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Typical Victorian Cent Error Types
Like most early Canadian coin series, the Royal Mint and Heaton sometimes minted coins showing various types of errors. These error coins are both interesting and very collectable.
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Filled DiesVictorian cents occasionally showed evidence that the smaller incuse features of the working die, usually letters and numerals, clogged with grease during the minting process. On the coins this appeared as missing, or faint, sections of the design (see the picture to the left). It commonly occurred on the serifs of the obverse legends that sat closest to the rim and on the obverse beads. Sometimes the outer bends of the serpentine vine on the reverse die filled giving the appearance of a worn or broken vine.
Since the accumulated grease was transitory, often a single die would show evidence of a filled die during only portions of its life. |
Off Center ErrorsBoth the Royal Mint and Heaton used reciprocating coin presses to mint the Victorian cent series. These presses had an automatic feed mechanism to push the blank onto the hammer die. The collar would rise to encircle the blank and the upper die would supply the strike. Sometimes the feed mechanism would not place the blank directly over the anvil die. The collar could not then encircle the blank. The resulting strike imparted the obverse and reverse designs in off center positions on the blank, making for an interesting error (see the picture to the right).
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Die RotationsRotated dies occurred on both Provincial and Dominion cents. Both the upper (reverse) and lower (obverse) dies were held in the coin press by a series of setscrews. If the workers did not carefully align the upper and lower dies, or if vibrations rotated one of the dies, the resulting coins had their obverse and reverse designs oriented along different axes. Many Victorian cents exhibit die rotations of less than 30 degrees in either direction. Die rotations of greater than 30 degrees are much scarcer and any approaching 180 degrees are quite rare.
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BrockagesBrockages occurred when a struck coin adhered to one of the dies and was not ejected. The feed mechanism pushed the next blank between the two dies, where it was struck on one side by a die and on the other by the adhered coin. The image on the side struck by the die appeared normal. The image on the side struck by the coin had a mirror image of the normal side. Here is an excellent example of an obverse brockage from the collection of the National Currency Museum.
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Brass Planchets
Brass examples of several dates in the Victorian cent series have appeared over the years. The grading services have graded about twenty-five brass cents dated 1859 (see the pictures below). The National Currency Collection also contains cents dated 1858, 1882, and 1893 reportedly made from brass planchets. I believe that all of these Victorian brass coins resulted from mixing or alloy segregation problems at the Royal Mint during the melting process and should be rightfully considered as off-metal error coins.
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