1891 Cent Varieties

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1891 Cent Varieties

The year 1891 was a year of great change for the large cent series.   The modeler and engraver to the Royal Mint , Leonard C. Wyon, died in August and George William Des Saulles replaced him. Perhaps because of this change of engravers, the dies of 1891 show several design modifications, making them arguably the most interesting year of the Victorian Cent series. First, the year 1891 occurred in the middle of the change from obverse 2 to obverse 3. Also in this year, the mint changed from the 1884 reverse, on which they experimented with two different date sizes, to the 1891 reverse, causing three very different reverse types.   Since they married both obverse types to each of the three reverse types, six different 1891 cents exist today.

                                                                                1891        Large Date, Large Leaf        Obverse 2
                                                                                1891        Large Date, Large Leaf        Obverse 3
                                                                                1891        Small Date, Large Leaf        Obverse 2
                                                                                1891        Small Date, Large Leaf        Obverse 3
                                                                                1891        Small Date, Small Leaf         Obverse 2
                                                                                1891        Small Date, Small Leaf         Obverse 3

Collecting one of each of the six types presents a nice collecting challenge. With a mintage of only 1,452,537 coins, 1891 cents of any type are not plentiful.  All four small date varieties are quite scarce when compared to the large date types, but the 1891 SDSL Obverse 3 is by far the easiest of the four to find.  At the very bottom of this page, I have included a link to a PDF poster that shows all six 1891 types. You should be able to open it in your Abode PDF reader and use use its zoom cammand to see the finer details. Happy hunting!

1891 Obverse Varieties

Obverse 2

Obverse 3
(Only the later Obv. 3 with the thicker, re-punched legends was used in 1891)

1891 Reverse Varieties

1891 Large Date, Large Leaf

The engraver re-punched all four digits of the date with numerals having a noticeably larger style. Since they used the 1884 reverse, the leaves were large, touching the rim denticels and nearly touching the vine at several points.

1891 Small Date, Large Leaf

This was the classic 1884 reverse with the normal size digits in the date and the large leaves.

1891 Small Date, Small Leaf

This type constituted a new reverse made from a new matrix. The digits of the date remained approximately the same size as on the 1884 reverse design, but the leaves were quite a bit smaller. The engraver left these leaves with ample clearance from both the rim denticles and the vine.

The Small Date, Large Leaf Reverse Dies

The Royal Mint used three known reverse dies to mint circulating 1891 SDLL cents. Each are easily identifiable by the first die cracks they formed (shown in the photographs below: note - not all die cracks shown - see Dies & Diadems for the others) and the date spacing variations (also shown below).

Turner R1P-S1

Married only to Obverse 2

Turner R1P-S2

Married Only to Obverse 3

Turner R1P-S3

Married only to Obverse 3

SDLL Date Comparison

Since the engravers manually entered the last two digits of the date into each SDLL die, all three had a different date spacing. All three also had a re-punched "8". The top photo shows the wide, low "91" of Turner R1P-S1. In the middle, the narrow, even "91" from Turner R1P-S2. The bottom photo shows the narrow, low "91" of Turner R1P-S3. If you encounter a SDLL cent from an early die state, with no die cracks, use the date spacing variations to determine which die minted the coin.

Links to the different sections of this website are at the top of the page. Links to the individual pages in the coin information section are below. Click on the orange text to move to a page in this section.