Victoria 1861 Gold Sovereign Letter O over zero Single Finest NGC AU 55 - Rare, R2 in Marsh

UNITED KINGDOM. Victoria, 1837-1901.
Gold Sovereign, 1861. London. Letter O over zero.
Second young head of Victoria facing left, hair tied in fillet; date below truncation; VICTORIA DEI GRATIA, with O struck over zero. / Crowned shield within wreath; thistle, rose and shamrock below; BRITANNIARUM REGINA FID: DEF:.

The sovereigns of 1860–62 are notable for their remarkable number of minor varieties and engraving errors, including repunched letters, inverted characters and unusual date figures. Much of this resulted from the way working dies were prepared: individual elements of the legends and dates were entered into the working dies using letter and numeral punches, and mistakes were frequently corrected by punching the proper character over the original.

Production increased sharply in 1861, when 7,624,736 sovereigns were struck, requiring a considerable number of working dies. Rather than discard an otherwise serviceable die, the Mint could perhaps correct an incorrectly entered character and place it into production. On the present variety, the letter O of VICTORIA was struck over a numeral zero, traces of which remain visible beneath.

Graded NGC AU55, this is presently the only example of the variety recorded by NGC and the single finest certified, a must have for any variety collector.

In secure plastic holder, graded NGC AU 55 , certification number 8467062-001.

Given an R2 rarity rating in the Standard Catalogue to the Gold Sovereign.

NGC Census in this grade: 1, single finest graded.
Reference: Marsh-44C
Weight: 7.9881g. (AGW=0.2355 oz.)
Diameter: 22mm.
Composition: 917/1000 Gold.

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