Great Britain: ½ penny 1953, km882, 2 variants

From the following PMs:

valichikismet to sjoelund

Sjoelund to valichikismet

valichikismet to sjoelund

Sjoelund to valichikismet

Sjoelund to valichikismet

Sjoelund to valichikismet

valichikismet to sjoelund

Sjoelund to valichikismet

@rsirian1 for comments

Thanks for making this a thread. Hard to determine what the answer is. 

Thanks for making this a thread. Hard to determine what the answer is. 

Not completely definitive.  The year lines were split well before you added your graphic. Here's a screenshot from June 2012:

Both varieties are shown.  Unfortunately year line %'s weren't invented yet.

Here's a screenshot from June 2016 just before the graphic was added.

Again no user %'s.  So when you added the graphic you didn't create a new year line but you also didn't have any information from the Numista page which was the common and which was the less common.

Here's a screenshot from August 2021 when year line %'s were shown:

and today:

New coins are being added at about the same rate to the two year lines.  Since the two choices were available for a long time I'd believe the current percentages showing the cross at bead is the common one (or that most people were just picking the first line).

N#668

I picked it from here, DeClan.

I saw that. What does it say?

I agree with your new graphic which removes “common” and “less common.”

Thanks for your research, very informative.

Declan's words:

1953

Obverse 1 was originally the scarcer of the two 1953 coins, as it was only found in plastic sets and 1.3 million of those were issued, compared to the 8.9 million Obverse 2’s. As circulation took its toll, and as more plastic sets were split, Obverse 1 gradually became commoner in high grade. It is now quite unusual to find an uncirculated Obverse 2. Not rare, by any means, but unusual.

That why I say, maybe yes, maybe no and in the end let it fall away to stop useless discussions…..

Wonder where the mintages came from? But with those numbers there are ~7 times more Obverse 2 out there than Obverse 1.

That is just talking about being more common in UNC or above grade. It doesn't mean more common in all grades.