British Trade Dollar Year 1903 - 2 variants with interesting overdates

British trade dollar 1903 has 2 variants.

It is only minted from the bombay mint.

Therefore it has only the 1903B mint mark coins.

The other variant is the overdate of 1903/02

It recorded a total mintage of 3,955,647.

This makes this coin a scarcer coin

Variant 1 : British Trade Dollar 1903 B

This coin is puporsely chosen for display. The usual B mint mark at the prong.
However the mirror like surface with a normal luster is not usual.
This is a cleaned coin -- where the luster is lost
But the high grade details are preserved but it just not natural.
My camera has difficulty focus it sharp due to the reflection

The reverse

Variant 2: The Overdate 1903 over 02 B

Some 1903 can easily mistaken as overdates.
The trick to is to look for the long body of 2 underneath the 3.

British Trade Dollar Year 1901 (Unique overdate)

British trade dollar 1901 also has 3 varieties.
It recorded a total mintage of 25,684,791 from Bombay mint,
While 1901 C from calcutta mint recorded 1,513,685

The 1901 B is the common type
The 1901 C is the rare type with fewer mintage.
The third type is 1901 B over 1900 which has unknown mintage, this is also rare

Variety 1: British Trade Dollar 1901 B
This is the common type from Bombay Mint
The B can be seen at the center of the prong
This is commonly seen in the market

The NGC Au details 1901 B coin.

Variety 2: British Trade Dollar 1901 C
This is rare type, but still able to be found in open market
It fetches a higher price.
The C is located at the side of the Britannia and the shield

A high grade 1901C. C mint mark can be seen clearly

Variety 3: Over date 1901 B over 1900
This is the rare type.
It is harder to find in the market, but still relatively easier to find if compared to other overdates coin.

shadow of old 0 on the 1 (4th digit)

British Trade Dollar Year 1897 (Getting Scarce)

British Trade Dollar year 1897 is the third year issue.
It has a large mintage of 21,286,427.
Please click here for full mintage table for BTD

There are 3 varieties of British Trade Dollar in 1897.
Exact amount for each varieties is unknown. As the 21 million quoted is a combined total mintage.

Variety One is 1897(B)
British trade dollar with a Bombay Mint Mark.
This is the commonest type.  Despite the big mintage of 21 million, 1897 British Trade dollar is a scarcer date.

This coin has good details of at least AU.
B mint mark can be seen at the prong.
However the unequal luster raised suspicion of this coin has been mildly dipped before.

The reverse also has uneven luster

Variety Two is 1897 no mintmark
This 1897 coin has no mint mark at the trident prong.
It is minted by Calcutta Mint.
This is the scarcer type to find in the market.

The prong area is flat. Without B mint mark.
There is no C mintmark as well for year 1895,1897 and 1898 coins although they are from calcutta mint
C mint mark only seen on coin struck on 1900,1901 and 1902.

Variety Three is 1897 overdate on 1896 coins
This overdate variety is one of the very rare type.
The "7" can be seen overstruck on a deleted "6" on the 1897 at the bottom of the Britannia.
In older days, is is costly and time consuming to reproduce a new die for coin manufacturing.

One of easiest way to produce a change in year on the coin, is using the old die for the previous year i.e.1896 and retooled the "6" into "7" which is the current year. This type of coin is called Overdate coins.

The overdate is seen at the 1897. 6 shadow is behind the 7

The existence of overdate for 1897/96 is not difficult to see, as the mintage jumped from 6 million for 1896 BTD to becomes 21 millions BTD in 1897. Hence there is a need for more die available for the increase in production.

The existence of overdates is also one of the interesting aspects of collecting British Trade Dollars.
These overdates has no known populations on its own, but it is generally very rare and difficult to find.

British Trade Dollar 1900 (Unique Year with 5 Varieties)

It is a pleasure to collect British Trade Dollar 1900. It takes a long time to complete a set of 5 varieties.
Some of the variants are very rare and considered as error coins.
There is a total of 9,106,619 british trade dollar minted for year 1900.
There is a subquoted amount of 363,372 coins minted for 1900 No B No C Variety, which is very rare.
Please click here for full BTD mintage table.


Variety 1: British trade dollar 1900 B
This is the Bombay mint coin. The commonest and usual type.
The B mint mark can be seen at the trident prong area.

The commonest variant with B at the center of the prong

The reverse of all the BTD are soimilar

Variety 2: British Trade Dollar 1900 C
For year 1900,1901 and 1902 British trade dollar minted from Calcutta.
There is a C mint mark at the space next to the outer side of the Brittania left leg and the shield.
This C mint mark indicates the Calcutta mint.
The usual trident prong area is flat and no mint mark.

This VF coins has the C mint mark preserved.
1900C has the highers value, followed by 1902C and then 1901C

The C mint mark is easily worn off as well after moderate circulation. The flat trident prong area may be the indication left for this type of coin.

Variety 3: British Trade Dollar 1900 No B No C
This variety recorded a quoted amount of 363,372 and is among the rarest.
This is difficult to find.
It is believed to be from Bombay mint, however the die containing the mint mark has worn off.
Hence it produced a special type (error variant) where the B mint mark is not seen at the trident prong.
The whole mint mark area at the prong is empty within. Left with a diamond shaped rim.
It is not C mint coin as well as the trident prong area is not flat and there is no C mark at the side of Britannia.

This fairly high grade coin has the usual diamond shaped at the prong
But the B is missing.
It is also different from 1900C where the prong is area is flat

One word of caution in getting this type of coins is the collector must get a fairly high grade coin in order to appreciate the empty mint mark area. Many 1900B with fair amount of circulation might have the B mint mark wearing off and give an impression of a 1900 No B No C mint mark coin.

As in this coin... is the B worn out or it is a no B no C variant.

Variety 4: British Trade Dollar 1900 over 1890 Overdate Variety
Year 1900 is at the turn of the century and this produced an unique overdate coins where 3 characters are changed on the original die.
This overdate variety is one of the rarest to find.
The overdates is not easy to identify and takes a bit of effort to make up.

The  overdates are not meant to be seen clearly.They are retooled to the current year date which is 1900. The 1890 at the background is the erased shadow.
Generally for the 1900/890 coin, the 9 over 8 is clearer to be seen. meanwhile the 0 over the 9 is very faint, but you can see the 9 tail shadow on the background.

The 8 shadow is seen behind the 9.
The original 9 shadow is behind the 0 (look for the tail of the 9)

Another intriguing thing of this overdate coin is 1890 coin does not exist.

Variety 5: British Trade Dollar 1900 over 1900 (based on KN Boon catalogue) or it also known as 1900 over 1000 (NGC census)  
This coin is also very rare variety.
It is probably a retooled die where the original die has worned out and the engraver recrafted the dates.
The coin showed a double shadow of 1900.
This coin is very difficult to find in the market,

There is shadows over the 9 and the 2 zeros.

End...
Hope you enjoy this post as much as I writing on it.