Wood's Hibernia Farthing Error

I recently won this Woods Hibernia Ireland Farthing and wanted to show it off. It's from the John J. Ford collection (January 2005) and is a really cool (and fairly rare) error, especially in nice condition like this.

Historically these coins are considered a Colonial US piece since SO many of them were imported into the American colonies to circulate since we had no coinage of our own at the time and coins were in short supply in England and it's colonies.

1723 Wood's Hibernia Farthing. N.7 PCGS MS64. 58.1 gns. A rarely seen error. The obverse and reverse are both pale gray-brown with some traces of original mint color particularly on the obverse above the king's head. Boldly struck off center to the lower left by about 15% with a wide border of extra metal showing at the upper right including what appears to be a cud which had formed on the rim at about 1:15. A few light marks, none really important compared to the significance of the error in this series and the quality of the coin overall.

Ex. John J. Ford (Part VII, Stack’s, 18 January 2005), lot 65, purchased from Fred Werner, November 1970; Malcolm Ellis Collection.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

So, the bottom photo is the same coin?
The details don't match.
Even if they were consecutive strikes.
One is a large head and the other a small.
Maybe spark erosion?

 

It's the exact same coin, guaranteed. Everything matches.

 

So, angle of the photo? I have done that many times. Missed some of the details, same coin. I had to do a double check all the details. Dot's wreath line up. It's the Hibernia and Georgius That don't look like they match up on the flan.

 

Probably angle and that some of the planchet is not visible because of the gasket it's touching on the inside of the slab.

 

I'm confused by the "cud." If it's from the die, why does it extend so far beyond the denticles? It looks more like chunks of the coin sheared off there. There also appear to be denticles struck into the rim where the metal is missing. Interesting error.

 

Possibly a part of the die beyond the denticles was broken off or missing which created the cud? Also, because you can see secondary denticles outside of the full chain, I think there's a chance the coin was double struck and I think the planchet was also defective that it was struck on. Which is why you can see some metal missing in the hair and also the tapering on the outside of the planchet. I think there are multiple things/errors going on with this coin.

 

I was also thinking it was previously struck but don't see evidence of that anywhere else.