectly. The holder says nothing about Roman 1, and the coin itself shows a completely normal 1. I am aware of an absolutely magnificent example of this over-punch graded MS64 by PCGS in OGH, but for some bizarre reason they have it listed as "Arabic 1" in their census. When it comes to assigning varieties to gold sovereigns, the number of errors made by their graders is really disgraceful. If this unfortunate error is ignored, then technically no coin of this variety has so far been graded higher than AU55, by either company. If my coin were included in the NGC group, the "Total Graded by NGC" for this coin would be
In AU55: 2
In Higher Grades: 0
It will be Top Pop for a rare variety, just like another coin that I bought at this same auction. It was a lucky day!
I was very pleasantly surprised at the complete lack of interest in this coin, which I assume was due to the timing of the auction being right in the middle of the holidays. So I was able to acquire it for much less than I expected, even considering that the proper variety was not listed in the auction description.