Expert: Dmitry Livshits - 10/2/2009

Question
Dmitry,

I have two Bank of Upper Canada 1/2 penny tokens from 1852. They are identical, except for their alignment - one has coin alignment and the other has medal alignment. I have checked the Standard Catalog of World Coins, as well as a couple of other references, but have found nothing about different alignments being produced that year.

Can you please shed some light on this. If this is common, is there any documentation as to how many of the 1.5 million produced were coin/medal aligned?

Thank you!

Chris

Answer
Hi Chris,
What happened in 1852 was that the Royal Mint in London had started minting these tokens (in medal alignment), but was unable to complete the full series due to time constraints and demand for a higher volume of output. The striking was then transferred to the Heaton Mint in Birmingham, England, which produced the remainder of the quota in a coin alignment. It is not known exactly how many of the total quota were struck at each mint, but both varieties seem to appear with fairly equal frequency. Collectors typically pay about the same, unless they are specifically looking to get a one of the alignments in a certain grade.
I hope my answer covers everything.
Thanks for the question! =)