Two Heads Are Better Than One
(But On The Same Coin)?
by Bill Snyder
How Many Ways Can You Mess Up and Get the Obverse on both sides of the same coin? The folks who made half pennies for English King William III found at least three ways -
1 . The most obvious way to get an Obverse image on both sides of the coin is to use two Obverse Dies
A Type 3 William halfpenny with Two Obverses
Yes, the Mint employees did manage to do this at one point. This mistake is listed in the C. W. Peck book on English copper as item #707.
2. How else might those inventive (or
merely careless) Mint folks have managed to get William's picture on both sides
of the same coin. Well, readers of some other articles in this series will be
thinking about Brockages.
(Let's stick a struck coin to the upper
(reverse) Die).
A William III half penny Obverse Brockage
3. And they figured out yet another way to get William on both sides.
Strike the coin, flip it, and strike it again!
On this well-worn Flip Double Strike, you can see parts of the the obverse legend, GVLIELMVS TERTIVS (which is William III in Latin) and parts of the reverse legend, BRITANNIA, on both sides. (Oh yes. You can just see two Williams, too).