The 1922 pennies

> Mintage
> Designation | P22M.1B | P22P.2B
> Obverse | London | Calcutta
> Reverse | Birmingham | Birmingham
> Mint | Melbourne | Perth
> Mint mark | None | None
> Mintge | 12,697,000 | included

John Dean described six varieties of the 1922 penny but ignoring the fishtailing of the dies (what Dean called "curved base" lettering) the number reduces to four. I can confirm all of these.

The pictures below illustrate just the coins from the Melbourne Mint. The Perth coins all have exactly the same reverse as P22M.1B.1, the common variety from Melbourne.

Reverses
| P22M.1B.1 and P22P.2B Common variety. Narrow date. 9 leans to the left. The Melbourne and Perth coins have different obverses.
| P22M.1B.2 Rare. Wide date. 9 leans to the right.
| P22M.1B.3 Rare. Even wider date. 9 is very low and leans to the right.

The distinction between the second and third varieties is very subtle.

Enlargements of the date
| The dates on the specimens shown above are shown here at 2x magnification to make the difference a bit easier to see. The difference between the first two should be fairly obvious. Look for the orientation of the 9 and the gap between the 1 and the 9. It is much harder to spot the difference between the second and third pictures. Look at the position of the final 2 with respect to the rim denticles below it. In the third picture the entire date spans about half a denticle more than in the second picture. This matches the illustrations in John Dean's book.

The following table shows the result of a study that I conducted on a batch of 1922 pennies that came from a commercial hoard. I have no idea if the sample is regionally biased. If such a bias exists it would probably affect the relative abundance of the Melbourne vs Perth issues. The relative abundance of the Melbourne varieties is unlikely to show any regional dependencies.

Results of one survey of 1922 pennies
Variety | Number found | Relative frequency
P22M.1B.1 | 179 | A little over 80%
P22M.1B.2 | 2 | Less than 1%
P22M.1B.3 | 3 | Less than 1%
P22P.2B | 45 | Almost 20%
Total | 229 |

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Most recent revision: 22nd July 2000
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